The First Appointment
By Charlotte Lauer
Why am I here?
I still don’t have an answer ready, but I’ve been asking myself this question the whole forty-minute drive to my new therapist. It’s always the first question they ask. So, why are you here?
This will be my fifth time in therapy, and it’s starting to feel like a test I can’t pass. I don’t have any reason to be depressed, which I suppose is exactly the problem. No (correct) diagnosis, happy childhood, parents still alive and in love. I’m privileged in multiple ways, living comfortably in a home that I own, married, and physically healthy. Despite that, Depression has visited me again and again for years, and my feeling undeserving of it has only bred guilt, plus a severe lack of any communication skills in therapy.
To my first therapist, I answered the welcome question: why are you here? with: I don’t know why I’m here. Then I blurted, I’m not good at talking. Dr. Daffy just chuckled and said, well, you better figure out how to, ‘cause I can’t help you if you can’t talk. So, I tried to start at what I thought was the beginning, before anyone I knew had died by their own hand. Well, I’ve had a lot of depressed friends...I began, at which Dr. Daffy laughed and said, “It’s contagious, isn’t it?”
That was five years ago.
Just as embarrassing was four years ago, when I answered my second therapist, Emily, with: Because I have no friends? Her head tilt and small smile clearly said Oh, honey, you know we can’t be friends, right? I couldn’t even look at her potted peace lilies and aloe plants after that, as if they, too, were thinking about what a big loser I was.
I still randomly think about those first appointments, like right now, and cringe with humiliation. I squirm in my driver’s seat at the very memory of Emily’s pitiful side hug and Dr. Daffy’s amusement. Who knows how I’ll embarrass myself in front of this one. The restless tingling in my limbs I’ve come to take as a sign to calm down becomes unbearable, like needles pricking at my skin from the inside out.
“FUCK!” I punch my dashboard and momentarily swerve toward the edge of the road, a gentle reminder that allowing even one moment of rage to escape could be the thing that gets me killed, or maybe even committed again. Ever since being hospitalized for uttering the word suicidal, I’ve tried to keep as much to myself as possible. Where there is witness or misinterpretation, there is judgement, false diagnoses, and mental hospitals. So, I keep quiet by shaking my legs, clenching my jaw, picking my cuticles raw, or walking away from the situation entirely. Hand throbbing, I take a deep breath and hold the wheel steady.
The drive is pretty, at least: a sunset of coral and pink swirls, cows grazing and lounging in pastures, red barns every few miles, and rows of pine trees going black against the sky. The setting is too beautiful for me to be shouting in my car, but it’s the only place where I can let go without feeling my wife’s concerned eyes on me. I thought I’d mastered the art of deception until the intimacy of married life gave me away through slammed doors and broken glasses in the sink. I could only say to Jess I wasn’t slamming, I wasn’t throwing dishes, I’m not mad, for so long. Today, I grip my steering wheel, allow my random shouts of dread to burst out of me, and mull over a better answer to why are you here? than the truth: I promised my wife I’d go back to therapy.
When I arrive, I take it as a bad sign that my new therapist is located in a shopping center called Harmony Hill. It feels too ironic, like when my high school boyfriend saw a therapist named Dr. Smiley who never smiled. Still, I chose my new therapist for her name: Beverly. Just like one of my favorite children’s authors, Beverly Cleary. This was the sole reason I called Beverly before the Cindy and Susanne I found online. Shows how much I’ve learned.
Out my window, I spy a plump white-haired lady leaning against the balcony rail of the building’s third floor. She waves down at me, several bracelets jingling from her wrist. She wears reading glasses with one of those fancy beaded cords, and I can see her red lipstick all the way from my car. She looks nice; she reminds me of my GiGi. But they always look nice.
No, that’s a lie. My third therapist, the one assigned to me in the mental hospital three years ago, looked like the asshole he was from the start. Then again, it was hard to tell what he was thinking most of the time because he rarely looked me in the eye. I was a binder of papers he flipped through slowly, and he would look up to ask me occasional questions about my “chart.” Rasalam. I can’t say his name today without hissing it.
“Okay. So,” he had started at our first appointment. “Why are you here, Miss….” He squinted down at one of his papers.
“Lauer,” I answered the top of his fat, balding head.
“Lower. Yes.” He scratched something out on his notes. “So, why are you here?”
“Because I was forced. I don’t need to be here.” I picked at my cuticles underneath the table, satisfied at the sting and the little flakes of my skin littering his carpet like dandruff.
“Hmm. Do you think you need more meds?”
I’m surprised I didn’t stand up and backhand my binder off the surface of the table, shooting my mystery papers to the ceiling, for how angry that question made me. But, master of disguise that I am, he didn’t see my anger. Instead, I peeled back the loose skin of my thumb cuticle all the way down to the knuckle.
“No. Definitely not. A bad reaction to meds is the whole reason I’m here,” I said in an even tone, heartbeat bumping with hesitant hope. I was actually ready to talk about this with someone.
