My therapist doesn't think I'm special

what the actual heck?

Ok he didn’t actually say that, but at NO point in our first session did he come out and say I was special, so, like, what am I supposed to think?

I mean, what is the point of therapy if not to be told by a licensed medical doctor that he cannot wait to rummage around the depths of my brain and finally do what no other doctor - including Good Will Hunting’s Sean Maguire - could: figure out what makes this lil genius tick.

The first session.

It started rough. We’ve sat and I’m staring at my phone because I can’t figure out how to pay for parking using Pasadena’s absolute nightmare of a parking app that you have to (1) download, (2) add your license plate and ‘zone’, and then finally (3) pay using your phone rather than just paying with your card in the meter like a god damn normal human being.

I try to explain what’s happening but I’m sweating through it, panicked and anxious about this awful first messy manchild impression I’m making.

So I overcompensate. Hard.

“Ah screw it,” I say, “I’ll just chance it.” I put my phone away (like a cool, tough guy).

“No you really shouldn’t chance it. They’re strict here.”

And so the chess match that is therapy has begun.

My opening gambit has been foiled by a strong “there are rules” rebuttal. As we all know, the key of every chess match is the third move

¹

. Everything rides on my response.

Will I fold and do what he says or stand up for myself? Be a manchild or a man, child (this should work like Jay-Z’s ‘I’m not a business man, I’m a business, man’ but for some godforsaken reason it doesn’t).

I cave and now he’s got the upper hand. I could see him making a mental note, “gives up easily. no backbone.”

And then we just sit there, in silence, as I try to make this awful app work and he studies / pities me.

This was not the plan. This was hell.

It was without a doubt one of the worst moments of my life. Almost as bad as being ratio’d on Twitter by RL Stine, which did in fact happen recently :

the king of childhood horror has roasted me. Say cheese and die indeed.

I should have just gotten up right then and there and ‘big gulps huh, welp cya later’ed my way outta there.

Or at the very least ‘brought it into the room’ as I always tell Lauren to do when she tells me she has nothing to talk about with her therapist. ‘Then talk about that, babe’ I say, like an asshole.

Instead, we sat for what felt like eternity but was probably two more minutes, aka 120 full US American seconds of silence and the app still isn’t so finally I just lie and say “you know what, I think there was time on the meter so I bet it’ll be fine.”

And he goes “really? Ok (judgement)” and that, folks, is how you start off therapy on the wrong foot.

I spend the next fifty minutes digging myself out of this hole, trying to impress him while being vulnerable and fascinating and, most importantly, FUNNY. That way, we can end with him telling me that a) I’m messed up in a way he’s never seen before, a broken man who is hilarious and creative and just so damn interesting and, far less important, b) how I can ‘heal’ lol. I’m not a sore shoulder, buddy! I’m a walking contradiction the likes of which the world hasn’t seen since Leo Davinci (notice how both our names start with D, then a vowel, then another non-vowel? that’s not coincidence it can’t be).

I cover my entire life story in the first session - also impressive - when he looks down at his clock like this is a frikkin 90s movie and says “and…that’s actually our time.”

He gets up and ushers me toward the door as if we’d just signed a car lease. “I’ll see you in a week,” and now I’m at the elevator, descending fast into the depths of my own self loathing.

I mean ok fine sure that was our time but like, surely after I spilled my Jewish kishkes out on your floor, you could have taken a few extra minutes for the first session to tell me how insanely amazing my story was? How you’d never heard it before and would be making fastidious note of it in your little books so as to have proper documentation when you inevitably write a tell-all memoir about our time together, the most fulfilling professional period of your life when you discovered The Dobrenko Doctrine.

But to nothing? I mean. Shit. It was the parking thing wasn’t it.

I brought this up during our second session.

But for some reason he did not respond with “oh my god I’m sorry I didn’t say that out loud! I do think you’re special. You’re fascinating and crazy but in a cool creative manageable way! Sure the whole ‘tortured artist’ thing is a myth, but it perfectly applies to you and soon the world will know about it! Here’s an early draft of The Dobrenko Doctrine — give it a gander would ya?’

No, instead he just said “that is interesting.” and we continued.

He ended the session abruptly again - “ok that’s our time” and pointed me to the door, once again failing to mention anything about my being special. What sort of mind game is this, I wonder.

Does he, dare I say, want me to figure out on my own that I’m special just the same way that all people are special and, resting in that hard earned truth, find contentment for the rest of my days?

I sure as shit hope not, because that’s not what I am paying him a reduced sliding scale fee for, no weph, Joseph.

Practice?

I ended things with him after that session. It didn’t help that I learned he called his work a ‘practice.’ Um, how about you stop practicing and we play the fuckin game for real, eh? Run drills on your own time, k?

I did learn one thing though - I do need everyone to think I’m special because it’s fucking true.

I’ve found a new therapist who I love. She doesn’t tell me I’m special but she also doesn’t tell me I’m not special by kicking me out of the room as soon as soon as our time is up as if I have a really bad case of ‘normal dipshit’ disease and if she sees me for any longer she will probably get it and infect her whole family with it too.

I heard recently that the #1 predictor of whether your relationship with a therapist works is not about what ‘modality’ they use or who they stan in the freud v jung rivalry, but simply whether or not you like them. I like this new therapist, and because of that when I’m with her I hate myself a little less, a gift I am willing to pay the very top of the sliding scale for, once a week.

How does that make you feel?

1. has your therapist told you that you’re special? if not, when do you plan on firing/ghosting them?

2. do you think you’re special or a normie? if normie how do you do it how does that work teach me?

3. are you planning on making me feel bad for wanting to feel special? skip the comment section I repeat skip it I cannot handle that kind of feedback!! see you next time love you so much

6. what’s the nicest thing a therapist has ever said to you? i’m not gonna cry about it or anything you can be honest

7. same as 6 but wisest thing, like what’s a lil catchphrase you tell yourself and you feel better or just less bad bc of it

9. whoa twice with the blank numbers? Now THAT’s special.

1. this has not been corroborated by anyone who plays chess.