Have you tried therapy? 2007 winner

2007 Secondary School Division Winner

Mary Dennis, of Wellington High School, took first place in the secondary school division of the 2007 Sunday Star-Times short story competition with a darkly comic account of a journey through the world of counselling.

JANUARY 10, 3:30pm Baba

The beat of African drums fills the small, dimly lit and sparsely furnished lounge. This is all my GP's fault, although the fact that I haven't slept in two years probably somewhat hindered my part in the decision-making process. "Have you tried therapy?" she said. The fluoxo-whatsits weren't worth the cardboard box they came in, so I thought "what harm could it do?"

Now I'm on my feet, doing something called "Relaxation Movement". Baba, a white-haired, waif-like woman with a bright red and orange scarf tied around her head, is moving her whole body in a circular motion, her hands on her narrow hips, her eyes closed. I'm thankful for the latter. It means I'm the only one of us who notices how much my depressed sway pales in comparison to her epic gyrating.

"And you just sort of ... " she flops forward, "... move with it."

I'm starting to feel light-headed. The drums feel like they're coming from the back of my skull and theincense makes the air thick and musky.

Five minutes later she finally presses the "stop" button on the small CD player and we resume our seats, me in the armchair that's losing its innards and she cross-legged on the couch.

"Do you think that could be helpful?" she says. "Have you tried Relaxation Movement to help with sleep before?"

"No no, not yet." I smile weakly.

"I find it helps a lot to relax the muscles. What music do you like to listen to?"

"Ahh... Metallica?" I say.

"Oh yes. Are they nice?"

My head is filled with the sound of James Hetfield's rusty pipes "F--- it all, f---ing no regrets...I tie a noose, I hang myself..."

"Because it doesn't have to be nice," Baba says.

"Oh."

"Sometimes it's good to just be with your own melancholy, just really feel it, sit with it, move with it, don't judge it."

"Mmm, yeah. Definitely." I say.

"Maybe that could be your goal for this week?"

"To, ah, to sit with my ... melancholy?"

Her wrinkled face beams back at me.

"OK," I say. "You stood there screaming, no one caring about the words you tell... one man's fun is another's hell."

How hard could it be?

February 18, 10am Dr Donald Jeffries (and Kathy)

There are three blue chairs in the office positioned around a small coffee table. On the table lie numerous flow charts, labelled things like "The Upward Spiral", "The Downward Spiral", and "Cognitive Distortions".

"So, I thought this could be a bit of a 'getting to know you' session," Dr Jeffries says. "Are you comfortable with Kathy sitting in to observe? She's our new intern."

"That's fine," I say, looking at Kathy, who hasn't taken her wide, glassy eyes off Dr Jeffries since they walked in the room.

"So, where would you like to begin?"

"Ah..." Where to start? Sleep? No. No more pelvic thrusts. Something else.

"Well, I've been feeling pretty low, you know. Pretty lonely I guess. Don't have much of a social life. I left school last year, and now I'm on a sickness benefit, and I don't have any... any friends," I finish, blushing.

Dr Jeffries and Kathy are both scribbling frantically on their notepads, the latter trying to write and look at Dr Jeffries at the same time.

"That's very interesting," says the doctor.

"Yes," says Kathy.

"And how long would you say it's been like this? How long have you had this sense of isolation?"

"Since birth?" I say. Dr Jeffries laughs, looks at me, becomes silent and turns his head to his notebook where he writes something, underlining it with a swift sweep of the pen across the page.

"I guess I just get nervous when I'm around people," I say.

"Oh yes? And how does that make you feel?" he asks.

"Er, nervous?" I say. A deep line appears between the doctor's eyebrows.

"I see. But what about physical symptoms?"

"Oh. Well I sweat a lot, and my heart beats fast and sometimes I feel like I'm going to throw up. I shake, my muscles clench up and..." I stop, seeing the frantic look in Kathy's eyes as her wrist struggles to keep up with my speech.

"And what are the thoughts going through your mind?"

"Now?"

"No, not now." The line appears again. "During the nervous episodes."

"Oh. I don't know exactly. I don't really think about what I'm thinking when I'm thinking it. That would be kind of impossible, I guess." I laugh, and Dr Jeffries looks at me with his eyebrows raised. He writes something down.

"Have you tried observing your thoughts at all?"

"I guess not," I say.

"What say this week you buy a little notebook. Nothing expensive. The little 99c ones. I think they're 99c, aren't they, Kathy?"

Kathy looks up in alarm at the mention of her name. "What? Oh yes. Yes, 99c, yes."