“Okay,” he said, making a note in my binder without looking up. “We’ll talk more tomorrow.”
My disguise fell at that short dismissal. Open doors are my anger’s worst enemy, and I slammed his shut on my way out, probably earning myself those extra few days in the loony bin.
I start walking up the stairs to meet Beverly, but pause to consider running when I remember Eduardo, my fourth and most damaging therapist. When I told him during a new-patient history interview that I’d been hospitalized, he said you didn’t mention that, now did you? while his hand jumped dramatically from the bottom of the page to the top, where he wrote down God knows what. “High Risk,” maybe. I never asked, just sat there feeling ashamed by this new top-of-the-page status that felt unearned. By the end of that session, he’d decided I had Bipolar II disorder (wrong), and the extreme hair loss, weight loss, and even more intense mood swings from his prescribed meds are what finally made me refuse therapy (again) the past two years. I make a mental note to keep that bit of history to myself for now, and keep walking up the steps.
Beverly escorts me into her office, and for what feels like the billionth time, I take my place on The Couch, noting the clipboard in Beverly’s hand. When she sits across from me in her green chair, we look at each other for a few quiet moments. Already, I feel like she sees right through me.
“You look very uncomfortable,” Beverly says with a kind smile.
“Um. Yes.”
“Well, that’s okay!” she says. Then, like a genius, she puts her clipboard face down on the lamp stand next to her, and I exhale a breath I didn’t realize I was holding.
“So,” Beverly says. Here it comes. “Why are you here today?”
“I don’t know. I’m sorry,” I say fast, cheeks flushed already. “I’m really bad at therapy.”
“Let’s make a quick rule,” she says in a teacherly tone. “You don’t ever have to apologize here. Okay?”
“Okay. Sorry. Oh, shit, sorry. Oh, I’m sorry I cussed! Oh my God.” I drop my head in my hands, expecting a long silent moment of humiliation, but Beverly just laughs high-pitched like a Tickle-Me-Elmo. When I look up, she still doesn’t have her clipboard.
“You also don’t have to worry about cussing. We’re fine!” she says “fine” in a long southern drawl that comforts me.
“Okay.” I breathe.
“Okay,” she says.
Beverly’s eyes on mine feel like crystal balls, so I look around her office, nervously taking in the room. Floor lamp with a soft green shade...essential oil diffuser; lavender, maybe…. masquerade mask on a coffee table between us…. picture book on her desk. The cover shows a little girl with heavy red eyes, and the title says I Can’t Talk About It. My heart leaps.
“You have a picture book!” I say, pointing at it.
“Yes, I do!”
“I work in a children’s library.” I sit up straight. This is about the only thing I say with pride these days.
“Oh, really? That’s wonderful,” Beverly says, surely aware of the boosting effect her words have on me. “I use it in some of my appointments with children. Here, look at my card!” She selects a light blue card from a pile on her lamp stand and hands it to me. It reads: Beverly Bailey, specializing in children’s play therapy.
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
“Hmm? What’s that?” Beverly looks at me with pointed eyes, but I see she isn’t mad, just reminding me of our rule.
“I just...Should I not be here? I’m twenty-six.”
“I know.” Beverly giggles again. “I see adults, too. I just happen to have a knack for play therapy.” She looks at the picture book in adoration for a moment, then faces me again.
“You see, I believe strongly that children have the same big adult feelings and observations that we do. They just don’t have the same big adult language.”
Unexpectedly, and for the first time ever, I feel like I might cry in therapy. Beverly is right; I’ve seen this for myself in the children’s library. A seven-year-old girl first noticed my depression this time around, even before I had fully realized its presence again. She didn’t have the word, but she knew something was different.
Miss Charlotte, you’re not wearing your lipstick again today.
Miss Charlotte, don’t you want to color with me like normal?
Miss Charlotte, you’re not singing the song right.
Miss Charlotte, why are you so quiet?
“Wow,” I say looking Beverly right in the eye. “That’s so true.”
“Oh, yes,” she says with a nod. “Now, how about we try that first question one more time?”
“Okay.” I smooth out my dress, ready this time.
“So. What do you think brought you here today?” she asks again.
“Just a lot of shit going on with my wife, Jess, lately,” tumbles out of my mouth. “There was a death in her family recently, a suicide, and then right after Christmas one of our friends jumped off the fucking Sidney Lanier Bridge back in Brunswick. She died, too, obviously. It feels like my friends always want to die. But I guess she wasn’t my friend, really. She was more Jess’ friend than mine. So, Jess is having a hard time. I don’t know. She really wanted me to come. I promised her I’d go back to therapy even though I hate it, so, here I am.”
I exhale.
“I see,” Beverly says, her face both serious and sympathetic. “Sounds like a lot going on with you, too.” My stomach clenches like a fist.
“I guess.”
“And is Jess in therapy?”
“Yes. She’s great at it.” I cringe at feeling the need to add that last bit.
“Okay. Let’s try that question again, and this time answer for you, too. It sounds like Jess is doing her work.”
