Therapy from Deny You Think You

So, I took your advice and went to see a therapist. I read through a few bios and chose the one who mentioned Jung, though I know nothing about Jung, I like the idea of tapping into the collective unconscious and dream analysis, and something else, though it escapes me now. I wish I hadn’t skimmed my college readings, like my intro to psychology course. I hear so many references lately where I recognize names yet vaguely understand.

His name is Thierry, curly black hair with gray roots, deep bags under his eyes, wide nostrils with wire-frame glasses perched on the end of his nose. After an awkward intro and a long series of questions and jotting down my symptoms on a clipboard, he said he’d prescribe (redacted ssri), or maybe (redacted ssri),though they might not help that certain snowballing matter. In fact, they may make it worse.
“Don’t want it,” I said to him.
“Why?” He adjusted his glasses.
“I don’t do drugs.”
He looked down at his clipboard and then back at me. I wondered if I should correct myself, but I didn’t want to seem weak.
“But this is medicine. It’s been approved.”
I wondered what kind of kickback he gets for each prescription but couldn’t think of a good way to ask.
I didn’t respond.
“What do you know about my suggestions?”
I shrugged.

Silence.

He wrote on his clipboard and glanced at me as though I would answer. Sound of his clock ticking on the wall. Beeping sound from a truck going in reverse outside his window. His head tilted to the left. So many things I wanted to say and ask but got my throat clogged with a tickle and had to swallow a few times. His head tilted to the right. I wanted to tell him about feeling off and not sleeping and having trouble functioning as I wanted, but then his head rotated to the other side. It was a little funny. I thought it must be some kind of technique of suggestion or persuasion. Showing me his neck as a sign of vulnerability or seeing if I picked up on code. I didn’t, and as I observed his soy-infused beard and ultra-white dentures, his organic persona seemed weaker and contrived. He had a certain empty zest that I’ve come to know, a synthetic sense of happiness and detachment from genuine feelings. I leaned forward and rested my elbows on my knees and clasped my hands together and sighed. His right eye brow rose a little and on closer look was jet black and I wondered if the carpet matches the drapes. He seemed to read my mind, the corner of his lips turned up. He looked at his clipboard then glanced over his wire frame glasses,
“You don’t have any prescriptions?”
“No.”
“Are you taking any prescriptions? For example, maybe you found a bottle of pills or someone gave you something?”
I looked away and focused on the degrees hanging on his wall, several of which I didn’t recognize the names, they sounded vaguely eastern European. Of course I should tell him about what I’d been taking, but they’d been prescribed to mother and not me, and dollars to doughnuts there would be a clinical practice that stipulates that taking not-prescribed medications violates something, some hallowed principal – thou shalt not take medication for free – or something like this. It only sounds absurd until you are familiar with clinical diagnosis. The other concern hit me as far more complicated to explain. I’ve been feeling weird lately in the sense of not having normal words to explain, the bouts of disassociation, of feeling tingling senses of pleasure yet somehow not in my body, haunted by absence, limply curled on the couch and no motivation to get up and pee, holding it in for hours. And the sudden spikes of violent rage, trashing rooms, smashing valuable wine glasses, ripping out a bedroom door from its hinges, cutting. And worse. Far worse thoughts. I don’t want to type them out.
Is it the pills? Could be. There may be legit reasons not to take other people’s medications, even if they are family, and as mom had drilled into me the importance of treating her imbalances, which I had most likely inherited, it seemed natural that I’d take her pills. And because she was smaller than me, that I’d need to double her intake and given the turbulence of recent times, that I may need to surge at times. Wine to take the edge off, and here I am.

