by BT Urruela
“Can I ask you a question, doc?”
She nods.
“Why are you always trying to hook me up with this military stuff. I’m not military. I don’t have PTSD.”
“I’ve told you many times, Gavin, PTSD is not a disorder isolated to the military. It’s a manifestation from a traumatic event…period. There’s nothing saying that that trauma must be combat-oriented. You,” she says, pointing right at me, “are suffering from PTSD, Gavin. You need to accept and understand that for us to take advantage of these tools. And just as this therapy has helped combat veterans dealing with the effects of war, it too helps those like you who have faced some other sort of trauma, equally disrupting, and often as children. However, that trauma is compounded and stored, and left to intensify as one gets older.”
“Okay, okay, so it helps us all. Great. So, what’s this new, cutting-edge therapy?” I ask dryly and she leans back in her chair again with her arms crossed, studying me. The silence stirs my unquiet mind.
“The reason why I think you’ll like this is because you don’t have to share much. Most of this therapy unfolds in your own mind…your own imagination.”
I pull my head back, a scrutinizing look on my face. “And what good would that do?”
“You’ll just have to see. This is called accelerated therapy for a reason. We should see some serious results after only a handful of sessions.”
I scoff, not even trying to hide my doubt. “Is this some magic potion or something, doc? You got a witch doctor coming in?”
“Are you at least willing to find out?”
I shrug, sit back in my chair, and cross one leg over the other. “Do your worst.”
She hesitates for a moment, analyzing me, and I feel a heat travel up the back of my neck. She abruptly stands and heads over to the twin leather chair beside me, pulling it back a bit before taking a cautious seat. My curious eyes remain on hers as she settles herself and then she lifts one of her frail hands, drawing my gaze.
“Just follow my hand. Ignore me. Ignore the office. Ignore any sounds you may hear. Focus only on my hand as it moves back and forth. And don’t move your head,” she adds, nodding for emphasis.
“This is some witch doctor shit, isn’t it?’ I question and she lowers her brows, her usually patient eyes projecting a bit of impatience now. I clear my throat, motioning for her to continue as I shuffle in my seat.
“Just follow my hand with your eyes.” She begins moving her hand back and forth and my eyes follow as instructed.
“And what is this supposed to do, doc?” I question, still unsure of the purpose of this exercise.
“Well, first off, you shouldn’t be talking. You should only be focusing right now. By doing this, you’re able to clear your mind of all else, except what we discuss during this process.”
“So, I will be talking?” I joke, my eyes still following her hand before she abruptly pulls it down and to her side. The glare she gives makes me feel like I’m back in elementary school getting caught passing notes or something.
“I need you to try your best to take this seriously. Do only as you’re told, and for these first few minutes, please try and focus.”
“Okay,” I agree, nodding, and she raises her hand again, resuming her movement. I let my eyes wander along with the palm of her hand, tracing the deep lines. After a few minutes, I do feel a little more centered beyond the nagging feeling that her arm must be getting tired.
“Now, Gavin, I want you to focus on your childhood. Again, you don’t have to say anything, but I want you to think about that time. Think about what bothered or affected you the most…what changed you.”
As my eyes move in sync with her hand, my thoughts wander freely, processing her question, then sifting through the filing cabinet that contains my traumatic childhood experiences. Without warning, my Uncle Joe shows up with his saccharine smile, graying mustache, and poorly-fitted toupee. His eyes read other things though…evil things. My parents blindly leave my brother and me with him. And then comes the swift and frequent degradation of our innocence…years and years of it. The thought of that time and the spotty, but vivid, memories of the abuse lead to the feelings that came after. Feelings of inadequacy as a man, feeling different, and alone.
“I want you to think about this for a moment,” she continues in an almost whisper. “Concentrate on those feelings…what are they?”
I swallow thickly, my thoughts running a mile a minute, but my eyes still doing as directed. “Isolation. Emasculation. Sadness,” I mutter, my eyes remaining focused on her palm.
“Why do you feel these things?”
“Because…because of what happened. I feel like no one understands. Everyone judges me for it.”
“This judgment…where does that stem from?”
