Part 1 - The Beginning
My therapist sat clicking her pen with her thumb as fast as she could, looking over her notes about me with furrowed brows. I couldn’t help but feel like she was trying to annoy me. We had been sat in silence for a while, occasionally her lifeless eyes would lift to stare at me for another brief moment, and then she would jot something else, like she had me all figured out. I had only been seeing her for three months. I had known myself for twenty-one years, and I definitely didn’t have myself figured out. There wasn’t a chance in hell she did.
I rolled my eyes at her silence and looked around the pristine room. To my left-hand side was a giant window, revealing the bustling city to me, but I couldn’t hear a single noise from outside. It made me uncomfortable, being able to see the bustle of thousands of lives living among concrete, but only being able to hear the drone of the clock on the wall ticking and reminding me of sitting in a classroom when I was a teen. At the bottom of the giant window was a long plant pot that spread the entire width, with six separate bonsai trees. There was a bookcase behind her desk filled with books that had obviously never been touched. I hated it there. I hated everything about it. My head turned slowly back to her, unable to ignore her incessant pen clicking. Then suddenly, she stopped. “Do you enjoy our sessions?” She asked me. “No.” I shot.
“Then why do you continue to come?” “Because my mother is paying for me to see you, and if I stopped coming to see you, she would flip.” “And why is that, Florence?” She asked. “Please don’t call me Florence. It makes me really uncomfortable.” I sighed. “My friends call me Ren.” With that, she nodded, and started making more notes on that stupid little notepad. I felt like I was going to explode. All I could think was how she should consider herself lucky that she couldn’t write and click at the same time, or there would have been no stopping me from jumping across that desk and taking her out. “So, Florence, why would your mother be upset if you stopped our sessions?” She had obviously decided to ignore my request not to use my actual name. I bit my tongue and took a deep breath in, trying to remain calm, because getting angry would only create more words on her paper. “Because ever since I dropped out of uni, my mum and dad just see me as a huge disappointment. They think there’s something wrong with me, but there isn’t. I’m fine. I’m just... trying to figure my life out. That’s normal for a twenty-one year old, right?” With what I thought to be a fake smile, she nodded again, and made more notes. I was well aware I didn’t need to have everything in control at my age. In fact, twenty-one is a well-known age for being completely out of control. Unfortunately, my parents didn’t see it that way, especially with my angel sister Matilda in the picture. The fact I didn’t have everything in my life completely figured out, apparently, warranted a therapist. “From what you’ve told me in previous sessions,” She continued. “It seems you feel your parents have been disappointed in you for a lot longer.” “Well, that’s probably true.” I shrugged, sinking further into her chair. “I guess it’s been that way for as long as I can remember. Matilda was their firstborn so, she’s golden child.” ”Most of my clients are second born children.” “Should you really be telling me that?” I smirked. “My point is, maybe there is a reason you should be seeing me. Not for your mother’s sake, but possibly because of her.” “She’d send me to another therapist quicker than you can click that fucking pen if she heard you say that.” I kind of wanted a laugh from her, but I didn’t get one. Instead, she made more notes about me, probably something about using humour as a defence/coping mechanism. She glanced up to the clock on her wall. “I’d like you to continue seeing me, but with a more open mind. I think you could really gain something from these sessions.” She always called them sessions. I mean, I didn’t know what she was supposed to call them, but maybe it was the fact that we were three months deep and I was just sick of word session. I glanced at the gold name plate on her desk, which always made me smirk because it was like every bad film or TV show you’ve ever seen, where a character happens to be seeing a therapist. She must have studied those shows and based her office around them. There was no character there at all. Dr B.Jackson. I kind of wanted to start using her full name, though I would have to hazard a guess at her first name. “Okay.” I mulled. “I’ll try to open my mind.” I wasn’t planning on trying to open my mind at all. I was perfectly fine. Even with my parent’s dismay over my failures, I was perfectly fine. She suddenly opened one of the drawers on her side of the desk, the noise loud and drawing my attention again as she pulled out a sheet of paper, and slid it to my side of the desk. I sat upright, and took hold of it. “Once every three months, I have an open day for all my patients.” She told me. “It’s a group session, where everyone can talk openly about what they’re going through.” “What, like, AA or something?” I chortled. “Similar.” “You want me to stand in a room full of people, and go, Hi, my names Florence and I’m the least favourite child.” She didn’t seem amused by my joke. Maybe it was because I carelessly missed out the Hello Florence that the rest of the group would chime once I introduced myself. Or maybe she just genuinely didn’t think I was funny. “I think you’ll find the group session very rewarding.” She continued. “How?” I put the paper back on the desk. “A lot of people find it difficult to talk to their loved ones about what they’re going through.” She slid the paper close to me again. “It often feels like a weight from people’s shoulders once they’ve spoke to people other than therapists about their issues.” “I don’t have issues.” “So please come to the group. I think it would be good for you. I think it will help you in more ways than you’re aware.” Uneasily, I dropped my eyes from hers down to the paper, which was printed out in bright colours, like we were all children and that would somehow make it more attractive to us, like we would forget this was just another therapy session and think it was a day trip. It was even printed in Comic Sans. I groaned inwardly, looking at the date, and how there were three possible sessions throughout the day. I gave her the best reply I could, hoping she would leave me alone. “I’ll consider.” ”Thank you, Florence.” “You’re welcome, B.Jackson.” I grinned sarcastically. “Are we done?” “I’ll see you next week.” “With bloody bells on.” I got to my feet. “Thanks for your time.” I thanked her for her time every week, because what I was doing there, was totally wasting it, no matter how hard she tried to find something wrong with me. There wasn’t anything wrong with me. I was fine. Everything was fine.