You asked if these things were hollowing out some of our friends, maybe not, I said. But now, thinking of Amber and her sudden change of careers and the odd way she’d become callous and always smiling but with all that plastic surgery, she’s lost something. She used to be attractive in her own way, slender and thin lipped with an odd space between her teeth that made her self conscious about smiling in public, but now with fake tits and puffy lips and sparkling veneers, she’s become someone else. Amber with an upgrade, which may fit her career with OnlyFans – but that’s just a side-effect from the vax? Is that right? She was working for DARPA then quit it all suddenly and unexpectedly? I guess that’s right but feel like the story is off somehow. Either way, in my last few interactions with her there was distance and I felt that we both shared hollow feelings of moderate despair. Maybe that’s from the SSRIs. Thierry smiled at me with super bright veneers, the diamond-crust, if I have that name right. I looked into them for myself but after seeing the price, I found them gaudy and distracting. They catch overhead lights and shine too much. Maybe if I had a nicely shaped mouth, but I don’t. Neither does Thierry who has veneers for his four front teeth while the others look like mixed nuts with silver capped molars. Presumably, a smoker and heavy coffee drinker who splurged on four shiny teeth with no consideration for balance. Maybe he got a deal. A week in Thailand with a budget for a full teeth replacement, but then distractions wore his budget down to four teeth.
“Hello?”
“I’m listening.”
“Have you had your blood work done lately? I mean, that is to say, have you had a blood test? Someone will draw your blood and test it for different levels. You may find high cholesterol or vitamin D deficiencies and so on. A number of health issues can be managed after understanding your blood,” he focused on me with piercing green eyes. Doesn’t he have access to my files, where I had blood work done on a number of occasions. Were those files public? Seemingly they wouldn’t be, but he’d know they existed due to my past employer. He looked like he knew I’d been scanned many times and was ripe for experimentation. Thierry sighed and looked at his watch.
I wanted to get up and leave, but felt moored by your point that my Tricare Prime insurance would soon be canceled when my discharged status is finalized. I needed to buy some time. I looked at his diplomas on the wall. He had one from the University of Wisconsin, a doctor of psychology.
“State school?”
“It’s a top-tier university comprised of leading academics and researchers. Our contributions are immense.”
“Isn’t that by Fargo?”
“Madison is to Fargo what goat’s cheese is to cheddar,” he smiled like I should join him, but I didn’t get it, so he smiled wider and flashed his yellow molars.
I didn’t get it. I like cheddar and only have vague memories of goat’s cheese. It was fine. Had it with honey and crackers and wine, but it was under a hot sun and the crackers were soggy, wine from a box. Might not’ve been goat’s cheese. Do you know cheese? I feel like I should. Cheddar has always been special for me, but for Thierry, this seemed low brow. I’ll have to look it up later.
“You don’t like cheddar?” I asked him.
He jotted notes on his clipboard. His dark eyebrows came together as he erased something. His lips pressed together. His green eyes refocused. “Do you know what we can learn from your blood?”
My neck tingled, “I don’t have diseases.”
“How would you know?”
“It’s unlikely.”
“How do you feel about being examined?"
“I was in the service. I’m here, aren’t I?”
“And yet,” he clasped his hands and waited for me to finish his sentence. I didn’t say anything. “Rob. You are denying professional advice. Why is that?”
He said it in a rational way but with some irritation.
A few minutes later, and I got up and left. He stood and watched me leave and told me I was welcome to return. I headed back to Lake Missoula.

I didn’t write. I didn’t call. I didn’t really leave my place, not even for groceries. I started drinking again. Too much.
And then one morning I woke and found my last bowl of oatmeal and milk had been poured (by me, obviously, though I don’t remember) and it was covered with ants. I guess because I loaded it up with honey and raisins. As I watched the ants crawl around, my stomach grumbled. The milk was warm. A dozen ants or so floated next to clumps of oatmeal. Gross you may say, but some consider chocolate ants a delicacy, and they probably are rich in protein, so I drank and slurped it down. Not so bad. I picked an ant from the space between my front teeth later that day and when I flossed there were little dark chunks … in case you wanted to know. Two weeks later of bad sleep. And ants. Everywhere ants crawling up the walls and in my sheets. White bumps on my legs. I woke up scratching and bleeding the white bumps. A couple more nights of poor sleeping and heavy drinking and I was pacing on my back deck, looking over the edge, admiring the silence of ravine below.

