Nov 23 2007
Beyond the atrium…
Yesterday was my first counselling appointment. I didn’t want to go. I mean, I really didn’t. As the time got closer, I had to force myself to take a shower and find the paperwork and in the end, I left ten minutes before the appointment, feeling panicked and still unable to find the address. Driving there in Big Sis’ car, only knowing that it was next to the hospital, I think I didn’t want to be able to find it. I think I wanted to be able to go home and cry about not being able to find it. I think I wanted to go home and call and cry to whoever answered the phone so I could make not being there someone else’s problem.
But there it was, the Integrated Health Center, looming large and unavoidable. I didn’t have a dollar to pay for parking so I found some dirt behind the bus stop across the road. By the time I reached the doors, tears were already straining and I handed my appointment notice to the receptionist saying, I don’t know where to go, so quietly that I don’t know how she heard me.
Go upstairs and wait in the foyer, I’ll let her know you’re here.
The foyer was a gaping atrium, a large, open, central space, full of people coming and going, the doors to rooms and the elevator constantly opening and closing, staff laughing, running out for coffee. And there were seats, hard up against the wall, with no where to turn away from it all. The tension just grew and I couldn’t stop the tears from falling, exposed in that light and every moment interminable. I watched the clock. I wondered how long I would have to wait before I could justifiably leave. I wondered when I could just say, I’ve been here an hour and I’m leaving, making a dramatic exit and, again, placing the burden of my failure on someone else’s shoulder. Then the counsellor came, and I rose only to hear that they were still looking for a room. Okay, I said in the smallest voice as I sank back into the chair.
When she returned and we crossed the floor to one of the closed-off corridors, she asked me something, I can’t even remember what, and whatever my answer was, no sound came out at all. My words just moved the air and by the time we got to the room, where a second counsellor sat, nothing was left to restrain my sobbing. We got a few of the basic formalities out of the way, me in my smallest voice, and many tissues later I explained that I found the situation confronting. When they asked what they could do to make me more comfortable, I said, Just talk to me like an normal, intelligent human being. Which they did. Sort of.
Part of me wants to record here all the I-Said, She-Saids, because in truth it feels a little like a dream that I’m clutching to recall the strains of. But it doesn’t really matter. Counsellors 1 and 2, who I’ll call Counsel and Miss Symp, were very different. From those pseudonyms it’s fairly obvious who I liked.
Miss Symp spoke in a carefully modulated tone, drawing out all her words, her pitch slightly raised as though talking to a baby and each sentence ending with with a subtle, inquiring inflection. I hated it.
When I was a child, I had a kidney disorder, which meant 9 years of catheters and daily antibiotics and radiologists and specialists. I will never forget the last specialist, who spoke in such condescending tones to me. I loathed him, I was arrogantly rude to him (even at age ten) and the thing I remember most was his use of the word “panties”, which seems to be a common term in the US but here it is a word only used for children. I ranted and raved each time I left his consulting rooms. My mother tried to explain that he didn’t know that my vocabulary was probably larger than his.
I hate been talked down to, I hate being treated as fragile and I hate synthetic sympathy. It repels me. It does not engage my emotions. Have you noticed how Miss Symp implies simpering as much as sympathy?
I realise this says more about my character than it does about her, and I recognise the intention. I even recognise that for others, this may be exactly the tone of voice they need to hear. But not me. Me, it just aggravates.
And the content was no better. In the end, she became almost unintelligible. I could grasp nothing of what she was saying. She said something about addressing the brakes (breaks?) before dealing with the gears, or the situation, or something. I still have no idea what she was talking about. Like other counsellors, she repeated back to me the things I was saying but I was sensitive to every misspoken word. She had all the hallmarks of listening, but she wasn’t listening. And she pressed me about motherhood with, But really…, and, You must…, in spite of the clarity with which I expressed my love for Caspar, and my confidence as a mother.
While I recognise that patients (or whatever we are) don’t always know the truth or speak the truth, all the visual and auditory cues were there for her to understand. She spoke in nothings, repeating the same nothing words and phrases over and over again. In the end, I had to challenge her to speak plainly when she expressed concerns about my level of distress and said we needed to deal with the distress before we could work on changing the situation. Was she telling me I should be taking anti-depressants? Of course not. She’s not a doctor. But what was she saying? That question was never answered. It was deflected with you knows what best what you need and affirmations of how well I was doing to have been emboldened to ask for help.
What use is that? I know that I am the only one who can fix myself. If all Miss Symp can do is say, There, there…, and tell me things I already know, really, what use is that? At that point, I shut down to her completely.
Counsel, on the other hand, spoke to me just like a normal person. She laughed when it was appropriate, she smiled, she asked relevant questions which opened up the conversation. Like Miss Symp, she was supportive, but not in such a practised, generic way. She responded to me, she gathered information she needed. She treated me as an equal, instead of just paying lip service to me.
I know that seems a harsh interpretation of Miss Symp. I really don’t mean to impugn her but I can honestly say, if she had been the only counsellor there, I might have forced myself to go back but it would only have taken one or two appointments for me to develop a fury and frustration that would lead me never to return.
I’m glad that they had two counsellors present. I think it’s important that after that first encounter, there will be two perspectives to decide on a path for me. Counselling cannot avoid subjectivity so it’s good that there is a system for checks and balances. I can’t help but wonder, though, whether part of the purpose is to see who is the best fit for the person needing help. If that is so, I think it is wonderful luxury to have that burden taken from me. How many people who need help seek it out only to reject when it comes in the wrong form and then never ask again?
I am grateful for my two counsellors. In a fortnight, I will be going back, to see only Counsel, and I know that I will not experience that dread again, that I will not be crying in the atrium while I wait. I know that the light streaming in from that domed glass will feel like a little ray of hope. Now, there is a little space for me to heal myself.
