I was walking into my first therapy session with a new therapist without first popping a Xanax. I was already making progress. I decided to make the appointment after feeling I hit rock bottom. Okay, so I wasn’t living in an abandoned crack house, snorting coke in the bathroom during my lunch breaks, or even living on Ramen noodles (although pretty close), but I was miserable. I was in a career I despised, single, and thirty years-old … and the country was in a recession. Things wouldn’t have been so bad if one facet of my life was on the right track, but both my professional and personal life were in the gutter and it was nearly unbearable.
My first meeting with Maude was what I expected: the “get to know you” session. I hate these sessions. They feel like a waste of time. I spend the whole session vomiting my history, while the therapist nods and asks an occasional question. I never get any feedback, advice, or resolution. I leave the first sessions feeling uneasy and uncertain; not knowing if our relationship is going to work, but only that there is one more person out there who has some dirt on me. It seems to me like it would be a better use of both our time if I could send in a mini-autobiography before our initial session. That way the therapist could do her research before our first meeting and we could get to the real stuff right away.
I wish I would have tried this technique with Maude, maybe then I wouldn’t have felt obligated to stay with her as long as I did. After three sessions, (including the worthless initial one) I am breaking-up with her. Just as I knew when an ex-boyfriend and I weren’t working out, I knew Maude and I weren’t either. But I was hesitant to leave her because I had invested time and energy into our relationship. I didn’t want to start all over with someone new—again. But after taking a poll of my friends, the consensus was for Maude and me to go our separate ways. So now I would be forced to find someone new and go through the exhausting and monotonous “get to know you” session with yet another therapist. Ugh.
It isn’t that Maude is a bad person; she just isn’t a good therapist—for me. Just like some people aren’t good together, neither are Maude and me. Our sessions went as follows: I would fill her in on anything new that happened since I’d last seen her, blubber the pandemonium that is my family, while she sat across from me, flabbergasted and making little attempts to validate my feelings before ending our session fifteen minutes early. I experienced bittersweet feelings when I got robbed of my fifteen minutes. I wanted to escape the silent awkwardness, but at the same time I was paying for her service, well my insurance was, but still.
I hate feeling like a quitter and therefore feel like I should justify my deserting Maude. First of all, I am also a therapist so I feel qualified to label Maude “bad” because I am also “bad.” However, I don’t know if I would go as far as to say I am as bad as Maude. I’m okay with stating this about myself because as I mentioned, I’m in a career I despise and it’s part of the reason I sought therapy. Secondly, I should be leaving my therapy sessions with innovative coping skills, astonishing revelations, and a feeling of tranquility. I was not. Maude was imposing more mayhem into my already chaotic life. I needed out. I just wish she would have taught me how to break-up with her before I decided to terminate.
Break-ups are one of the more difficult things to go through, whether you’re broken-up with or do the breaking-up. It’s horrible to have your feelings hurt, but it’s also awful to hurt someone else’s. I’ve found I prefer to hurt someone else’s. As a teenager and co-ed, I broke the hearts. But now in my late twenties, my feelings have been stomped on in some of the most outlandish ways and it leaves me believing in karma more than ever.
