"The Consultation"

Consultation my ass! How about the f&#$king Spanish Inquisition????? As I sat in The Good Doctor's private office, all my powers of observation came to a grinding halt. No time to look around and decide if TGD had that Feng Shui thing going. Not that I'm known for my sense of design anyway, but I actually don't remember what the office decor actually looked like on that first visit. My attention was completely drawn to TGD, or rather, what she was saying. I couldn't even describe her after that first visit. Maybe my friends were right, that I was totally self absorbed and never thought of anyone else. Hmmm... better watch that attribute or I really will turn into Mary Martino Jr.
But I tried so hard NOT to be like her. If I didn't think of me and what was good for me, who would? There was no one else looking out for me.

TGD was pleasant and led me into her office. Pleasant but not patronizing and got right to the point, what brought me here.

How about a lifetime of being a freak, not just in a circus, but in every day life?
How about feeling that you don't belong to any gender, group, or any other entity on the planet? How about always feeling you're walking on a tight rope and having no net below you? No, I couldn't say that out loud, but I was thinking it. In time, if she was good, she could guess I felt this way, or so I hoped.

Instead I rattled off what I had been practicing since last week when I made the appointment.

" Well, Dr. as I mentioned on the phone, I found I recently that a member of my family molested a teenager and ultimately caused her to take her own life. This in turn made me think back to my childhood and the sexual abuse I had endured. I mentioned this for the first time ever at a friend's house and she thought it would be a good idea if I talked about this with someone." That was my spiel. That should be clear enough.

TGD surprised me by stating that many adults do not talk about their sexual abuse and it is not uncommon to keep it to one's self. Also, that some therapists were not properly educated or prepared to handle the larger issues at hand re: sexual abuse and it's life long debilitating effects on the adult. The repercussions of sexual abuse were enormous and the shame followed the abused throughout their lives when in reality, they never owned the shame. The perpetrator did. Perpetrator.

Perpetrator. That was a word used for criminals. That was also a word that opened up the floodgates. That was a word that changed my life forever, that day, in that office with TGD.

One word and the walls start to come down, like dominoes. One word. And I would never be able to look at anything the same way again. God damn Doctor. In the course of one 45 minute consultation my life had changed forever and the saddest and scariest part was that I didn't know what would actually happen next. I felt like a cartoon character falling off a cliff and waiting for something to save you. A branch or rock you could grab onto. Something, anything that would break your fall. Why was I feeling this way all of a sudden?

Then the questions. What makes you so upset about this? What does it make you think about? Who does it make you think about? What are you thinking right now? Who hurt you?

Who hurt you? No one ever asked me that and meant it. Now there was a loaded question. Too many questions from TGD with oh so many answers that I didn't think anyone would believe, much less listen to.

But I was wrong.