"So," continues Dr Jeffries, "buy one of those, and write down what you're thinking about while you're nervous. Try to be aware of it. Awareness is very powerful."

I nod.

"So you think you could do that? A little notebook? Nothing expensive."

"99c," Kathy chirps.

I tell them yes, and they smile.

"Now," says Dr Jeffries, "how much do you know about Cognitive Behavioural Therapy?"

March 8, 5pm Maria Weisman

On the phone Maria told me she worked from home, and when she opens the door, I understand why.

Inviting me in, she leads me to the lounge, hobbling under the weight of her misshapen body. It seems her fat has chosen to distribute itself mainly around her neck, stomach and ankles. The black tent of a dress she's wearing looks homemade the hem is frayed to the point of collapse and the hole that sprouts her red, blotchy face looks like it was cut out with a pair of scissors.

"So," she sits down, motioning me to do the same. I can't help but be fascinated by the way her breasts droop, brushing her knees. "You said on the phone that you were having problems with eating?"

"Yes. Well. Among other things." I clear my throat. "But yeah, I eat a lot, or I don't eat at all. Sometimes I make myself sick. I heard you had a lot of experience treating eating disorders."

Maria nods solemnly, leaning forward and extending one thick arm to retrieve her notebook.

"Is it OK if I take notes?" she asks.

"Go for it," I say.

"When did these problems start do you think? What was your relationship like with food as a child?"

I sigh, and begin to tell her about the stolen laxatives and the late night gorges on butter mixed with Nutella and the biscuits hidden in the drawers and The Anorexic Years. My narrative soon becomes too boring for my own ears to endure, and I fade into silence.

"So you'd like to lose a bit of weight?" Maria says.

I stare at her open-mouthed.

"OK, a lot of weight!" she says, misreading my expression.

"Yes, I guess so," I say. "But I would like to feel good about myself, really." Pathetic.

"But sometimes the feeling good starts when you take action. Have you tried Weight Watchers?"

"No. I don't really have the money for that kind of thing."

"It's a great programme, I've lost 10kg so far," she boasts.

"That's great," I say. "But I really think there might be other..."

"Right. The eating as a symptom. I get that." She makes a note. "You seem to see yourself as a large person, when in reality you're only a bit overweight."

I can feel the blood running out of my face.

"Me, I'm the other way round." Her hearty laugh turns into a great, racking cough. A dark pink colour seeps over her cheeks, and I begin to panic, but she waves me off as I stand up to help in some unknown way. She produces an inhaler from a drawer in the table beside her and presses the top of it twice, breathing the medicine in deeply, her chest heaving.

"Sorry about that." Her throat makes a wet, broken cackle of a sound. "Right. I'm the other way round. I see myself as very thin. But I'm not." She gestures towards her belly, as if to explain.

"I used to be on the school athletics team. Cor, I could run then."

Maria looks up at the ceiling, the corners of her mouth raised slightly.

"Have you tried treat plates?" she asks, looking at me again.

"Treat plates?"

"Mmm. They're something I started when my kids were little. You just cut up some food and arrange it on a nice little plate so that it looks visually attractive. Since you're weight conscious, you could use things like carrots, cucumbers, prunes..."

I nod and nod and nod until I feel my head is going to topple off my neck on to the cat hair-covered carpet. She lists food and gives preparation advice for each item, such as her preferred length and width for the perfect carrot stick.

"I think it would really help you if you made food fun, and aesthetically appealing. I make myself treat plates quite often."

"OK, but do you think that would really help with..."

"One step at a time, honey. It's important to take teensy tiny baby steps towards your weight loss goal. When you take small steps, you might find that the weight just falls off without you even noticing you're hungry."

"Treat plates," I say.

Her smile pushes her chin further back into the dunes of pale fat hanging from her neck.

April 25, ll:30am Dr Debra Ashton

The clock's thick black hands dawdle around its wide, smirking face. I'm lying on a long, crimson couch, my head propped up on a cushion. I can't see Dr Ashton, but I can picture her sitting there in her crisp grey suit, watching her red nails grow, drumming one black stiletto to the rhythm of the incessant ticking.

"I really don't know what else to say," I whisper.

I'm supposed to be talking about the separation of my parents. I managed to stretch the topic out for two minutes, and since then, silence has reigned.

"That's all right," she says. "A lot of my clients just choose to sit and gather their thoughts for a while before delving fully into a topic like this."

"But I really don't think I have anything else to say. Honestly, it didn't bother me that much."

Tick. Tick. Tick.

