Entry One: My First Therapy Appointment
I don’t know how many of you go to therapy. The reason doesn’t matter, just the fact that you actually go, that’s the whole achievement right there. Well, I go for reasons I don’t even fully know myself. I just go. Besides the great tea Dr Shrink has, I have never been more bored in my life than sitting in that office. I’m actually thinking about upgrading to phone sessions, saves me the drive, saves me the small talk in the waiting room, but I will miss the tea. That tea is doing more for my mental health than the sessions, if we’re being honest.
I haven’t told you all how my first session went, and what expectations I walked in with. Of course, back then I didn’t know my sweet shrink yet. I definitely did not know she was a zombie.
When I got to the building I was already nervous, rehearsing questions and answers in my head like I was preparing for a job interview instead of a mental health appointment. You know my mannerisms by now, so of course I had a plan. I will sit like this. I will not move my hands too much. I will speak very slowly and paused, very composed. None of that survived contact with the actual building.
At the front desk was a young blonde receptionist with a smile that looked constipated, like someone had told her once to smile more and she has been doing the bare legal minimum ever since. She asked for my name. I was somewhere between excited and nervous, so what came out of my mouth was, I am the 3:30 appointment. She just said, name please. Geez, this generation does not know how to smile. Anyway. Nathalie, that’s my name, darling, I said, I’m here to see Dr. Petra. She didn’t even look up. Take a seat, she’ll be with you shortly.
Five minutes passed and a new woman appeared, young, energetic, and a little out of breath, like she had just sprinted in from the parking lot. The receptionist said, you’re late. Miss Energy said, I know, I’m sorry, but I’m here now. Then she turned to me and smiled and asked if I wanted something to drink. I was just about to say no thank you, and before I could get the words out she kept going, I know it’s hot outside, but we have a tea that would touch your soul. I looked at her with complete disbelief and said, okay, let me try it. And also, is Dr. Petra always this unpunctual, because we could reschedule.
Oh no, she said, she’s almost ready for you, I’m sure, just give it five more minutes. I don’t think this young lady understood that I had already been sitting there for seven minutes.
But right before they called my name, I watched a person leave the room crying. I couldn’t not ask about it. I leaned toward the reception desk and said, is that normal, do people always cry in there? Miss Energy said, not always, it depends on how you exteriorize your feelings. I said, what does that even mean. She laughed. I was asking a serious question.
I grabbed my bag and walked toward the office door, which opened before I even reached it, revealing Dr. Petra herself. She moved with the confidence of someone who had personally witnessed the invention of paperwork. I have so many words about her, but I don’t think you’re ready for all of them yet. I’ll just say she was not what I expected. She looked like she had walked straight out of an 80s medical drama and simply forgotten to leave.
That first session was mostly a get to know each other kind of thing, which made me instantly regret being there. This woman is slower than a snail, I remember thinking, I am going to lose my patience and jump straight through that window. Then I actually looked at the window and thought, better check how high up we are first, I don’t need a broken leg on top of everything else. She spent the whole time explaining what we would be doing, what our goals were, how everything would be focused on me and my achievements, or at least that’s what I think she said, because I wasn’t really listening. I was somewhere else entirely, using my laser vision to scan every inch of that office instead. She blinked so slowly at one point I briefly checked for a pulse. Forty five minutes later, nothing much had happened and the session was over. She told me next time we’d have the full hour. I said thank you and left, still turning the whole experience over in my head, still not sure if she’s seventy five or immortal.
It’s still stuck in my mind, actually, what happened to the days where they made you draw a tree, or a person, remember those? I’ve done that test before and it is hilarious in hindsight. Way back in the 2000s I went to an interview to become a flight hostess, and somehow that interview turned into a full therapy session, drawing trees, drawing a person standing under the rain, drawing a house. I did not pass. My tree had dry branches. My house had too many windows, apparently that means something. And I never gave an umbrella to the person standing in the rain, because I liked the rain, I liked it back then anyway. Now I hate it, especially if I’ve spent hours doing my hair. But that’s not the point here, I’m getting off track, which, honestly, is also very on brand for me.
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