- therapy #1 -
This place is a lot less... clean, for lack of a better word, than the pictures they put online. The building this therapist is in seems newer, but the waiting room is dingy, latticed aluminum ceiling holding up popcorn gray panels and yellowing fixtures for fluorescent lights. There’s a rack in the corner holding worn children’s books and a tired-looking wooden train set abandoned behind a set of threadbare office chairs.
There’s also no receptionist behind the front desk, just a window with a sign that says, in both English and Spanish, “PLEASE WAIT FOR ASSISTANCE.” The lights aren’t on back there, but there are forms and a sign-in sheet waiting for you on the ledge.
This is stupid. You scratch your name and the time, take the loose leaf papers, and get started.
Yeah, yeah, basic demographic information. Insurance—well, technically you’re still on your dad’s, but he doesn’t even live in this country anymore, and fuck if you can remember the information. Family history? You don’t know anything about this. Personal medical stuff? The only time you’ve been in the hospital was for rehab. They want to know what medications you’re on, too, which is awkward, because you don’t know the name or the dose of what Fucker gave you, you just know it’s not working.
Underneath those basics are questionnaires, Becks something or other. All of these questions are stupid. You score a 31 on the first one (kind of depressing) and a 22 on the second (not so bad, really). After circling all the numbers and x-ing all the boxes, you don’t really have anything else.
So you wait.
Click the pen a little bit in your hand, twirl it around your fingers. Your dexterity got thrown off a little bit again by last weekend’s events, but you’ll get it back eventually, right? You jiggle your leg, crack your neck. One of the lights is humming obnoxiously. There’s a fly trapped under one of the busted metal quarter-inch blinds. With this much time, you let your eyes trace out patterns in how the dirty linoleum peels up from the floor at the seams.
You’re almost nodding off when the door to the office opens. “Oh!” a female voice says softly, keys jangling. “Are you early, or am I late?”
“Are you Alex?”
“Yes, hello!” She’s already looking in her phone. She might be a few years older than you if you had to guess, brown-skinned with long black hair, wearing floaty clothes in neutral colors with long gold earrings. Damn it. You had been hoping for a dude—and that tiny expectation takes you by surprise. You make a mental note of it for later. “Oh, I was late, I’m so sorry. Please, follow me.”
You stand up—had your feet really fallen asleep?—and get ushered into a tiny side room, only just wide enough to fit a full-length overstuffed couch with too many tasseled throw pillows. When you take a seat, it wheezes. The corduroy feels crumbly under your fingertips.
Alex shuts the door behind her, blocking out the dead, clinical light of the waiting room. It’s much darker in here, only lit by a nightstand lamp with maybe a fake candle bulb in it. Alex sits down in a large armchair, her bag landing heavy on the floor when she drops it and starts looking for something. “You’re a new client, right?”
“Yeah. I filled out all this paperwork.” You offer her the stack.
“Oh, yes, thank you.” She apparently had been looking for a pen and a clipboard, because your papers get neatly pinned and she starts taking notes immediately. “So, John, how did you find out about us?”
You shrug. “I did a Google search. This was the only place that had an appointment this fast.”
“Oh, that’s because I had cleared my schedule for Good Friday.” Shit, you’re so out of it that you forgot it was a holiday weekend. “I’m glad you came in. Now, what brought you in to see us?”
You freeze.
You were expecting this question, yeah, got dogged by it for four hours last night while you were unable to sleep and worrying about Dolch. That doesn’t mean you have a good answer for it. You’re pretty sure you filled out a thing online for this place (or maybe it was for one of the ten other places you tried to get ASAP appointments). Why can’t she look on there? Whatever. You pick the simplest answer first. “I went to rehab and they said I needed to keep doing therapy when I got out, so I thought I would start.”
Alex’s pen stops. “Rehab? For a... drug addiction?”
“Alcohol.” Dead and clipped off.
“Oh, right.” Like it wasn’t as serious as Percocet or heroin. “Well, we don’t really do addiction counseling here—or alcoholism counseling, whatever—but I can see what else I can do to help you today. Maybe get you a referral. How does that sound?”
Something in that guarded, hopeful part of you deflates, an already-drooping Mylar GET WELL SOON balloon destroyed by a dart. “Fine.”
“Oh, you didn’t fill out this section of the form.” She tilts the clipboard towards you and gestures to it with her pen.
“That’s because I don’t know.”
“Don’t know your family medical history?”
“Not really.” Is it that surprising? “We didn’t really talk about that stuff a whole lot.”
“Ah, right, gotcha.” She sounds like she got a bunch of insight about you out of that last sentence. “Did you bring your medications with you?”
“Just the one.” You were careful to bring this in your jeans pocket, so no one would have to see you manipulating your sylladex to get to the goods. The pills you got from Fucker look pathetic in this little snack baggie, but it’s all you had. “I lost the bottle, sorry, I forget what this is.”
Alex peers at it under the low light, then draws back into her own space. “Looks like a low dose of sertraline.”
“What now?”
“Generic Prozac.” Oh, wow. Fucker really put you on an antidepressant. Like that’s supposed to help with whatever has your brain this rustled. “Just a baby dose,” she says, like that’s supposed to make you feel any better. “How long have you been taking it?”
“Just since Sunday.”
“Any side effects?”
“Not much of anything, really.”
She clicks her tongue. “That’s too bad.” What the hell does that mean? She flips over to another piece of paper in your makeshift chart, tapping her pen down the page until she turns to the next one. “Thirty-one, yes, same number. Oh, dear, that’s not good.”
“What does that mean?”
“That’s in the range for severe depression, Jonathan.” Ugh. You hate it when people try to get cute with your name. “And the anxiety inventory, this is in the moderate anxiety range. Good thing you got an appointment!”
“Yeah, no kidding.” There’s no mirth in your voice, yet no sarcasm, either. No one told you therapy would be this boring.
“Well,” And Alex jingles her wrist to shake her bracelets away from her watch, “that might be all the time we have for an initial appointment like this. I’m sorry we can’t take you on long term, but if you’d like, I can send on your name to another practice. Oh, and, credit card, please.”
She plugs a chip reader into her phone port as you fork over the plastic. You feel a little nonplussed. You’re pretty sure you scheduled for an hour, and you’ve been here for much longer, but you could have sworn this whole thing in this room only took a few minutes. “I guess,” is all you really have to say.
Alex is focused on her phone again, then smiles as the app resolves the transaction. “Great!” she says, far too chipper. “Well, check your portal, and by the end of next week, you should have a message from us about next steps.”
“End of next week?” Full offense, but you’ve already been waiting long enough for an appointment when you’re in so much emotional pain it literally feels like it’s cracking your sternum in two.
“Yeah, all referrals take at least 72 hours and it’s a holiday weekend. Thanks for your time!” She’s already standing, opening the door to usher you out.
Good. You don’t want to be here any longer. “Thanks,” you tell her, an automatic politeness, but as you leave the office and take the elevator down to the building lobby, all you feel is confused. And kind of laughing at yourself for how seriously you took it. If it’s all going to be bullshit, at least you know what to expect for next time.