My thoughts trail again, from Uncle Joe, to my parents who left me there. The very same parents who didn’t believe me and my brother when we told them what happened. The same parents who had scorned our very existence. As if we owed them for procreating. As if, because it wasn’t planned on their part, it was our fault.
“My parents…” I say, my voice quiet and trailing.
“What did they do that made you feel that judgment? Don’t say it aloud, but think about it. Let your thoughts roam freely.”
My thoughts do just that. They wander to the number of times they tore into me over bad grades, which were far outnumbered by the good ones. I think about the times when I’d walk on eggshells to spare myself a verbal thrashing and, more often than not, the physical thrashing I’d get from both of them, each of them seeming to be in a competition with the other to see who could scar us worse.
“What do you feel when you think about that?” she asks, her hand remaining at the steady pace it started.
“I think about…” My voice trails off, my mind trying to focus on the thoughts and not how crazy all this feels. “I think about abandonment,” I finally continue. “I think about desperation. I think about the anti-parents.”
“You must understand, Gavin, what your parents did to you, what they put you through,” she says gently, “it wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t your wrongdoing. It was theirs. We live our lives with these filters we develop from past experiences. It bleeds over into everyday life, and what should be new, refreshing, exciting experiences, when treated and viewed through these filters, become quite the opposite. We must eliminate those filters. I want you to concentrate on that. On all those filters you’ve developed through all those harsh experiences in your life. I want you to focus on them disappearing. Accepting that they exist, and then ridding yourself of them.”
There’s a silence between us for a moment as my eyes continue following her hand, and I barely register the silence until she begins talking once more. “I want you to see yourself as a child now. I want you to accept what you’re feeling, both then and now. I want you to see it for what it is…something done to you. Not something you brought upon yourself.”
“Okay,” I murmur, my thoughts drifting out into oblivion.
“I want you to think about adult you, taking child you by the hand and walking toward a bridge.”
My gaze moves from her passing hand to her eyes, and I laugh. Her expression doesn’t change, and her movements don’t stop. “Focus,” she urges, bringing my eyes back where they were. “Focus on my hand as it passes back and forth. In your mind’s eye, see adult you with child you, walking hand in hand toward a bridge,” she says in her comforting tone, and I do. I see me now, leading a younger me toward a bridge, and then she continues. “I want you to lead child you across the bridge from the darkness of your past, into the shining light of your future. Once you cross, you’ll see a bonfire. Just before the bonfire, I want you to stop. Do you see it?”
“Yes.”
“I want adult you to look at child you and in your mind, I want you to tell him ‘It’s all going to be okay. I’m here for you. I’ll always be here for you’…and then I want you both to throw al
l those negative feeling and memory into the bonfire. I want you both to watch them burn.”
I fight the urge to laugh at the absurdity of it all as I do as she’s asked. I see it all through my mind’s eye as my own eyes pass back and forth with her hand. I see myself as an adult, bruised and broken, throwing each terrible childhood memory into the fire and watch as it goes up in flames. Young me looks up to present me, waiting for the okay, and then I watch as he throws every thread of abuse into the fire, every time I’ve questioned myself, every time I let the opinions of others control me. Each and every bit of it, we watch burn, hand in hand.
It’s only by the end of the appointment, once all the negativity from my past is nothing but ash, once Dr. Thresher has pulled me from my partial hypnotic state, and let me know our time was up for the day, do I realize that what she’s done in this room today has worked. Maybe not enough to truly call a change, but enough to understand why she did it, and to be incredibly intrigued for the next time we meet.
I sit idly in my recliner with a half-filled beer warming in my hand, the appointment with Dr. Thresher still running through my brain as it’s been doing all day. I can feel a subtle difference, even as corny and unnatural as it all felt. Beyond not having to share the nastiness of it all, to reflect on it instead, and to see where those filters could be holding me back is a valuable lesson. Most of all, and I’m not even sure why, because it felt the weirdest out of the whole exercise, but throwing all the shit into the flames, watching it burn with younger me, looking younger me in the eyes and telling him it would all be okay…it was weird. It was different. But it was effective.
