“It’s too tight,” I tell her.
“Excuse me?” she asks.
“Your, uh…” I motion toward my own hair with my index finger and she lifts the front of the wig just a little. “Huh,” she says. “I guess I can cancel that MRI. I thought I had some sort of berry aneurism or something.”
I glance back toward the medical degrees on her wall. “…and you’re a doctor?” I ask.
“You get so used to things sometimes, you don’t even realize they’re what’s hurting you,” she says.
It’s strange, but I find myself chuckling. “Did you really put on that wig just so you could make that point and have it seem super insightful?” I ask.
She smiles at me, “While being ‘super insightful’ is, indeed my goal, I’m really quite serious. What things from your past do you still hold onto?” she asks. “Yours was a difficult childhood from the sound of things. What haven’t you been able to let go?”
“Chris?” I ask. “I don’t know. Am I just supposed to abandon my brother?”
“You didn’t mention a brother,” she says. “Let’s talk about that.”
“That’s not why I’m here,” I lie.
“From the sound of it, it’s exactly why you’re here,” she says. “That fight you got into—the match where you say you ‘lost your head,’ what happened during the week leading up to that night?”
“I don’t know,” I tell her. “I mean, Chris got arrested and everything, but that can’t be the only thing that went into what happened. I’ve been expecting that my entire life.”
“Maybe you should go,” she says out of nowhere. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe therapy isn’t something that’s going to be a positive for you. Thanks for coming in,” she says. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be more help.”
“What are you talking about?” I almost yell. “We’re just starting to get into this and now you’re telling me that therapy isn’t going to work? What kind of doctor are you?”
“I’m saying this won’t work if you’re not going to be honest with me,” she says. “A lot of people would be happy to have you waste their time. I suppose I can understand the draw of sitting back and collecting a couple hundred dollars to hear someone cover everything, but I got into this because I actually wanted to help people. If you’re not ready to fit into that kind of category, there’s really nothing I can do for you. The only ethical thing for me to do at this point is to say ‘thanks, but no thanks.’ If we can’t be honest with each other, it’s best that you go.”
“In w
hat way am I not being honest?” I ask.
She shakes her head a little, saying, “You’re not being honest with me, but you’re also not being honest with yourself. You’re not here because you want to change. You’re here because your girlfriend might break up with you if you weren’t. Isn’t that true?”
“No,” I answer. “She laid down the law, sure, but I’m here because I realized she was right. I do need something. What happened in that fight—”
“So you’re here because you want to be here?” she asks.
“I don’t know if ‘want’ is the right word right now, but yeah,” I answer.
She nods. “Okay,” she says. “Continue, but this time, let’s focus on the feelings.”
“Oh god,” I groan.
“Hey, finally a real reaction from you,” she says. “I thought the stuff with the wig was the only bit of that I was going to see this hour.”
“Do you have some kind of problem with me I don’t know about?” I ask. “Did I sleep with a relative of yours and not call or something?”
“There’s no need to be hostile,” Dr. Sadler says. “I’m just assessing your mental state.”
“My mental state?” I ask. “What are you even talking about?”
“We’ll come back to that,” she says. “Now, if you had to pick the top three emotions, the three emotions that you felt more than anything else during those minutes or seconds when you said you weren’t in control, what would they be?”
“I don’t know,” I tell her. “I wasn’t feeling anything.”
“I don’t believe you,” she says.