Appomattox

If you don't know from Appomattox, go look it up. And never admit to anyone that you didn't know from Appomattox.

So My Therapist and I met in his office (free...still 50 minutes) to discuss the events of our previous session in which I heard him offer an invitation to develop a "....romantic, erotic relationship" with him (for 50 minutes, once a week at the rate of $110 per 50 minutes). To be fair, he would point out that this was in the interest of "transference", a psychological term of fluctuating definition, evidently. The afore-mentioned invitation was, in his words, issued to invite me to lavish upon him all of my romantic, erotic (short of sexual...go figure) behaviors and tendencies and he would, in return, affirm me as lovable, kind and good. This would, admittedly, be a switch from past dating scenarios. Then again, they didn't cost me $110 per 50 minutes.

During this free session, My Therapist offered an apology for having freaked me out. (I tried writing that sentence three different ways so that it wouldn't end in a preposition. It reminds me of the old joke:)

A Yankee lady and a Southern Belle met on an elevator. The Yankee asked the Belle, "From where are you visiting?" The Belle responded, "Mobile, thanks for asking!" A moment of silence passed and the Belle inquired, "Where are y'all from?"
The Yankee huffed, "Where I'm from, we don't end sentences with prepositions." The Belle didn't miss a beat and rejoined, "I'm so sorry. 'Where are y'all from....bitch?"

My Therapist also noted that I am SO good at being a therapeutic patient that he was unwittingly and against his will "sucked into your(my) drama"...degrees and all. Never let it be rumored that I lack suction. I am so good at getting men to treat me poorly, the explanation goes, that I accidentally got HIM to treat me badly without him even noticing it! It took me a cocktail afterwards to realize that I had just been blamed for his having freaked me out - apology notwithstanding. Once again, I'm too good for my own good. I'm too good at being screwed up to get a pretty good therapist to help me without sucking them down into my own dysfunctional abyss, evidently. If I'd known I had that kind of power, the things I might have accomplished over the last 25 years...

My Therapist complimented me and said that he, perhaps, was so narcissistic in his pride at having such a "star patient" that he pushed too far in the psychoanalytic vein. For this, too, he apologized (and later blamed me, I think).

I understood his professional explanations and am no longer 100% convinced that there was an inappropriate advance made in the name of mental health. I explained, however, that The Relationship Thing is sacred, hallowed ground for me and I don't go there lightly (certainly not for 50 minutes once a week and $110). So it is inconceivable that I would play house, in whatever sense, for all but 6 days, 23 hours and 10 minutes a week. He got my point. I got his. And I'm still taking the summer off. I'll decide in August whether to resume the practice.

He asked me what I thought about a patient who, for 15 years or more, had been in psychoanalysis four days a week. I said, out loud, that I thought that was ludicrous, self-perpetuating and clearly lucrative...for someone. Privately, I thought "That's crazy." But even inside my head, I knew that the humor would be lost in this setting.

I asked, "What, exactly, does this 'erotic' relationship look like?" He said that I would have sex dreams about him, for example and then tell him about them. Or that I would find myself fantasizing about him, sexually, at various times of the day....and tell him about them. I thought that sounded on the outer limits of narcissism. I said, aloud...again, "That's just creepy." I also noted, for the record that I'm not sure is kept, that I have not ever had a sex dream about him. I added that if I'd had one, I would not ever have told him so. (Again, for the record, I haven't.) I did, however, have a dream about one of my doctors in California the first time I was given Vicodin in the hospital. I also once had a dream about Matt Damon the first time I took Sustiva as part of my AIDS cocktail. So I am capable and prone to erotically-tinged dreams about people. But none about him.

I thanked him for the progress and the skills I thought I'd acquired in our time together. We settled up the bill, I wrote the final check, and we shook hands.

I had read, in June's O Magazine in the waiting room, that an anthropologist had held forth on the history of loneliness. His theory was that loneliness had survived a Darwinian-like challenge of existence to be passed through to today's man. The logic goes that it was loneliness that called the Neolithic hunter-gatherer back to the cave where they would share companionship and their meager possessions. The man who was not prone to loneliness, kept going up the mountain and was discovered a jillion years later, caked in ice, and on his way to the Smithsonian for thawing and probing.

I'm done with thawing and probing for the summer, at least. I'm heading back to the cave with my meager possessions and we'll see what the autumn brings. In the meantime, I'll continue to write for my own enjoyment and that of the bewildering number of folks who keep coming back here to gawk. (I'm happy to have you gawk, don't get me wrong. It just amazes me that anyone finds it of interest.)

After Appomattox, I'm sure even Grant took time off to decompress.