As Leslie Knope hurls bagged dog shit at middle schoolers on the boob tube, and my thoughts continue to roam, the chime of my phone draws my attention. I unlock it and pull up my messages to see a text from Bobby.
Bobby Bitch Tits: So….. What’s the word?
Me: What’s with the five periods? You can’t use that many periods, man. It makes you look desperate.
Bobby Bitch Tits: Shut up. What’s up with jazz? I called Julius, he set everything up at Frankie’s for three. That work?
Me: No foreplay, huh? Just getting right into it.
There’s a long pause as I see the little dots flash that indicate Bobby is taking forever to respond. I take a chug of my beer, and smile against the bottle as I hear it chime.
Bobby Bitch Tits: You live to piss me off, don’t you? What did the nurses say?
Me: It’s a go. I still don’t know about it all, but I’m willing to give it a go.
Bobby Bitch Tits: Worst comes to worst, we get her out of there and take her back. I checked with Julius though and the place will be dead. Frankie is actually having the band come in a few hours early just for her.
I drop the phone to my lap for a moment, my heart swelling at the generosity of this man I’ve never met. Lifting my phone again, with a smile on my face, I type out a message.
Me: That’s pretty damn awesome. Three sounds great. I’ll see you there.
Bobby Bitch Tits: Can’t wait. Thanks for being open-minded and letting me make this up to you.
Me: Thank you for taking my butthole virginity. Most of all, thanks for cuddling me and whispering sweet nothings into my ear after. The shrimp dinner was nice, too.
Bobby Bitch Tits: Good night, fucker.
Me: Good night, buddy. Thanks…..for everything.
I pocket my phone and lumber out of the recliner with an exaggerated stretch. Flipping the TV and lights off first, I make my way up the stairs to my bedroom to get some rest. I have a date with Sami tomorrow evening, after a challenge date in the afternoon, and I already know once my head hits the pillows, my eyes will refuse to close while my thoughts run like a flash flood through anything and everything it can touch.
I’ve got a lunch date with Angela, 42, from the Upper West Side, but I can’t stop thinking about Megan and what must’ve gone through her mind as I went from lapping eagerly to snoring in a matter of seconds. I can see her trying to lift my face from her crotch, deadweight and all, and it makes me wonder how I ended up horizontal in bed and not curled up in a ball on the floor or something. Either she helped me there, or I was walking in my sleep. Regardless, the embarrassment and shame I feel consumes my thoughts. I can’t help but think, as I’ve thought many times over this past week, how Bobby got me involved in this to begin with…how I could’ve let him talk me into it.
Oh yeah, twenty-five thousand. That’s right.
Hardly any consolation now as I begrudgingly shuffle down the sidewalk, phone in hand, in case Megan decides to hit me up. She hasn’t yet, since she left my brownstone yesterday morning, and it’s got my mind running wild.
My busy thoughts are interrupted by a hand on my elbow. I jerk away a little and glance back to see who I presume to be Angela, looking about as scared as I am.
“Shit, I’m sorry. I startle easily,” I say, reaching out a hand. “Angela?”
“You got it,” she responds, the fear in her expression morphing into a light smile. Her hand is small and delicate to the touch. I feel like I may crush it if I squeeze any tighter. As I let go, I observe her for a moment, realizing she looks way too overdressed for a lunch date. She’s got on these fuck-me pumps, skin tight leopard-printed leggings, and a black shawl wrapped around her shoulders. Her demeanor says anything but wild child or bitch, but her style, at noon on a Friday, is saying otherwise.
“Well…” She eyes me curiously as I realize I’ve been standing in mid-thought without saying a word to her for entirely too long. “You want to head inside?” she asks, motioning toward the Indian place I picked out. There comes a time in every New Yorkers’ week where you just need some good curry and naan. That’s a damn fact.
“Yeah, sorry, long week.” I force a laugh before making my way to the door and holding it open for her. We head inside and the hostess seats us at a table near the front window I’d requested beforehand.
As we take a seat, she asks, “Long bad or long good?”
“Well, that’s a complicated question. It’s just been a mentally draining week, to say the least.”
