Page 2 of True Sight
“You’re close with them?”
“They’re like my brothers. They don’t know it, but they saved me when we were kids. After I lost my parents, I stopped speaking. People would ask me how I was or what I wanted, but the truth was, I didn’t know. I didn’t know what I was feeling and the one thing I wanted I couldn’t have because they were gone. But when I met my friends, I don’t know, it was like they took me in. We were all in the same class and just…bonded. It’s hard to describe.” I huff out a small laugh as memories of our childhood flood my brain. I’m surprised by how easy it is to share this with her but talking about my friends is always easy. They’re a bunch of idiots, but they’re also the only people I can stand.
“They sound really important to you.”
I look back towards the person who was a stranger on a screen last week when I decided to look up mental health professionals. After the last few months of tumultuous nightmares and watching my friend, Malcolm, finally get the help he needed, I decided maybe I should do the same. I scheduled an appointment with Hanna specifically because she was within walking distance of my apartment and because something about her picture calmed me. I don’t take a liking to many people, but there was something about her that I didn’t immediately hate.
“They’re everything to me. And they’re all finding their people…” my voice trails off.
Over the last two years, all three of my friends have fallen in love and found their match. What used to only be the four of us is now the seven of us, and I’m the lonely man out. While I’m happy for my friends and their new found partners, I can’t help but feel behind or like they’re moving forward in life without me. There is an ever present nagging feeling behind my chest because of it that makes it hard to fall asleep at night.
That they’ll all move on and start families and I’ll once again be alone.
“Are you looking for your own people?” Hanna asks, scrunching her eyebrows at me.
“I don’t like people,” I answer brusquely, causing her to start writing again. “What are you writing down?” I try to lean over to look at her notes but she leans away from me, finishing her sentence.
“Do you always worry about things this much?” Hervoice tips up as she asks the question, flipping the clipboard over in her lap so I can’t peek at her notes.
“Who says I’m worried?”
“You question me about my age and want to know what notes I’m taking. You look around the room almost as if you’re sizing things up, trying to get a handle on it. You’re sitting up straight on the couch as if someone has affixed a board to your back, telling me you struggle with finding comfort.” I slump down in my seat, not even realizing my posture. “Then you talk about your friends in a way that tells me you’re worried about losing them. That they’re moving on without you and that you’ll be alone. Kind of like what happened with your parents.” She says it in one breath and I look at her bewildered. How in the fuck did she get all of that from our thirty-minute conversation? I swallow hard and pull my shoulders back.
“I’m not worried, I just like to be in control,” I state, slightly shaking my head at her and keeping my eyes anywhere but on hers. No one, not even my friends, has seen through me as quickly as she has.
“You hate it when people are late and don’t like when things change. You stick to a schedule and like to be with your friends. If they aren’t around, you prefer to be on your own.” She’s not asking, she’s telling. And she’s right about all of it.
“Is that so wrong?” I bristle because the accuracy of her statements is irritating to me.
“I don’t know what you do but I bet it’s something solitary. I bet you work for yourself or at least from home so you can isolate during the day. You rarely go out unless your friends take you with them and even then, you’re uncomfortable and would rather be at home. You don’t date because the idea of putting yourself out there makes youuneasy. You’re happy with things staying exactly as they are and the thought of anything going off course stresses you out.” Again, no questions, but no inaccuracies either.
“Are you done?” I say through gritted teeth. I don’t know what I expected when I walked into her office but it definitely wasn’t to be opened up like a filleted fish and have all the inner workings of my brain unpacked in front of me.
“Almost,” Hanna says, tossing the clipboard on the floor of the small, intimate office space, leaning over her knees. Her eyes pierce straight through me. “You worry because you don’t like change because the last time things changed in your life you lost people who were important to you. You worry that if things change, you’ll lose control, and if you lose that, bad things will happen. But Conrad, I need you to know, that’s not true.” She shakes her head at me gently and I stare back at her, unblinking.
“You’ve suffered a great loss and more than likely have an immense amount of trauma you need to work through. You seem like the kind of person who likes to have all the facts in front of you, so I hope I didn’t upset you by putting it all out there like that. My reason for being so honest is so you can take what I said and think on it before our next session together. I want to hear about the nightmares and I would love to hear more about your friends but I need you to know this first—nothingbad is going to happen if things change. Change is an inevitable part of life and learning how to deal with change in a healthy way is important. I hope you’ll come back next week so I can help you learn how to deal with the changes you’re experiencing in your life right now.”
She leans back in her chair and gives me a soft smile. I blink a few times and let everything she just said sink in. Maybe Iamworried because of how things are changingwithin our group. The guys and I have been tight since we were eight years old but the last two years have proven that we can’t stay like that forever. They’ve all found people to spend their lives with, and I can either be okay with that or let the stress of it kill me. The nightmares only seem to be getting worse and there’s a tension in my neck that won’t go away. Surely I’m not doing myself any favors by trying to keep things the way they’ve always been. There’s a heat between the pad of my finger and the fingernail I’m obsessively rubbing.
“Does the same time next week work for you?” I ask, pressing my lips together and looking towards the floor. When I lift my eyes, she’s staring back at me with a hopeful expression.
“It sure does,” she confirms, ripping a piece of paper from a notepad and handing it to me.
“What’s this?” I ask, looking down at the paper.
“It’s your prescription. I’m putting you on a low dose of Lexapro for the time being. I want you to get it filled today and start taking it immediately. It will take a few weeks to take effect but I want you to track how you feel after you start taking it. I suggest a journal or a note on your phone. Also track your nightmares going forward so we can discuss them together. If you feel any weird side effects, call me and we can adjust it.”
A prescription.Great.
Now I’m grumpy and crazy.
2
CONRAD
It’s been almost a week since I met with Hanna and the orange prescription bottle has been mocking me from the bathroom counter since I picked it up from the pharmacy. I know she’s a psychiatrist but damn, did she need to medicate me so quickly?
I have nothing against taking medications when you need them, especially not when it has to do with how your brain works. The brain is a very complex thing and sometimes people need a little extra help balancing it out. I just never thought I would be the kind of person who needed help finding the balance. For so long, I had summed up my chilly demeanor to be the result of finding the people who mattered to me early on and not needing anyone else. But the words my therapist relentlessly laid out for me at the end of our session had stuck with me.
