Therapy Man

What! What do you want with me!

You already know… I am a sick man, I am a horrible man. I’m certain my liver is diseased.

In fact I’ve long since received a whole diagnosis, and I know everything wrong with me. With a broken down timeline, and we even have timestamps as to why one eyebrow is constricted ever so permanently. It’s always the mother, unfortunately.

I’m not sure why I am this sick man, but as soon as I enrolled into therapy suddenly I knew everything. It was evident, clear as day, picturesque really: I had to hold back my tears from relief. How I was quite angry if someone stepped on my toes… and I get quite hungry if I skip a morning brew, irritable too. Sad if someone dismissed me. Evident!

It bothered me at work when I would hear how others had some form of OCD. But now I say it too, and now they smile at me, now they suggest new products to clean my pantry. It’s like everything was lining up, and I couldn’t have enough of it. All my life I felt like I was an outsider, but I’ve found my people connector and it’s electrifying. So lovely, that I realized it was everything. Everything, and I was determined to keep it.

How my therapist was my God, in some ways, but the best part was that I could threaten God with something unstable and he laughed nervously. Because he knew everything, didn’t he? He knew I would beg more, and as long as I had the money — I was his largest patron, honestly, and kept him a well secret lest I want someone else to ruin my life’s plans and soil my emotionally sound scientifically derived and profound conclusions — well, we can’t have that.

I even convinced him to fetch me a laminate print out. He had his little stamp on the top right, which I insisted a bright orange, because that makes the recipients a little uncomfortable. They fidget and ask me, “why the hell is this orange” and I shrug knowingly damn well they’re in my hands. How I can only feel my influence suffocating them, how I don’t even have to talk to anyone about how messed up I am. I just hand them the card, and they nod and point to some and whisper to me, “I got that too” and I snap back, “yeah, I know.” Because this meeting was determined through background checks, and the avoidants are the best for business contracts.

I’d pull at my therapist’s socks and sob and beg for more labels to wiggle my way into another deal. My file on the other side of the deck kept everyone I interacted with and their ticks and that’s because I called some friends and got my therapist to make a spare copy, or two, with a fear and a hope the stone pelting of his second story window would cease well into 3 a.m.

At my height whenever I slapped someone I would say sorry, you see, because it’s just a tick of mine. It’s who I am. It’s right there on the card, and I hand it to them, and they nod and say, “yeah, that’s a real tough one to handle, how do you do it?” while rubbing their cheek and I swing my leg up on my desk, pull out a picture of the Frankfurt school, tap it twice and tell them, “Pure grit, really. This is where everything started actually. The beginning of my end. And the end of my new beginning.”