When the clock says that another 15 excruciating minutes have passed, I hear movement behind me.

"OK," she says. "Whenever you feel ready, you can sit up."

I shoot up from the couch. The world sways dizzyingly before my eyes, and my butt comes crashing down again onto the soft couch.

She smiles through red lips. "It's important to take things slowly, isn't it?"

She takes a sip from the glass beside her, placing it back in the water ring left behind on the coaster with extreme precision.

"Next time, I thought we could go over your family tree. How does that sound? Would that work for you?"

"Absolutely. I guess time is up?"

She turns her head slowly to the wall, looking at the clock.

"So it is," she says. "Until next time, then."

"Yeah, see you then."

I stand up, slower this time, and hurry towards the door.

"Oh, one thing ..."

I bite my lip and turn around.

"Don't forget to see Carolyn at the desk on your way out. $120 was the rate we agreed on, I believe?"

May 30, 4:30pm Kurt Harold

He leans towards me, his weak-tea coloured skin blending in with the walls. The bare office seems very small.

"So you still live with your mother?"

"I'm just out of high school..." I say.

He makes an "o" shape with his mouth and lets out a gust of air. His breath smells of coffee. Rubbing a hand over his salt and pepper beard, he shakes his head.

"You can't stay with Mummy forever though, surely?" he smiles. "At some point in life you've got to take responsibility for things, for your own actions. You can't always play the victim," he says, leaning back, crossing his legs and draping an arm behind him on the chair.

"So. What are we going to do. It's YOUR life. Your feelings. Your emotions. How are you going to take responsibility for all of it, take control of it." He states his words without inflection, but stares at me expectantly.

"I don't know!" I say, laughing. It's a sound I don't recognise deep, erratic and humourless.

"Well, I think you have to make a decision. You can sit here laughing about the mess you're in or you can get serious and make changes."

The muscles of my face suddenly feel oddly disconnected from the rest of my body. I can no longer tell whether I'm smiling or not.

"You said earlier that you panic when the phone rings?" he says, holding his pen to the corner of his mouth.

"Yes."

"Why is that?"

"I don't know." I say. He rolls his eyes and presses the tip of the pen into his cheek.

"I just get scared! Of... of who it'll be..."

"That's all well and good, but why?" he asks.

"I don't know!"

He sighs.

"Well, try ringing the talking clock," he mutters, not looking at me.

"The talking clock?"

"Yes,' he says. "Or are even recorded messages too threatening for you?"

Water fills my eyes and they sting as I stare at the ground unblinkingly. I try to speak, and my throat expels an odd hiccupping sound.

He grabs one of my hands and presses it between both of his.

"I know it's hard, but we are going to get through this."

He speaks in a harsh whisper directly into my face. The smell of his strong, sickly breath fills my mouth and nostrils, and the room begins to blur.

June 1, 5.13pm The Ward

The table is sticky, and I whip my hand away from it as if the wooden surface was burning hot. The room smells strongly of ammonia, and something worse beneath the chemicals. Water is leaking from underneath the door that says "Women", and somewhere up the hall a high-pitched scream is complaining about pads being flushed down toilets.

"Oi."

The voice comes from the girl on the other side of the table, whose face is partially covered by shoulder-length blonde dreadlocks. In between the thin ropes of hair I can see an angry looking scar running from the corner of her mouth to her earlobe.

"What you in for?"

"Oh, well, you know, it's just ..." I shrug.

The girl's watery blue eyes narrow.

A tall man approaches the table, and sits down beside me.

"Hi, I'm Jonathan," he says, shaking my hand. "I'm a support worker on the ward. Now, there are a few sort of paper-worky type things I'd like you to do, is that OK?"

I nod.

"Great. Have you filled this out before?"

He holds out a thick stack of pages stapled together, and I read the word "Questionnaire."

"No," I say.

"We find it really useful for our patients to do this, so we can see what areas they most need help in," he says. "So I'll leave you here to do that and come see you in a half hour or so."

He hands me a pen from his shirt pocket and jogs up the hall towards the screaming.

"Oi."

The girl has straightened up, her dreads falling back from her pocked cheeks. "That questionnaire there?"

"Yeah?" I say.

"It doesn't help shit."

She leans towards me across the table, eyes flying like darts around the room, scanning to make sure we're alone. I wince at the sight of her teeth, rotted away to tiny yellow stubs suspended from dense black pools.

"Have you tried it?" she says.

"Tried what?"

"Suicide."

She extends her arm, brandishing her bandaged wrist at me.

"Oh, no," I say. "Everything but."