Boredom

I look at the clock. Camilla is now 15 minutes late for her session. I’m not surprised. She’s been consistently late for every session since we started working together several weeks ago. She always apologizes, always has some reason – the car wouldn’t start, she got a last minute phone call, the traffic was bad. 

Finally I see the red light that signals a patient is in my waiting room. 

“I’m sorry,” she says, breathless. “I told myself I’d be on time today. But my Mom called and was telling me I needed to call my Grandmother. I know I should. I love my Grandmother, but I don’t like talking to her on the phone. It’s boring. She asks the same questions – how’s my job, have I met any nice boys, am I going out with my friends. Boring!”

“What makes it boring?” I ask and then immediately regret my question. I want to talk to her about her lateness. Or at least ask her what she means by boring. 

“I told you,” she replies, crossing and uncrossing her legs, combing her fingers through her long brown hair. “She always asks the same questions. My job is fine, I haven’t met anyone and, yes, I go out with my friends.”

We sit in silence for a few seconds until she says, “What? You think I should call my Grandmother?”

I shrug my shoulder. “I think that’s up to you.”

She sighs. “I wish my mother felt like that.”

Silence.

“What?” she asks again. “Aren’t you going to ask me anything?”

“What do you feel in the silence?” I ask.

“What?”

“What do you feel in the silence?”

“Like we’re wasting time, not getting anywhere.”

“That’s what you’re thinking, what are you feeling?”

“I don’t know.” Pause. “Bored I guess.”

“Sounds like it’s easy for you to feel bored.”

“Yeah, I guess,” she says fidgeting in the chair. “I don’t like sitting still. I don’t like quiet. I need to have stuff going on. That’s why I like my job at Saks, even though my parents say they didn’t pay for me to go to college for me to work at Saks. But there are people around and all those great clothes. Even if we have no customers I can walk around picking out clothes, holding them against me, deciding if I see something I really, really want. Although that’s frustrating because I can’t afford most of that stuff anyway, even with the employee discount. Not until my parents give me an allowance again. They say they’re paying for my apartment and until I get a real job that’s all I get.” Pause. “But I’ve told you all this already. What else should we talk about?” she asks, glancing at the clock.

“Do you have any thoughts about why you looked at the clock just then?”

“I don’t know. I guess because I’m bored and because time is just crawling by.”

Ah ha, I think. “Camilla, do you think it’s possible that you’re consistently late here because 45 minutes feels like a long time to sit and talk to me?”

She looks startled. Then smiles. “Yeah! 45 minutes is a long time! I never sit for 45 minutes. It’s why I always nix going to the movies. Who can sit for two hours watching a dumb movie?”

“So you come late so you don’t have to sit so long?”

“Yeah. But it’s not like I decide to come late. It just happens.”

“I understand. But it may ‘just happen’ because you unconsciously don’t want be here for the full session.”

“I suppose.”

“Is there any other reason you might want not to come here?”

“I don’t know. What are you getting at?”

“Well, I was wondering if coming here is kind of like calling your Grandmother. You feel you should do it. You know your parents want you to do it. But maybe it’s not really something you want to do.”

“Maybe,” she says shrugging.

“You’re 25 years old, Camilla. You don’t have to be here if you don’t want to.”

“I know,” she says looking down. “But I have to do some of the things my parents ask.”

“I think it would be important for you and for us to know what it is that you want to do.”  

“I don’t know what I want to do! That’s why I’m here.”

“Does that mean you’re not only being an obedient child by coming here, but that you do want help figuring yourself out?”

“I guess.”

“That doesn’t sound too certain.”

“Can we make the sessions 30 minutes?”

“No. My schedule is based on 45 minute sessions. And, besides, if you decide you want to come, I think it would be good for us to work on what makes it so difficult for you to be still, on what you feel underneath what you call boredom. And perhaps we could look at your lateness – or being on time – as a message about how you’re feeling about me and the therapy. That’s if you decide to continue. And that’s something you will have to decide.”

The New Year

Heather blows her nose and rubs her very red eyes. “I feel as though all I’ve been doing since the New Year is crying,” she says. “I was sure Rob was it. I even thought he might propose on New Year’s Eve. Instead I just sat there waiting for him. Eventually I got panicked and started calling hospitals. He was always punctual. I don’t know why he couldn’t just call and tell me!”

“There you sound angry,” I say.

“I guess. But I can’t hold on to the anger. Mostly I just feel sad. And I think really stupid things like ‘it’s such a waste’ or ‘he was pretty good in bed.’ I know that’s ridiculous, he is who he is and that’s that.” Pause. “Except that I love him,” she exclaims, crying. “And I thought he loved me. When he finally got the nerve to call on New Year’s Day, he gave me that old line, he loves me but isn’t in love with me. Thought he could make it work until he met Brad and they just clicked. I had the sense they practically fell into bed two minutes after they met. And there I had one of those awful thoughts again. I was going to say, isn’t that what gay men do? I don’t want to be thinking that. That’s not who I am. I’m the most tolerant, liberal person around.”

“Perhaps that’s your anger speaking.”

“Maybe.” Pause. “This isn’t the first time,” she says softly.

