There are some things that take time. For these things there are no shortcuts, no easy ways through—one must simply have patience and trust and keeping moving forward, one step at a time. It is always thus for anyone who wishes to make a significant change to themselves, and Brid assures me that healing is always that way. So today I went with Lewis and Brid to his weekly appointment with his therapist.
Dr. Christensen is quite a fascinating person. She is rather slender and graceful, but Lewis sees her as solid and immovable. In truth, I find it to be the opposite—there are many shades and colors to her aura, like scarves that she picks up and throws away at need. Brid tells me that some of the best therapists and psychiatrists are this way—they take on the role in their clients’ lives that is most needed at the time. And it seems what Lewis needs is someone stable, someone who is not going anywhere.
They greeted one another casually, exchanging wry jokes about the weather and a sports team that they both support (I am afraid that reference went right over my head). Then the two of them settled down to work.
“How has your week been, Lewis?” Dr. Christensen asked. I could tell from the intensity under her words that this was no casual question.
“Well, no panic attacks, which is a good thing.” Lewis was quiet for a moment. “Had another nightmare last night,” he admitted. “I was beginning to hope that they’d gone away.”
“Well, nightmares are like seizures—you’re doing great until you have another one,” Dr. Christensen said. “Do you want to talk about it?”
He shook his head. “I wrote it down like you asked me to, and that helped, but I don’t…I don’t think I’m ready to get into that.”
Dr. Christensen nodded. “Just as long as you know we can talk about them if you want.”
“Thanks,” he said, “but…” He shuddered, and flashes of the dream darkened his aura for a moment. Brid, who was standing by his side, set her hand on his head, and his mind cleared.
“Are you eating?” Dr. Christensen asked him.
This was an easier question to answer—Lewis snorted. “Hell, I’m cooking.” He told her then about making himself dinner twice this week, and how the results, though unimpressive, at least had not poisoned him.
This made her laugh, but she returned quickly to her professional concern. “Have you been trying that meal log that I gave you?”
Lewis sighed, shaking his head. “You know, I don’t know that it’s going to work for me. Because on the days that I’m not hungry—I mean, it’s not really because I’m not hungry. It’s because I just don’t see the point in going to all that effort. And I know, you’ve said that it’s important to take care of myself, and I’m working on that, I am.”
It’s a pity that a man should have to convince himself that it is worth the effort of sustaining himself.
“But it all seems like so much work, you know?” he went on, glancing up at Dr. Christensen. He sits on her sofa with his head down, his elbows resting on his knees, his hands pressed together. It is hard for him to hold her gaze, which she understands, so she does not try to make him. “And filling out that little piece of paper is just more work, and it makes me anxious that I’m not doing that, on top of being anxious that I’m not eating.”
“All right,” she said, making a note on the notebook that sits on the arm of the chair beside her. “Throw it away when you get home and let’s try something different. Try a thought exercise for me: when you’re making a decision, try to think through and predict what good things will come out of it.”
He looked confused, so she offered an example. “Well, so, you got a job. That means you’ll have paychecks coming in, which is definitely a good thing. You’ll get back into the habit of getting out of the apartment. You’ll get onto a schedule. What other good things might happen because of this job?”
Lewis blinked. “Oh, um…I’m meeting new people.” Sarah darted into his mind, surprising him. “I met a girl,” he blurted out.
Dr. Christensen raised her narrow eyebrows. “Is that so? Someone you might be interested in romantically?”
“Maybe,” Lewis thought, although the mere idea had him feeling cold inside. “She’s nice to me. She came by the coffeeshop just to see me.”
“Tell me about her.”
Lewis took a deep breath. “I think I’d been there three days at that point. It wasn’t supposed to be busy, so they left me without my trainer, and then all of a sudden there were all these people in line, and Keisha was shouting at me because I ran the machine without putting in the milk—I just forgot, I know she told me half a dozen times how to do it.” He stopped short and took a deep breath, which I could see was a technique that Dr. Christensen has taught him to use—stop, breathe, then say what you really want to say. “I think they hate me.”
This was off the topic that they had been on, but Dr. Christensen did not seem concerned about that. She leaned forward. “Who?”
