Had it somehow inflicted revenge on my parents? No. The stuff had been in a box in my basement. How would they have ever known?
Had these awards really been meaningless to me? No. I had to admit that they had never lost their meaning, not even when I was frantically burning them.
I knew deep down the act had not been as uncontrolled as I'd made it appear. Selecting what I would destroy had not been an entirely random process. I had burned a number of blue ribbons from intramural events and activities that had not meant as much to me. But I had spared the ones from the championships, the seventh-grade free-throw contest, the science fair—the ones that had the most sentimental value. As I had grabbed the fistfuls of ribbons, frenzied though I was, I'd still had the presence of mind to scrutinize them.
I'd burned my high school diploma, but I'd spared my college parchment. I was relieved when Tim came in and commanded me to hand it over, but I never would have burned it. I was more interested in Tim seeing that I was about to do it than actually doing it.
The answers were ugly—but nonetheless true. Right out of the borderline personality disorder books. Manipulation. Testing the limits. I had not been content to merely share my sorrows in the confines of a session. Dr. Padgett had given me some support in session, but it hadn't been enough. I'd left greedy for more. Burning those awards had been sheer craziness. And I'd known that even while doing it.
Tim, of course, had reacted according to my expectations. He'd been visibly consumed with worry about me. He'd demanded that I call the doctor, which was exactly what I'd wanted to do.
But Tim's reaction was of secondary importance. The self-destruction was somewhat symbolic, contrived to get the reaction of the one who was now, unquestionably, the center of my life—Dr. Padgett.
Much to his credit, Dr. Padgett had known this the minute I'd called. So he had deliberately avoided the reactions I had most fervently desired to elicit: raw anger, pity, overwrought worry, or words of comfort. He decided not to discuss it on the phone at all. We both knew my act was a direct result of manipulative instinct. Whether or not I would ever be able to lose this consuming desire to manipulate to get what I needed was something I didn't know.
My hidden secrets were not well concealed. The psychological profile had been right, as had the books on BPD. I was manipulative, desperately clinging, and prone to tantrums, explosiveness, and frantic acts of desperation when I did not feel the intimacy connection was strong enough. The tough chick loner act of self-reliance was a complete facade and had always been so.
The facade had been my means to conceal those secrets from anyone else, to conceal them from myself. But it wasn't working with Dr. Padgett, as it had never fully worked for me.
I now forced myself to recognize that fact.
Other self-disclosures were easy fare compared to the one I knew I had to reveal in the next session—the confession, not of my action, but of the motives beneath it. For once I entered a session saying precisely what I had planned to say, what I had rehearsed over and over in my head—that I hadn't been completely out of control. That my absurd act had been contrived. And that, most critical of all, I had done it with the specific intention of manipulating Dr. Padgett's response.
For a man who had withstood all my insults, had countless evenings interrupted by my emergency calls—my attempts to stretch the limits and extend therapy beyond the three weekly sessions—this would have been an opportune time to say, “I told you so.”
Yet I now understood both him and the context of our relationship well enough that I didn't expect such a response, as warranted as it might be. And true to form, I did not get it.
Nor did I expect profuse words of praise for my willingness to admit that I was desperately ashamed. Not only did I not deserve praise, but I was beginning to realize what would and would not be of benefit to me. A reward for revealing the motives behind the act could be construed as indirectly condoning and encouraging it. So I was not disappointed when I did not receive that either.
Instead the blank screen was firmly in place as Dr. Padgett simply listened and let me develop my own perceptions and conclusions.
“How can you put up with me?” I asked him sincerely. “You know as well as I do that I've been trying to manipulate you, slinging everything at you that I can muster just to get a reaction. How come you tolerate it? How can you?”
I detected the trace of a smile.
“This,” he said, “is why the therapy relationship is structured differently than any other. This is why the limits are in place, why we only meet for three hours a week, and why I don't conduct therapy over the phone. It's not a miracle that I can do this. I can get angry, disgusted, hurt, and insulted just like anyone else.