“Isn’t the first time …?”

“I was involved with another man who realized he was gay. We weren’t quite as serious as Rob and I, but we’d been going together for a while.” Pause. “I’m not sure why I never told you. It was a pretty big deal to me, especially at the time. And now it’s happened again.”

“What are your thoughts about not telling me about the first man?”

“I’ve thought about it. I think I was ashamed. Ashamed that I wasn’t enough of a woman to hold onto a man. Or maybe ashamed of being a woman, that being a woman in and of itself isn’t enough.” Pause. “I think my mother thought that. I wasn’t enough and she wasn’t enough.”

“Enough for what?”

She shrugs. “Enough to be successful in the world, enough to be smart and educated and intellectual like my father. Enough to hold my father’s interest. He was never interested in her. He’d rather sit around with his fellow professors and have philosophical discussions. You know, I’ve told you, as a family we kind of weren’t. We all went our own way. My father paid attention to me when he wanted to impart some tidbit of knowledge, otherwise I was just kind of there. As for my Mom, we never talked, not even when we went on vacation. Just the two of us. My father never came.”

Heather continues. “You know. I wonder if there’s a connection between my not feeling like enough and choosing – unconsciously choosing – gay men. Almost like – this is ridiculous too – they’re less of a man and I’m less of a woman, so maybe I’d be able to hold onto them.”

“What was it like for you sexually, Heather? Did you feel like less of a woman in bed? Did you feel they were lesser men?”

“They weren’t lesser men. Rob was a very attentive lover, always wanting to please me. In fact, he embarrassed me. He wanted me to tell him what it felt like, what I felt when he’d do one thing or another. I didn’t like all that focus on my body. It embarrassed me, made me self-conscious. He’d always satisfy me, always. That made me uncomfortable too because he didn’t always … umm … ejaculate.”

“And the other man?”

“Now I’m really embarrassed.” Pause. “That was different. That was a lot rougher. Sometimes he’d tie my hands and like take me really hard and fast. It was a turn-on. For both of us. When he told me he was gay I asked him about our sex, about how exciting it seemed for both of us. He said it made him realize how much he wanted done to him what he did to me. That made me feel less than. I couldn’t do what he wanted, not only because I didn’t have a penis, but because I just couldn’t. I couldn’t be that aggressive.”

Heather pauses and then continues. “So what am I saying, that I’m not enough of a woman because I’m not a man? Wow! That’s wild. That’s messed up.”

“You’ve described your father as the source of power in the family, the person both you and your mother hoped to ‘interest,’ so it’s not surprising that only maleness feels like enough. How that relates to your choosing gay men isn’t clear – at least to me – and something we’ll have to continue talking about.”

“Definitely. I’m not interested in repeating this for a third time.”  

I Lied

A tall, too-thin, young blonde woman looks up at me with beseeching eyes when I open my waiting room door. She does not return my smile. Slowly, tentatively she walks to my office and waits until I gesture for her to sit, which she does almost reluctantly, teetering at the edge of the chair.

Oh, oh, I think to myself. This young woman is in trouble and probably means trouble for me as well.

She looks down at the floor, pulling at her fingers. Anxiety fills the room.

“Bethany,” I begin, planning to ask what has brought her to therapy.

At the sound of her name, she flinches.

“That’s not my name,” she says, practically whispering.

For a moment I’m confused. Did I misremember the name she gave me on the phone?

“I lied,” she says.

“You lied about your name?” I ask, surprised. In all the years I’ve been doing therapy, I don’t think anyone has lied about her name.

She nods, still looking down at the floor.

I wait.

“My name’s Belinda,” she says.

Belinda I think to myself, an unusual name. Tall, thin, blonde. The pieces fall into place. “You’re Chelsea’s friend,” I say.

“You have to see me,” she says raising her head, her eyes now boring into mine. “I’ve seen lots of therapists over the years. I knew you wouldn’t see me if I told you I was Chelsea’s friend, so I lied. I planned to lie for a while, until we had a relationship going, but I was too afraid. I didn’t think I could pull it off.”

I’m swimming in conflicting thoughts and feelings, and suspect that my confusion mirrors Bethany’s – I mean Belinda’s. Why is Belinda so determined to see me? What does it mean about her 

relationship to Chelsea? Why did she choose subterfuge and then immediately abandon it?

“Why don’t you say something?” she asks.

“I guess because I’m feeling confused and uncertain what to say or do, much as I imagine you often feel yourself.”

Belinda’s face lights up. “Yes! That’s exactly how I feel. I knew you’d be the only one who could understand me.”

Immediate idealization always followed by falling off the pedestal. But it can never get that far. I need to extricate myself from this situation as soon as possible for, as Belinda correctly surmised, I cannot treat both Chelsea and Belinda. They are good friends, both disturbed young women with eating disorders. They’re also extremely competitive with each other. I can just imagine the jostling that would occur as each tried to win my favor. Way too complicated for me to ever consider.

“I assume, Belinda, that Chelsea doesn’t know you came to see me,” I say.

“You’re not going to see me,” Belinda says, tearing up.