I called Thierry. He was friendly on the phone. He invited me back to his office. When I got there, his office smelled like jasmine vape, his eyes glossy, I apologized and told him that I looked up Madison and it seemed like a splendid place for higher education. I asked if he liked cheese and had any recommendations. He mentioned something in Midwestern French, but I forgot what he said. He smiled widely and his white front teeth stuck out and revealed his yellow-brown molars. My mind wandered to his gray roots as I tried to calculate his last hair dye session. His skin was like oatmeal and his body sagged with irregular lumps. He leaned forward and took off his glasses and cleaned them with a tissue,
“So you haven’t changed your mind about prescriptions?”
“No.”
“What bothers you about medical treatments?”
“Side effects.”
“They are extremely rare. The prescriptions of which I recommend are safe and effective.”
“Do you believe that?”
He smirked. “If you don’t believe it then let’s try something else. We can always matriculate later.” He slightly shook his head in mild disbelief, as though my distrust of prescriptions was a sign of idiocy, as though he were speaking of hard science and not modern witchcraft. I almost wanted to ask him if the field of psychology had trouble duplicating its results, or if its journals took donations from drug companies, but I didn’t. Dad always told me that if you want to challenge an opinion or ask about methods or evidence, that you’re better off finding a new doctor. My neck burned as I thought about heading back with nothing again, another disappointment, no answer to sleepless nights, I didn’t want more drugs, not if the same, or barely different, I wanted a natural solution. I think he could feel me fading away. He glanced at the clock. I did too. Ten minutes left. He set his clipboard on his desk and leaned forward and suggested I write a journal.
How?
He turned to his computer and showed an app that looked like email. It’s a kind of program called the Virtual Couch, he said and chuckled a little and said he didn’t care for the name.
“Is that Jungian?”
“Is that what you want?”
“Isn’t that the best way?”
“Could be. Maybe that’s your path.”
“Do you think it’s my path?”
“If you use it.”
“Is it safe?”
He showed me its corporate sponsors and had me consider the large investments and potential reputational damage if data leaked.
“You can take that as a security blanket. Maybe you don’t trust these corporate actors, but you can trust them to look out for their profits, and so if data protection is part of their business logic, then it’s probably safe.” He said not to worry about methods and let myself go. “Try and let yourself write without thinking about it. Find yourself typing before you know what’s coming out. You might think of it as a brainstorming activity. Use it as an online journal. Report things that are on your mind. Don’t judge. Maybe it’s banal and means nothing. Nothing is signified. It’s just observing a bowl on the table. Milk in a jar. Sound of silence. Or is it silence? Little flicker of wind. Fan in the background. Write up events from the other day. Erase what you don’t like. Revise if you feel like it. There’s something about writing that differs from thinking. When we write, a different part of the brain is engaged and things will emerge that are unexpected.”
“Write to myself?”
“Write to someone you know. Someone you feel comfortable with. You don’t have to send it. You don’t need to keep it. The Virtual Couch app is a secure platform. So, feel secure. Let it flow, just put words down. Don’t worry about what they are. For example, a few lines about a dream you had last night. You know, I was walking in a creek and a purple fish swam by and when I reached to pick it up, there I was holding a block of yellow cheese. It was warm and soft. He smiled at me wide enough to see his silver-capped molars. Something like this. Or whatever you remember from your dreams.”
“What’s that supposed to accomplish?”
“Hard to say. It’s your path. As you do it, you’ll start to see patterns. Answers will emerge. And when, or if you want me to help you process, then I can do that as well.”
“Do I need to take drugs?”
“Is there a reason,” he paused and tilted his head to the side.
In a flash, I thought of telling him why, explaining that mom was an evangelist about medications who thought they could help me focus and overcome my test-taking troubles – maybe my struggles with calculus were related to insufficient serotonin. She was a modern day pill enthusiast that insisted on every flu shot and booster and took the CDC as gospel and loathed the vaccine-deniers, the Amish community for their deviance from the recommended vaccine schedule and their lack of neuro-divergent traits, and she would almost shake when she talked about RFK. … she stocked up on her prescriptions and kept extra year’s of prescriptions in a waterproof box that she kept in the attic – just case there is a natural disaster, get my meds, she said and made sure I knew where to find them.
So I have a decent supply, still another couple of months, but then what? And they are not good for me. My feelings seemed wrapped in plastic and while I feel a tingle of happiness or pleasure at odd times – like when brushing my teeth -- it seems fake and synthetic, not unlike ecstasy and making love with a stranger, or in my experience anyway, it’s good but feels hollow somehow.
Physically, I’m disintegrating. My mouth is often dry, pounding headaches, and my impotency has worsened … but how can I explain these things to Thierry?
He seemed to recognize my ambivalence and scribbled on his clipboard.
“Drugs, no. Medicines may help you along your journey. It’s your choice. Do you have a friend, someone you like?”
“Sure.”
“Why not write to this person? You don’t need to send your entries to this person. You don’t need to tell this person. Just put it in writing and then forget about it. Come back later and reread. See what it means to you then.”

So here I am, writing to you. Just in case this gets out, it was never intended for you to read. You’ve always been my closest ally. A sister. And so maybe I should tell you what happened that night of horror and get over it.