It’s okay to be different so long as you can’t help it. So long as you get a doctor’s note that excuses your behavior. That’s the vibe I always got, anyway. And that is certainly where my mind was at six years ago.
This doctor looks like a man. He is a man. A generic one. Though he’s not a real doctor. So maybe that’s the loophole. I told my parents I’d be willing to consider this if they at least picked a female doctor. But apparently, this man-therapist had good reviews and my father, still skeptical about this whole idea, believed men could be taken more seriously as authority figures even in this scenario of seeing someone involved in what he had always called a pseudo-profession.
I’m twenty-four years old. I have a full-time production management position at a local music venue right off of getting a proper apprenticeship under my belt, the venue in question run by a little bit of a psycho diva narc rich boy. Everyone in my life is thrilled that I now had a job they could conceptualize as legitimate though. I had healthcare benefits and was now far away from the criminal underground I’d been ever so slightly brushing shoulders with since I was nineteen. I had breakfast everyday and something resembling dinner. I was renting a room in a convent with nuns for pocket change a week and I spent early mornings laying under the crucifix hanging above my bed fantasizing about slamming the head of the man harassing me at work onto the open flame of a stove. I had a daily commute that left me frozen and on the verge of tears if people on the train pressed too close.
“We can start by you telling me a little bit about yourself,” he says.
He’s got pictures of landscapes on his walls and a very narrow bookcase of publications with fancy spines which makes me assume they’re just for show.
“I covered it on the form I sent in,” I said.
“Yes. You can expand on that.”
I would’ve felt like I was in a movie if I weren’t so pissed off by the entire situation. But I’ve always been a well-behaved individual, at least in my eyes. So I give him the job interview summary of my life. He asks me what my goals are for these sessions.
“I’m here because my parents think it could be helpful but that I can quit after a month if I don’t like it,” I say.
“What makes them think this would be good for you?” I consider my next words.
“I don’t like physical contact,” I end up saying plainly and am immediately a bit annoyed that I found the admission embarrassing. Usually, I don’t have to say it. People can just tell.
“Would you say that’s an aspect of yourself you’d like to improve on?”
That’s really none of your business is the first thing that comes to mind. Except in this setting, it quite literally is his business. A lot of other thoughts go through my head. But after a lifetime of my deepest conversations with men not being more involved than comparing notes in the hallway after a tough exam and a lifetime of hearing admittedly not very positive things about therapists and the people who employed their services, I just get even more upset about how my day is going. I would’ve rather stayed at the convent and prayed silently all afternoon. At least then, I thought, I’d keep my dignity. It didn’t matter that at this point in my life, I knew tons of people who casually mentioned having a therapist and, on an intellectual level, was aware of the reasons and benefits they got by going. The reality of me being here felt like the failure of a lifetime. I could just imagine my parents telling the whole family about it over Christmas dinner.
“I think people should respect my boundaries and if they have a problem with what those boundaries are then they’re the one with the issue,” I say, “and should stop trying to single me out.”
“So you don’t think being more open to connection could improve your life.”
“Why? You planning on giving me practice hugs or something?” Even to myself, I sound a bit ridiculous. Petulant, even.
“I’m not going to touch you.”
“Good.”
We sit quietly for a few moments.
“This only works if you want change to happen. Resistance and therapy don’t mix.”
What a surprisingly sensible thing to say I thought while at the same time feeling like the proclamation meant I was about to flunk a class. As a failsafe, I start talking about Star Wars and mostly keep us in a galaxy far, far away until the thirty minutes are up.
“Well?” I can imagine how my parents look gathered around the phone in their kitchen back home, speaker volume turned all the way up.
“Well it was a waste of time,” I say. They ask me what the man said. “What I already told you. That it’s a waste of time.”
“Did you bring up the autism concerns?”
“No, because I don’t have any autism concerns. And if you did you should’ve gone along with my teachers in lower school but you didn’t think it was a real thing back then. Missed opportunity.” My mother grumbles a bit more about my behavior. I emphasize that I’m twenty-four and was really only going along with this in the first place out of the goodness of my heart. “Also, I’m quitting my job.”
“WHAT?” They both say.
“It’s miserable here.”
“It’s exactly what you were doing at your apprenticeship,” my mother says. “You haven’t even been there a year.”
“My apprenticeship had an end date. Here I look at the venue calendar and it just goes on and on and on forever. It’s suffocating. I think I do better on projects with a clearly defined start and end.”
I get a lecture from my father about personal responsibility and maturity that I didn’t even disagree with that much. I knew I was being uncharacteristically rash, like existing the way I was much longer would have me genuinely going bonkers. And then began a whole new lecture about common sense when I say a guy I used to work with ended up starting his own - completely legal… as far as I knew - company and needed a production manager for their next tour.
“And how long is the tour?”
“A month.”
“So you’re going to quit your full-time job to go running around the country for a month.”
“The continent, actually, but yes. And I’m sure stuff will come up after that.”
They’re absolutely flabbergasted. I sit down on a park bench I’m passing by to eat the hot dog I just bought off a cart. They ask me if I’m depressed.
“No,” I say, “I’m just a roadie.”
It's okay to be different as long as you can't help it and also hate yourself and desperately wish you weren't different. I mean, everyday repentance is the least you can do!