Her eyes flit to the incoming waitress as she fills our water glasses, that typical plastic server’s smile on her face. We order drinks—her, a martini, and a pale ale for me—and as the waitress departs to retrieve them, Angela clasps her fingers together and leans into the table on her elbows.
“Yeah, my week has been tough, too. I needed these drinks.” She lets out a sigh before she continues. “I’m a realtor. So, I sell this five-million-dollar condo in Manhattan the other day, or I was supposed to. Looking at some high-end commish. I’m talking ‘mama gets a new pair of Jimmy Choos this week’.” She laughs and I do my best to laugh as well, though it feels like she’s boasting a smidge.
“Then what happened?”
“Last minute, the buyer dropped out. Like, hey dumbass, you knew it was five milly when you agreed to buy it.”
“That sucks.” The fake intrigue has dissipated. “Does that happen often?”
“Not really. But from time to time, we’ll get some jackass who’s trying to impress his mail order bride or gold digging college bimbo. Goes through the motions, pretends to be interested, and then disappears.”
“And how does a guy even explain that. Isn’t she eventually going to figure out he’s a fraud? Why delay it?”
She shrugs. “I guess once the credit cards are maxed out, she will. And he’ll be on to the next one. As will she.”
I laugh, nodding my head in agreement. “Yeah, I guess that’s a good point. Bottom feeders. Gotta love them,” I mutter, retrieving the beer from the waitress and nodding toward her before taking a drink. Angela takes a drink of her own, eyeing me over the glass in a way that makes me nervous, like she’s scheming something.
She lowers her glass, looks up in thought for a moment, and then nods. “Yeah. I’m definitely not down with that. I’ve made my own way in this life.”
“I can
respect that. I always respect that. I don’t pay gold diggers any mind, but they don’t get any of my respect either.”
“Nor mine,” she agrees with an evil little chuckle. She takes another drink of her martini, her hand clutching it just right, elegant and dainty, as a martini should be held (and why a man should never hold one). It doesn’t look quite right on her though, as everything she’s expressed so far in this conversation has proven she’s an alpha through and through. Like Megan, I see her throwing back a whiskey on the rocks and making my often beta feeling ass feel just a little bit more inferior. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Just as I can appreciate my own inner battle between alpha and beta, I can appreciate a woman who can balance it adequately as well. I just wish I could get better at controlling my own.
“What’s going on in that head of yours?” she asks, breaking my train of thought and making me realize I’ve been staring at the drink in her hand.
“Shit,” I say with a laugh, giving my head a quick shake. “Sorry, I zone out from time to time. My thoughts get away from me.”
“And what were these thoughts you’re having?” She raises an eyebrow and brushes a few loose strands of brown hair behind her ear.
“If I’m being honest…” My voice trails off as my eyes move back on her drink. “I see you as a whiskey girl. A martini doesn’t look quite natural.”
“Hmmm, I’ve never heard that before. If I were wearing a dress, would that be more fitting?” she questions, motioning to her outfit with a touch of annoyance in her tone.
I put a hand up. “Sorry, I didn’t mean that in an insulting manner. You just give off that CEO vibe. I envision you holding a Pappy on the rocks or something.”
“Pappy?!” she scoffs. I’m impressed by the fact she knew what I was talking about. “I’m not quite on that level yet. A few more years of commission, maybe. If I’m being honest, I’m a scotch girl. I just thought I should class it up a bit for an early afternoon date.”
I shrug, lifting my beer in preparation for another drink. “It is Friday after all.” I take a chug and set it back down on the table as the waitress approaches. After we order, there’s a silence between us as my gaze shifts around the busy restaurant to the couples, some chattering away, others distant, on their phones and ignoring each other. I think about Megan and her distinct sex appeal. The rasp in her voice, free-flowing rocker chick hair, and her bold attire, which is saying something in New York City. I think about Sami and her quiet reserve, but the little mischief that is ever present in her eyes. Her openness and honesty; her text last night, asking me out, and my acceptance, the desire to say yes at a nearly all-consuming level. And then back to Megan, and the text from her that’s not in my inbox, no matter how badly I want it to be there.