The first counselors part II

A story of a young man's perceptions as he enters the world of psychological counseling written in the first person.

  The clock on the dashboard of my fathers Buick glowed 7:50pm. I had been in counseling for eight months and had seen two or three different counselors. None of them seemed the least bit interested in getting to know me. They all had their opinions about me and acted as if they already knew me inside and out. Every comment I made and even how I sat in a chair was met with some commentary explaining how my behavior was ‘exposing’ some hidden problem. They never told me what these so called problems were that they were accusing me of hiding. I often felt like we were playing a game of cat and mouse: they would make some arbitrary comments and I was supposed to respond accordingly. I learned to detest these so called psychologists.

 

  I had an 8 o’clock appointment with a new counselor that evening and I learned from experience not to be late. I was late once and the counselor read me the riot act for fifteen minutes straight. He would go on a rant about my lack of self respect and then suddenly stop and stare me down like he was waiting for a response. When I didn’t respond according the way he wanted me to the rant would begin anew. I sat in the parking lot listening to the radio until 7:58 and then got out of the car and walked slowly towards the entrance of a brown two story brick building. The office directory in the lobby listed the names of dentists, doctors and other various professionals. I looked for the name of the person I was to going to see this evening. His office was on the second floor and was listed as a ‘youth therapist and counselor’. I cringed at the phrase ‘youth therapist’ and thought for a long minute about leaving. “I didn’t need a therapist” I told myself. “There’s nothing wrong with me, I’m just misunderstood” I thought to myself as I stared at his name on the directory. I felt after the first few sessions that these guys were just out to beat me down. My father told me this many times and I chose to agree with him this one time. In addition to being late I had called out ‘sick’ several times before, and my probation officer warned me sternly against doing so again. She told me that since I was nearing the age of 18, if I violated my probation in any way including skipping out on counseling sessions that I would wind up in jail. She made it clear that I would not go to a juvenile detention center but to an actual jail full of adult inmates. The thought of jail and what might happen to me in jail finally gave me the courage to enter the building and walk up the stairs to the second floor.

 

  He had a receptionist in his office but she, I automatically assumed it was a woman and not a man, had already gone home for the evening. I was alone in this reception area but not for long. At the sound of the outer door closing he came out of an inner office wearing a white dress shirt with the collar unbuttoned and no tie. All of the other counselors I had seen up to this point were very conservative in their dress and were wearing ties and suit coats and they looked more like funeral directors that people who were there to help me. He was in his shirtsleeves with no jacket. He looked like he had a long day and I feared the worst: I feared that this man was going to make me pay for whatever wrongs had occurred earlier in his obviously long and tiring day. He walked up to me and without smiling said “you must be Robert”. He held out his hand to shake hands with me and I responded with a very limp attempt at a hand shake. He gave me a smile and said “come on, you can do better than that” and he asked me to shake his hand again. I shook his hand a second time like my father had taught me. I was now scared but I gripped his hand firmly and he smiled again and said that was better. He asked me to come into his inner office and asked me to sit down in a nice leather chair. The others merely pointed to some furniture that looked like it came from a Salvation Army warehouse. I looked around the room and saw a picture of the Golden Gate Bridge. On another wall was a painting of the Chicago skyline. His office was different from the others in a way that I could not explain, but it was different. I felt like I was somehow welcome there. I felt safe in his office. The other counselors had offices had seemed to be depressing and void of any life. Then he asked me something that none of the other counselors ever dared to ask: “do you want something to drink Robert? I have a cold can of Pepsi you can have”. I was confused. The other counselors had tried to intimidate me and scare me, with one even going so far as to looking me in the eye and asking me if I was “scared s**t less”. Here was this man I had never met, seeing me on the orders of a judge, being nice to me. I opted for a glass of water which he produced from some unseen back room, and we began to talk.

 

  He had a file in front of him and I assumed it was all about me and whatever perceptions the other counselors had of me. Full of lies I thought to myself. I felt sad and suddenly all alone in this room. The he suppressed me for the second time that evening and asked me to tell him why I was there. More specifically, he wanted to know what I did to get arrested and why I was on probation. It suddenly seemed as if no one had told this man what I had done: nobody told him about all of the lives I had put at risk in my hometown by pulling fire alarms and tying up the police and fire department. Nobody had told him of their perceptions of me and my mental state. I knew I had to be honest with him but I also felt for the first time that I had some little measure of control. He wanted me to tell him, on my own terms, what I had done and why I was seeing him. Up to this point I felt as if these counselors were out to do nothing more that break me down and strip me of all control. Maybe this guy was different I thought. Maybe I wasn’t such a bad person like the other counselors had implied, or at least I felt as if they were implying. Maybe he could help me, or at least not hurt me. Maybe I wouldn’t go home feeling beaten down and cry tonight. Maybe there was light at the end of this long and painful tunnel, and it wasn’t a train coming the other way.

Author's Note

This is part two of a five part series I wrote earlier in the year. It is possibly going to morph into a larger manuscript I am thinking about, possibly called 'growing up bi polar'