The sound and the fury

Another week blows by. All kinds of stuff. Stuff with the family: one kid bought a new house; another had an operation. We are hoping for more changes to come.

The parade of clients. Three didn't come because they said they had the flu. How many hysterical? Just as well.

Began with the woman who had left the bad relationship, gained confidence and is now leaving the bad job for a much better one. Bu† she has to leave me to take the job. Moving on. The woman on crutches with seizures. We talk of horror movies. The guy waiting for his disability hearing, still has to see three more MDs. The woman who began computer dating at 48, is IMing six guys at once. MT is sober for a year. JR for six months. TL for two weeks, but he's lying. One couple is still fighting over whose job it is to parent the other (no one wins that). Another couple has decided not to revisit the same argument they had three years ago. It's good I didn't leave town.

The week ends with SS. He holds the current spot in what somehow has come to be a long line of those who take the last, late in the evening appointment. Somehow I put them there. They are usually male, but not always. They have always been smart, accomplished, a bit overly intellectual, well read, and depressed. They usually have been raised by accomplished, emotionally distant, disapproving, often alcoholic parents. They have been married or divorced themselves, but often did not have children. Two had recently been treated with cancer.

The theme that they all have in common is that life, as they have experienced it and have come to understand it, is meaningless. What they have accomplished has not gotten them what they want. Despite houses, cars, big incomes, beautiful wives, they often have felt like phonies and failures. People have let them down, or worse. They feel distant and lost.

The other feature they have in common is that they have all love coming to therapy. Those who are a bit too vain, love to come and complain and have me take their complaints seriously for an hour. But for most of them, it is the first time they got to feel what it is like to be in a supportive relationship. That part is nice. It takes about six months for them to begin to feel it, and another three months for them to understand what it is.

Then comes the long process of getting to to believe that they can not only find someone else whom they can trust, who can be supportive to them, but that there are even more rewards in being the one who is kind, understanding and supportive. That, if you do things right, and choose right, and then become invested in a relationship, all of the craziness of the world, all of those things that they so accurately see as greed, violence, betrayal, and wickedness, seem like they are "out there" and are just part of the parade. They are no longer the feelings that live inside.

This is very gratifying.

But, then, after my last appointment, I want to go home, sit alone in the dark, and have a drink. I don't want nobody bothering me no more.