“No, Belinda, I’m not going to see you, but I would like for us to understand why it was so important that you see Chelsea’s therapist. There are many good therapists I could refer you to, why did you want it to be me?”

“It has to be you!”

“Because?”

“Because of how much you’ve helped Chelsea.”

“That could be one reason you want to see me. Might there be others?”

Silent tears pour down Belinda’s cheeks. In the next second she’s beating her fist into her thigh, her face contorted with rage.

“Stop it!” I say. “Stop it and tell me what you’re feeling.”

“I always, always lose. I hate myself! I hate myself! I’m never good enough!”

“Belinda, I know almost nothing about you, but I do know that today you set yourself up to lose. You knew coming in that I wouldn’t see you when I’m already treating one of your best friends.”

“We could keep it a secret,” she says interrupting.

“You know I’m not going keep a secret from a patient. You wouldn’t want your therapist to keep a secret from you. Is there something that happened between you and Chelsea that made you suddenly decide you wanted to be my patient?”

She shakes her head no.

“Is there something that happened in your life?”

“My sister got engaged.”

“So you felt that your sister won over you and you thought maybe you could win over Chelsea.”

She nods. “But of course I couldn’t. I always lose.”

“But again, Chelsea, with me, you set yourself up to lose and I think that’s something important for you to understand. Can I give you the name and phone number of a therapist I think you’d work well with?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, why don’t I give it to you and hopefully you’ll think about it and give her a call.”

Mix and Match

“I’m so glad to be back here, back at college, back where I don’t feel like such a freak,” Adam says relaxing into the chair. “I knew the summer would be rough, but I had no idea how rough. In Boca Raton I might get stared at for being black and yes sometimes I have to laugh to myself when I walk along the street and see these little old white ladies make sure their car doors are locked, but being gay in Savannah, Georgia, now that’s tough! And add Alex into the mix and then my family and it’s pure hell.”  

“Alex was with you?” I ask confused.

“Yeah, I know, that wasn’t part of the plan. But we got lonely for each other. Figured he could find some kind of work as easy in Savannah as Baltimore.”

“But I thought you weren’t out to your parents.”

“I wasn’t. Past tense. Didn’t plan to come out when Alex came down either. But after a while my Mom started wondering how come I was so close to this white dude that he’d come for a visit and then sort of move in. Besides, I’m sure we were giving off these vibes. Hard for us to keep our hands off each other. Not that we were having sex in my parent’s house. I wouldn’t be that stupid.

“Anyway, she flipped out. Said she didn’t care if it was legal in the courts. She knew God didn’t consider it right. And of course she told my Pop and then all hell broke loose. By brother freaked too. I think he’s afraid it’s contagious. Pop pretty much didn’t talk to me the whole summer. And Alex had to move out. A friend of mine let him stay at his house for next to no money, so that worked out okay.” 

“You know, Adam, I wonder if you didn’t want to come out to your parents.”

“You mean because I had Alex come down?”

“Yeah. As you said. He’s white, you could hardly keep your hands off each other and you couldn’t help giving off sexual vibes.”

Adam frowns and stares at me. “It wasn’t only sexual vibes. Loving vibes too.”

“I’m sure that’s true.”

“Are you sure?”

“You’re asking if I made the usual assumption about gay men, that it’s all about sex.”

“Yeah. Were you?” 

“That’s hard for me to answer, Adam. I’d say that consciously, no, I wasn’t making that assumption, but unconsciously, it’s impossible for me to know. I also wonder if I would have made the same assumption about a heterosexual couple who was twenty years old.”

“I’m sorry. I know you’re not homophobic. I guess I’m just hypersensitive given all I’ve been through this summer.”

“Nothing to apologize for. There’s plenty of gay prejudice out there, just like there’s plenty of racial prejudice. I couldn’t swear I’m free of all of it. For that matter, we don’t know if you’re free of all of it. Hard not to take in society’s attitudes and end up feeling less yourself.”  

“You know, maybe that’s another reason I wanted Alex to come down. Even though I wasn’t out to my parents, I could see how people looked at me, my “brothers.” I could feel the contempt. Maybe I started feeling less than. Maybe I wanted someone who I knew loved me to be with me.”

“That’s a really good point, Adam. And maybe that’s another reason you wanted to come out to your parents. Maybe you hoped they’d love you enough to accept you even if you’re gay.”

“It’s not that I think they don’t love me. Or at least I know my Mom does. I don’t know about my Dad. But I don’t know if I expected them to accept my gayness. It’s a lot to ask of black Christian folks from the south.”

“You know, Adam, I have very mixed feelings about what you just said. On the one hand, it’s very adult and reasonable for you to be able to step back and accept your parent’s prejudice given who they are as people and where they come from. But there’s another side. If you were born blind, or with one leg, or with a low IQ, would you feel it was all right if your parents couldn’t accept that about you or is your willingness to “understand” their rejecting your gayness, another example of how a part of you still rejects your gayness yourself?”

“Wow! That’s heavy! I’ll have to think about that.” Adam smiles. “I love being here, doc. You always get me to think about things in different ways. As I said, I’m real glad to be back.”