Whether you’re crazy like Ophelia or grotesquely sane, it’s my opinion that almost anybody could benefit from a good therapist. Most people like talking about themselves. There is something inherently wrong with a person who does not like talking about himself. Still, of course, the trick there is that it has to be a good therapist. I’ve been to a therapist. Not recently.

I have a friend with a sleeping disorder who has been through about ten therapists. She convinces me that she is not picky, she is discriminating. She has about 10 years worth of information and resources about sleeping disorders and I keep trying to persuade her to write a book. I know that she could. And I know that it would sell. But secretly I don’t want her to. I don’t want her to publish a book before I do. It’s not such a big secret anymore if she reads this. But she won’t blame me for it, and she knows I think she’s wonderful.

I was a therapist for a while. Sort of. I worked at a Distress Centre. I was trained for a couple of months. And my trainers and coaches thought that I was quite good. But I had two significant troubles. I always caught the overnight shifts. And while I was never supposed to be alone, I always was. My scheduled partner, a different person each time, always canceled. And it’s a little creepy to be sitting in a room all night alone waiting for the phone to ring. The other trouble: I kept these people’s troubles. I carried them around with me for days. And when I had nearly expunged them, it was time for another shift. On my eighth or ninth all-nighter shift alone, I had decided that I had had it. My very first call started thusly, “I have a knife.” He said he was a bisexual and that he wanted to hurt himself. But after about ten minutes he put me on hold for about a minute to sing along with Rick Ashley. Nobody who really wanted to kill themselves would wait a couple of extra minutes to sing along to a Rick Ashley song. Although I might imagine that Rick Ashley might incite more suicides than prevent them.

I had two therapists. Neither of them was very much good. The first one was assigned to me after I had a bad reaction whilst chain smoking in a Bingo parlor. I suppose this was deemed as a cry for help. I still don’t think that it was. I learned very little. My therapist kept trying to blame all of my failures, or rather, kept trying to get me to blame all of my failures on my father. And when I wouldn’t, she got increasingly aggravated.

My second therapist, years later, was a sketchy old frumpy version of Sigmund. And he kept trying to coerce me into blaming everything on my smothering mother. When I wouldn’t be dragged too deeply into that swamp, he got frustrated and lost interest. I, as well. We had less than five sessions. I also remember that Frumpy Freud kept gnawing on the end of his glasses whilst periodically pushing tissues toward me even though I never showed any signs of crying.

It might take a lot to make me cry. I’m all stopped up and, as with Hamlet, only fiction makes me cry.

SS