“But I'm not with you twenty-four hours a day. I'm not distracted by anything else when I'm in here, and believe me, if I ever was, if something were going on in my life that would absorb me so that I couldn't fully focus on you, I'd cancel the session. This isn't like any other adult relationship. I'm here to meet your needs. Within these limits I can do that without getting hurt. You can irritate me sometimes. I'll grant you that. But that's about as far as it goes.”
An image popped in my head that brought a smile to my face.
Dr. Padgett's own grin broadened, “What are you thinking about?”
“Oh, I dunno. I can just see you right now, in line on the last day of the month at the motor vehicle bureau. Waiting for half an hour until you finally get to the counter and then some bureaucrat with an attitude tells you that you're in the wrong line and didn't bring the right stuff. And you getting pretty miffed about it and telling her a word or two about what you think of the state bureaucracy and the people who work for it.”
He chuckled. Obviously I was not the only one in that office who'd ever been ticked off by the motor vehicle bureau.
Laughter and smiles. They'd been absent from my life for such a long time now. It was a part of me that Dr. Padgett hadn't had much chance to see. I missed being able to laugh and smile. I sat back, watching his grin, drinking it in, observing every detail of it, every nuance.
“What are you thinking now?” he asked, still smiling.
“Just that you have a great smile,” I answered.
“So do you, Rachel. I like to see it.”
I blushed but beamed with satisfaction.
“You know,” he commented, “therapy can be very hard work. Very intense and painful. But that's not all it has to be. Sometimes it can be enjoyable.”
“But I'm supposed to be here because I'm sick, aren't I? I'm supposed to be working on things, getting into issues. This is supposed to be serious.” My smile faded, and soon I was intensely introspective, my brow furrowed once again.
Dr. Padgett's smile faded as well, an act of courtesy and respect for my feelings as much as anything else, I suspected.
“I have to tell you something else,” I finally spoke. “I know I'm supposed to be here to try to get better, to get healthier. But sometimes I'm scared to tell you when I feel good. Sometimes I even look back to the days when I was in the hospital going crazy with nostalgia or something. Like I wish I was that sick again. Pretty crazy, isn't it?”
All sorts of secrets were flowing out today.
“You're afraid that if you start to get better, aren't so sick, somehow I'll care about you less?”
“Yes,” I nodded. “It doesn't make any sense at all. I really, honestly want to do my best here. I want to make as much progress as I can. I want to do what I'm supposed to do. I want to be your best patient, your prized pupil. I want to do right.”
“You want to be my best patient or my worst patient. Because you're afraid that if you're anything in the middle, I might not care about you as much.”
“Yeah, I'm afraid some new patient will come along.” I was interrupted by the phone, an exceptionally rare event. Dr. Padgett always held his calls during sessions. I couldn't recall an interruption before.
“Could you hol
d that thought, please?” He smiled and went to his desk to pick up the phone. “Hmm … Uh-huh … Uh-huh … Well, you're going to have to tell her to get down from there…. Call security; use the restraints. Uh-huh … Go ahead and increase the dosage to fifty milligrams. I'll be by later for rounds…. Okay…. Good-bye.”
He hung up the phone and went back to his chair.
“So,” he said, “you were saying …”
“I have nothing to say!” I shot him an icy stare.
God, how juvenile. You're manipulating him again. You know he has other patients. You know he's the medical director of the psych ward.
Still I couldn't go back to the point I'd been at just a few minutes ago. I felt abandoned and betrayed. Undoubtedly he'd been discussing another crazy in the psych ward, someone who was just like what I used to be. Once upon a time I'd been on the critical list. Now I was second priority. Session-interruptus.
I had a pretty clear notion of what had gone on. But I asked the question I knew damned well he wouldn't answer anyway.
“Who was that?” I asked, the scowl of a jealous lover on my face.
“You know I can't talk to you about other patients.”
