Chapter 8
Day One

Today I tried to do a little bit of my own therapy and that means that I cleaned the kitchen. Again I was going to wait and see if anyone else stepped up to the plate to clean it. Of course no one did, how stupid of me. It’s been sitting there, growing like a culture of bacteria, festering and sending fatal pores into the air to slowly kill us. Thus I decided that maybe it was time to put an end to the bacterial reign. I like to do the dishes, I won’t lie about that, but if someone were to walk into the room while I have my music blasting and I am scrubbing away at the pot with burned rice that has been sitting and soaking for over a week they would probably wonder. I mumble to myself, I won’t lie about that either, and sometimes horrible, vile physical threats seethe from my mouth. My roommates must think that I can’t tell which plates, pots, and pans are theirs. But in this they are mistaken. I have cleaned their dishes so many times I could tell you who ate off of what plate, and who cooked what and left it for dead. So I simply have a name, and a face to aim those threats at. So in this respect it may not seem very therapeutic to do this, but I figure whether or not I do the dishes I already know who to blame. I was tempted today to write several things on our white board (message board). Some I won’t mention because of the extent of violence and obscenities, but one was to simply write, “I hate you, I hate you all.” But I felt like that wouldn’t go over so well and people tend to get defensive when you write stuff like that, I’ve had experience in this area. The other one was a warning, that if you can’t be mature enough to clean up after yourselves then maybe you should find another place to eat. Mostly because it is my kitchen now, I have earned it and I will protect it like a newborn baby, slitting throats and stabbing hearts if I must. I wasn’t going to add the end in there, but I really wanted to.
Complimenting me does not lessen my anger that is well kindled against my roommates. In fact it makes it worse, because then I know that they noticed, and yet they don’t do anything to keep it nice. F-ing (edited for your eyes) slobs.
On that note, today was my first day of therapy. About an hour before my appointment I started to feel sick, I wanted to throw-up and die. The feeling is actually worse than when you go to the dentist. It’s more of like when you already know you have a cavity and you are laying in the chair with your head far lower than the rest of your body and some bright light shining in your face, and you are waiting with q-tips sticking out of mouth for that long nova cane needle. You already know it’s going to be bad, it’s just a matter of when is it going to start. As I approached the building that the counseling center is located in my legs turned to Jell-O and it was a struggle to get myself in that door, and a bigger struggle not to pass out as I climbed the stairs. I don’t feel like I have a problem with climbing stairs on a regular basis, but today I felt as though I hadn’t had any physical activity in years, and climbing these steps was my first attempt. When I walked into the “lobby” my friend was sitting there reading a magazine so I quickly sat by her and started talking to her. We didn’t share why either of us was there and that was okay with me, she agreed about the dentist feeling though. Then I realized that maybe this place ran like a doctor’s or dentist office so I should probably check in. I had to fill out some paper work, some of the questions I just didn’t understand, one was if I did anything impulsive or that caused harm to other people, does cutting my hair count as impulsive? Or at least does it count as the level of impulsivity that they meant? If cutting my hair didn’t cause harm to other people, were they simply asking if my impulsive acts hurt others? But then again, ‘shopping spree’ was used as the example, but thinking more on that, a shopping spree could hurt other people, they should really work on that question. Another one asked if I thought about harming people, “everyday” I thought to myself. I asked my friend about that question and she said it probably only meant if I thought about going around and stabbing people. Well if it’s so specific like that then what’s the point of the question at all? Of course I’m not a homicidal maniac; I just want to beat a few people’s face into an unrecognizable pulp is all. So I hesitantly checked the ‘no’ box.
I finally go back to sit with my “therapist”. He had me choose which recliner I wanted and then he sat in the other one, feet up and all cozy as I sat in mine with my hands pinned to my sides and the only motion I allowed myself was to swivel back and forth or bob up and down. I barely let myself look away from him and when I finally did I realized how tired my eyes were from focusing. He had me tell him about my family, what they were all up to, if they were active in the church, and then it was on to my plans after graduation. He kept telling me I have too many credits, which I agree but I want out of this place. Then he had me tell him a little bit about why I went. Trouble getting up in the morning, being really irritated with people (I even told him about this little do-dad), he said it’s good to have something we can write that no one else is allowed to see. I figure it helps with the honesty factor, because really, if I know no one is going to read it then why bother being nice? I can be completely honest about how I feel about them and its fine. Then he said he was going to give me some advice, but that therapist usually didn’t do that, they just listened. So he talked for I don’t know how long, I was in there for a good hour so I guess a majority of that time, and I had no idea what he was talking about. But I kept nodding. He did mention again that it could be my credit load stressing me out, anxiety about what’s next in life (true), trepidation about whether or not to serve a mission (not a problem for me), apprehension about marriage (again not a problem, I already know it won’t happen), and then there was something about trout, and Warm River, Idaho. He talked a lot about himself too, which I guess helps me to be more comfortable around him but at the same time I was wondering how he could make any assumptions about me so quickly, barely knowing anything. Mostly I felt like I was the therapist in this “session”. He talked, I nodded. I felt like I should ask him how that made him feel, or why he felt that this was happening to him. He was far more relaxed than I was and I wondered if he did that a lot with people, talked about them a little and himself a lot. Near the end he apologized for talking so much (he apologized a couple of times for that) and I kept saying it was ok. I mean, this is what I am used to, I call people or I go to them when I am ready to talk to someone about a problem or issue and they just keep talking about anything and everything, except what I need to talk about. My sister is a prime example; I’ve called her ready to talk and gotten a play by play. I don’t mind, I don’t really want to talk about myself. Ever since I moved away from home when I was 18 I mostly just listened to other people talk to make me feel better. My problems never really came to the surface; I guess this time wasn’t really that different. He did have me set up another appointment though, one where I will talk he promised. But we’ll see how that goes.
Did I mention he said that suicidal thoughts are normal? I thought that was odd, but when he talked about it further I suppose it makes sense, we get desperate and we think that dying is pretty much the best and only way to escape what is bothering us. It’s when you think that you will act on it that there will be a problem. I’ve had the thoughts but I would never act on them.
In other aspects of my life, I got an e-mail message from my friend today. She has melanoma skin cancer. When I read it I automatically thought of her dad, who suffered from the same thing a couple of years ago. She is going to be out of town next week, down in Salt Lake. She’s scared because her dad did have this, but she’s hoping that it isn’t too serious. I’m hoping so too. I’m worried about her and I wish there was something that I could do for her. All I can do right now is wait until she gets back in town. Things like this make me wonder why I’m such a crybaby when obviously things could be worse. Things like this keep happening to people my age and yet I still feel like nothing really bad could ever happen to any of my friends. Last semester one of my friends found a lump in her breast. I think the worst part about it was the wait to know if it was malignant or not. Luckily she was fine, and now there is this friend, who hopefully will be fine. I really hope she’ll be fine.