I might just shrivel up and die right here on this squishy couch at Beverly’s words, because they’re true. Jess has her own real trauma and struggles, but she is always excelling in her work, emotional work or otherwise, and I’m always torn between pride, bitterness, adoration, and jealousy of her. It’s one of my greatest shames.
“Do you consider yourself a caretaker?” Beverly asks before I get too caught up in my mind’s storm.
“No. I mean, I guess, yeah,” I say. Then I add, “Jess is, too.”
“I’m sure she is. It sounds like you both love each other very much. You have to be careful with caretaking, though. If you completely focus on that other person, that’s when you avoid your own struggle. Then, you lose yourself.”
“Oh.”
Jess and I have been working on taking care of both ourselves, and each other, for years. I still can’t help but pay less attention to myself.
“How about we revisit that question later. Do you want to play with hula hoops?” Beverly disrupts the storm again.
“Um...sure?”
Beverly bounces toward a tall dresser that I now see is not completely against the wall. From a small space between the two, Beverly pulls out one orange and one pink hula-hoop.
“Okay, come over here,” she says with authority. This is Beverly in her element.
With the exception of my job at the children’s library, I despise performance and role-play, I don’t like unexpected games or karaoke, and the first mention of “Charades” at any party is my cue to leave. It surprises me when I rise easily from the couch to approach Beverly and her hula-hoops.
“Orange or pink?” she asks, just as I was thinking it was silly for me to have a color preference.
“Pink.”
“Good, ‘cause I like orange.” She winks at me.
We face each other and she places both hula-hoops on the ground, forming a figure eight with the two of them.
“Okay, we’ll keep this simple for the sake of the exercise. Let’s say you and I are neighbors. These hula-hoops each represent our personal space and our wellbeing. Neighbors sometimes take care of each other, though, right?”
“Right…” I say, afraid of what’s coming.
“So, let’s step into our hula-hoops.”
We do, and I’m instantly uncomfortable.
“Don’t worry, I’m not gonna come at you,” she reads my mind again. “Now, let’s say I just knocked on your door and asked for a cup of sugar.”
I say nothing.
“May I have a cup of sugar?” she prods.
“Oh...Sure?”
Beverly laughs. “I know it feels silly, but I promise there’s a point! Okay, so you gave me my sugar; I’m so grateful!”
I laugh uneasily, she bends down to push our hula-hoops together slightly, forming a kind of Venn diagram, and we stand just two feet apart.
“Okay, so now I’m knocking on your door again. Charlotte, Charlotte, I need a babysitter; can you help me out tonight?”
“Sure, I like babysitting…”
“Great!” She kicks her hula-hoop closer to mine, then takes a step forward. We’re one foot apart; I can practically feel her breath, so I take a step back to the edge of my hula-hoop.
“Charlotte, Charlotte, you’re so nice! Could you give me a lift to work this morning? It’s only a ten-minute drive; I could give you some gas money later this week.”
“Um, I guess so…”
“Okay, now look down at your feet, where you’re standing. See what happened?”
Beverly’s hula-hoop is almost completely on top of mine, and while she remains standing inside both circles, my feet are just outside the hula-hoops. I had stepped out without even noticing.
“See, you lost yourself.”
“Oh. Shit.” The fist is now clenched in my throat and I can’t look at Beverly.
“I think before you can really know why you’re here, you need to find your hula-hoop and step back into it.”
Amazingly, this makes perfect sense. Maybe I can’t say that I’m depressed out loud, can’t claim it as my own or admit to being hospitalized, but I still keep stepping away from myself anyway. I guess I don’t have “big adult language,” either. Maybe that’s why I fit so well in the children’s library, why one of my best friend’s is a seven-year-old, and why I’m now placing my trust with a therapist who specializes in play therapy. In about seven sessions from now, this therapist with an office full of hula-hoops, jump ropes, masquerade masks, bouncy balls, and picture books will be the one who correctly diagnoses me as ADHD, something missed by four therapists before her. I won’t tell her outright about my past and all my ghosts, or the present and how sometimes I still don’t want to be here. Through talk and “play” therapy, she will water these stubborn seeds over time until they sprout into quiet confessions. And when they do, therapy will finally feel like growth.
After making a second appointment and saying goodbye to Beverly, I drive out of Harmony Hill and head toward home. The road is just as black as the night sky, which normally depresses me, but tonight it’s okay. The moon just outside my window doesn’t feel like a sad, lonely bulb of dull light in the dark. Instead, the full moon glows, reminding me of the sun, and I drive home singing one of my favorite Story Time songs from the library: “Oh, Mr. Sun, Sun, Mr. Golden Sun. Please shine down on me…”
Charlotte Lauer (she/her) received her MFA from Georgia College and she lives in Milledgeville, Georgia with her wife, four cats, two Chihuahuas, and tarantula. She has taught English composition and introduction to creative writing at Georgia College and is now pursuing teaching K-12 as a fourth grade ELA teacher. Her work is forthcoming in Peatsmoke.