“Why not?” I insisted, unwilling to back down. “If it's important enough to interrupt my session, then I have a right to know.”
“You don't have a right to know,” he said, slightly exasperated. “You're blowing this out of proportion. I took a short call, and now I'm back. You know I rarely ever do this.”
“You're thinking about her, aren't you?” I pouted. “You care about her more than me, don't you? Maybe you'd care if I went home and swallowed a whole bottle of Xanax, huh? Maybe you'd care if I somehow killed myself, and you had to go to my funeral, and it was too late!”
Get down on your knees, damnit, and apologize! Tell me how much you care about me. Tell me you care about me more than her, more than any of your patients.
As always, he wasn't playing the game.
“I took a phone call, Rachel,” he said firmly. “That's all I did. You're making more out of this than there is, and you know it as well as I do. I can understand that it's upsetting to you, but you are blowing it way out of proportion. Anything I'd say right now isn't going to make a difference. You're going to have to look at our relationship, look at our history, and decide for yourself how much I care about you.”
“Boy,” I seethed, “you've got a helluva lot of nerve. Telling me how this is my time for you to focus on me, no distractions. Bullshit! Hypocritical bullshit! I've got to follow a gazillion of your stupid rules and limits, and you can do whatever you want. After all, it's only me. You are the biggest sonofabitchin' prick I've ever met in my life. You owe me a goddamned apology.”
“That's enough!” It was the closest I had ever heard him come to raising his voice. “I don't owe you an apology. I'm sorry if you feel inconvenienced, but I haven't done anything to deliberately hurt you. You, on the other hand, are deliberately trying to hurt me. You aren't expressing feelings; you are attacking me. And I don't deserve a single word of what you just said.”
It was hard to imagine the warmth of his smile that had been there only minutes ago. His eyes now opened wide, Dr. Padgett was sitting uncharacteristically forward, visibly irritated, more than a small hint of anger peeking through. It was enough to knock me right out of my tirade.
“I'm sorry, Dr. Padgett,” I uttered humbly. “You're right. I was attacking you. And you didn't deserve what I had to say. I honestly didn't mean to hurt you.”
He relaxed a bit and regained his composure, but the smile did not reappear. “No. That's not totally true. I accept your apology. I believe it's sincere. But the fact is, you very much meant to hurt me.”
Before he had only reprimanded me in the aftermath of self-destruction. This was the first time he had in response to an attempt to hurt him. Funny, I had tried so hard for so long to get to him, to land a sucker punch. I felt almost certain by his reaction that this one had actually hurt, that perhaps I had finally found the vulnerable spot. Yet there was little satisfaction at all in it. An empty victory.
I realized that, sitting across from me in his chair, Dr. Padgett was a living, breathing human being with feelings of his own. I felt awash in remorse.
“I'm really sorry, Dr. Padgett,” my eyes were looking directly into his. “I mean it. I was trying to hurt you. I admit it. But I really don't want to. You mean so much to me; you really do. I know you care about me, and I care about you too. Sometimes I wish that there was something, anything, I could do for you. I know I can't take back what I said. But I really, honestly feel badly if I hurt you. I know you don't deserve it.”
“Apology accepted,” he said, then glanced at the clock. “That's about it for today.”
It was an abrupt ending to an intense session, begun with the intention of confessing my own unreasonable motives, ending with me acting upon those very motives once again, rendering the confession hollow. My outburst and his startling reaction had taken place at an inopportune time in the session. There was little time to soften the blow.
So much of how Dr. Padgett chose to react involved purpose, planning, and self-control on his part. I doubted that he'd intended to show his emotions or to let me, the self-admitted master manipulator, see that I had touched a nerve. It had been a rare occurrence of spontaneity. Frustration and hurt boiled over the surface for my eyes to see.
In a way it frightened me. I'd become complacent in the acceptance that no matter what I said or did, the blank screen could always absorb it. Dr. Padgett's patience was infinite. As much as I'd tried to get to him, I couldn't and thus had felt assured that he could be true to his promise, that I could never succeed in driving him away and that he could continue to see me because he was somehow superhuman. Perfect. An altruistic, turn-the-other-cheek demigod and martyr.