“My coworkers. Probably my boss, too. I bet he regrets hiring me.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Just…” Lewis shook his head. “Do you ever walk into a room and get the feeling that just everyone has decided not to like you? Like they’re nice to you, they’re polite, but something—something in the tone of their voice or the way they act makes you think that they just…” He lost the words then and continued to shake his head.
Dr. Christensen continued to press him for details. “Do you remember specifically something that made you think this way?”
It took a moment of guided questioning, but eventually Lewis came up with an answer. “Like, the other day Jared and Liz were standing right next to me, and they turned their backs and starting talking to each other in low voices. I could still hear them, but they were definitely trying to exclude me.”
“I’m very sorry that you feel that way, Lewis,” Dr. Christensen said, “but I want to remind you that there could have been any number of reasons that they behaved that way. They could have been discussing something private, or they could also be uncomfortable with someone new in their midst. You know that your anxiety enhances your awareness of uncomfortable situations.”
“Or they might just hate me,” Lewis said, smirking in a terribly self-deprecating way.
Dr. Christensen angled her head thoughtfully to one side. “Hate is a very strong word. Most people never really feel hate, I think. They feel dislike and jealousy and discomfort and anger. But hate…” She leaned back in her chair. “You’ve encountered hate before, Lewis, real hate,” she said. “Not necessarily from the enemies you faced in combat, but from the people who told them to be there, who taught them to fire at you. That was hate. This…” She shrugged. “This is nothing. Give it time, and you’ll find your way through it.”
Lewis’s smirk disappeared, and he stared at the carpet, his mind working. Brid, sensing danger, motioned me closer, and I put my wing around him as he spoke, hesitant and desolate. “If hate was what brought those people there,” he said, “what brought me there? Was I…an instrument of hate?” Am I still? he thought but did not say.
“No,” I whispered to him. “Hate may have begun the war, but you were there to defend what you believe in and love.”
Dr. Christensen was saying something similar, and he was reassured, partially, by her words and by the warmth I sent rolling through him. But I was caught up in this thought. Is it not a deadly contradiction, war? It is hate that begins the conflict, hate that makes fellow humans other and leaves violence the only solution. But so many of those who join the fight are people who do so out of love, for their families or for their nation or for ideals that they see to be in need of protection. They respond to the threat and bring their love into a sea of hatred. What comes out of that place? What is forged in the human spirit by such opposing forces?
Perhaps I will ask Eburnean about it, or maybe Orison.
I was so caught up in this line of thought that Brid had to call me to order. I focused again on the conversation between Dr. Christensen and Lewis just in time to hear his thoughts on Sarah.
“She’s pretty,” he said, and his expression, which he usually keeps in hard lines, softened. “And smart. And I just…I get the feeling that she’d be really easy to talk to.” He rubbed his face. “That’s dumb. She wouldn’t have any interest in talking to me. I should stay far away from her.”
“Well, you shouldn’t press her,” Dr. Christensen said, “but you said she stopped by to see you, right? How did that go?”
“I guess okay,” Lewis said. “Like I said, it had been a really bad day, but by the time she came in, my coworkers were sick of me fucking shit up—scuse me, Doc—so they let me take a few minutes to talk to her. She asked how I was doing, and when I told her what had happened, she laughed.” He considered that for a moment. “She laughed, like it was no big deal. And I guess it wasn’t, but I…I don’t know, I just really appreciated that she laughed, because it made me want to laugh too, and right then it made me feel a little better. And she said she thought I’d get the hang of it. Then she invited me to a game night this week with her friends.”
“That’s wonderful, Lewis! You need a good group of people to support you.”
Lewis sat up straighter, setting his hands on his knees, as if recoiling from the idea. “No, I wasn’t ready. I told her I had plans this week. But she said they do it twice a month, and she’s going to stop by again when they know when the next one is going to be.” Lewis looked up then, and there was a light in his gaze. “I think I might be ready then.”
Dr. Christensen smiled. “I think it’s good that you know your limits, Lewis. All right. We’ll work on getting you ready to meet the others, and in the meantime I hope Sarah comes by to see you again.”
Lewis hopes so, too, and so do I. I would not say that I think they would work well together—it is far too early for that, and Lewis is still delicate. But to have someone, even just a friend, to lighten the darkness, is a powerful thing. And to have someone he can see, whose love cannot be dismissed as imagination, is far better even than to have an angel or two at his back.