Wednesday. This AM woke at 6:30 but lingered in bed, letting my mind wander until I realized with horror that I had a phone therapy session with Kaveh at 7:15. I looked at the time - it was 7:14. I leapt from bed, raced downstairs, put on a pot of coffee and then called him at 7:16. Three weeks since we talked. I barely knew where to start - so much ground to cover. It's been an amazing journey- the therapy thing. I never thought I'd be here at the end of it. Y'all remember that it got pretty crazy. There was a year in there where I wept every single day, stuck in the muck of it. There were times when I talked to him three or more times a week and that wasn't even enough to hold me together. Predictably, I fell in love with him (how cliche is that?). He was everything to me in my mind: therapist, lover, father, antagonist, giver of life.
I blush now to remember some of the bizarrest moments. They're funny - maybe even endearing now that I've come out the other end. Once when I was feeling particularly small (think I was reliving the twos) I asked him if he and Heather (his wife) were planning on having any more children (they have three little ones - at that time all under five). He asked, "Why do you ask?" to which I responded, "I don't want you to have any more children - you have me." Seriously, how embarrassing is that!!! Then there was the time when he went away on vacation. I told him I had commissioned a life size cutout of him sitting in a chair with wheels so that I could roll it from room to room. I also told him I had saved every voice mail he had ever left me and that the company was able to sample his speech and create scripts for the cutout so that I could talk to it and it would return phrases back to me like, "I'll be back soon." "I'm so proud of you." "I love you," etc. I was pulling his leg but he actually believed it!!! He must have thought I was capable of that and that the technology existed.
When he bought a house in Louisville, I spent a lot of time on the Internet looking for the public records and then matching them up to maps on Google Earth until I had a front door picture of his new home. I then sent him the link and said, "I really like your house!" I guess in retrospect that could have seemed creepy! From Google, I knew a lot about him, that he married into a wealthy socialite Louisville family, that he regularly attended highfalutin' social events, that his grandfather-in-law founded Humana and was a philanthropist. I saw pictures of his kids on his FB. I knew his every professional move, knew what he wrote his doctoral thesis on and more. One thing though - I always promised him I would never probe deeper than what was available publicly on the Internet through Google searches. I still believe anything on the Internet is fair game.
Early on, my obsession with him freaked him out a bit but we weathered it. At one point, when we talked about my formidable, sometimes fierce personality, he said that, in my life, I have sometimes conducted myself as a person to be feared. I asked him, "But you don't fear me, surely?" He admitted there were times when his mind entertained thoughts of what I might do to him if I felt angry enough. I think he thought my computer skills were such that I could use that medium to destroy him, if I chose. When he told me that, I sobbed for days to think I had evoked fear in the one person I loved and needed the most. It was rough.
Later I used the knowledge to extract a confession of love - I tricked him into telling me he loved me. Previously, when I asked him if he loved me, he would adeptly turn the conversation and provide an amorphous answer and even said at times, "It would not be appropriate for me to answer that question." One day, I asked, "Kaveh you once admitted you feared me, correct?" to which he answered, "yes". I then said, "Are love and fear equally valid emotions to discuss?" to which he said, "Of course." "Why then," I asked, "is it OK for you to tell me you fear me but not OK for you to admit you love me?" Silence - I had him. It was then he admitted he loved me. I know therapists have to be careful with the whole love thing, but my sister and I both agree that most often, true healers feel love for their patients. Kaveh's love for me is, and was, perfectly appropriate. He is a consummate professional with a huge heart who isn't afraid of loving some of the people who come to him for help. He says it happens from time to time when the work is deep and gratifying.
The most hilarious comment I ever made and I can't believe I'm about to share this - God, I can be so inappropriate! One time in the thick of it when I vacillated between feeling the need to be fathered but also felt womanly feelings for him, I said, "Kaveh, sometimes I want you to feed me baby food and sometimes I want you to fuck me." His response? He said, so sweetly, "I know It's taken a long time for us to get here." And that was that. Just another day on the couch.
Therapy - not for the faint of heart. If you ever take that plunge, be prepared for a wild ride and also be prepared for making a complete fool of yourself. If you're like me, you'll do the work, emerge on the other side of it and be very proud. It amazes me that we're wrapping up soon. We agreed to talk every three weeks for a while yet while I make some difficult transitions, but I anticipate we'll be done by summer's end.
Your challenge today is to laugh and chuckle with me as I review some of the outrageous high (or low) points of my journey. I hope you know I'm therapeutically fine now. I never had a serious diagnosis, thank goodness. I was just a person who wanted more from life, who didn't want the ghosts of my past to control me. I wish everyone in need could have what I was able to give myself. It was a huge investment of time, emotional energy and money. But so worth it!
Wow, I love that man. I always will even when we are no longer actively in each others' lives. I adore this quote from his website:
"Keep your face always toward the sunshine and shadows will fall behind you."Peace,.
Sarah
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