Now I wasn't so sure. Perhaps his patience was wearing thin. I couldn't blame him if one day he decided he'd had enough. Was I en route to destroying this relationship too?
And yet there was a certain degree of comfort and relief to be derived from this new realization that Dr. Padgett was human. Imperfect. He was neither superhuman nor infinite in his patience. Dr. Padgett had stayed with me not because he was a professional, not because he was a tightly self-controlled martyr, but because he really was committed to me. And he'd been hurt, not because he'd fallen off the pedestal of perfection, but because he cared.
One of the most difficult aspects of the therapy limits, the fifty-minute hour specifically, was my compulsive need for closure. Black and white. If I left a session touched by his kindness and feeling the warmth of connection, it carried over into the interval between sessions. The security in being loved.
Sessions that ended abruptly, however, left me in a state of rage, isolation, and despair. These feelings, too, spilled over into the next hours and days. I could not conjure love and warmth as the rage and despair became seemingly eternal.
More often than not, I had acted on these feelings, sometimes through hostile notes on Dr. Padgett's windshield, threats, or impulsive acts of self-destruction—or any way I could overcome the sense of abandonment. Until I was somehow convinced of the bond I had with Dr. Padgett, through an emergency phone call or another session, I'd been virtually trapped in this state of disconnectedness, hungering for his reassurance.
This session, too, had ended before I had the chance to elicit Dr. Padgett's reassurance. Filled with remorse that I had attacked him and regret that my apologies were too brief and insufficient, I had only two words to rely upon: “Apology accepted.” No closing profound insights, no reassuring words of kindness, and no offer to extend the session.
It was tempting to engage in yet another act of self-destruction, to find some way to summon his attention and have him reassure me. And yet, for some reason, I did not. Maybe it was because my confession and willingness to accept the manipulative instincts within me were more sincere than I'd thought, even after my voracio
us attack.
Then again, maybe I was able to feel the bond and sense of connectedness to him without the kind of closure I had needed before.
Maybe, just maybe, I was beginning to grow up.
“I'll bet you were expecting a late-night phone call, weren't you?” I grinned, a child proud of her newest accomplishment.
“Why would I expect that?” Dr. Padgett said, returning my smile with one of his own, a wordless expression that let me know beyond a doubt that I had been forgiven.
“Well, you know,” I said, blushing a bit, “that was a pretty wild session yesterday. I left pretty upset. And you didn't seem to be too happy yourself. Usually a recipe for disaster.”
“What made you react differently this time?” he asked.
“I'm not exactly sure,” I answered. “I mean, I thought about it. I thought about doing something stupid, but I didn't. For some strange reason, I felt secure. Like I knew that, even with the way session ended, everything would be okay. That you really meant what you said when you accepted my apology.”
“How does that make you feel?”
“Pretty good, actually. You know, if it had been six months or a year ago, I would have gone off, locked myself up in the attic, gone off running, whatever. But I didn't. And, actually, last night went pretty well. I played with the kids for a while, cooked a good dinner. I slept great. I can hardly believe it!”
He smiled, sharing in my satisfaction—the same all-consuming, contagious smile he'd showed me yesterday. I was proud of myself, and so was he.
So many accomplishments filled all those past years, and yet none of them had satisfied me in the way that this one did—so simple and natural for other people but so difficult for me. I was like a child finally able to kiss Mommy good-bye without a fuss, content in the knowledge that Mommy still loved her and would be back.
In the vernacular of psychology, I'd gained an understanding of “relationship constancy,” an understanding that a strong relationship could weather its moments of anger and irritation and temporary separation. It was a lesson Dr. Padgett had tried to teach me from the very first session and one that, eighteen months later, I was finally beginning to understand and accept. It represented a graduation of sorts into the next realm of issues, a visible sign of progress.
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