Ghosted

It’s been a month since I started ghosting my therapist, Jessica. Not in a rude way, at least not entirely. 

But, every Tuesday, minutes before 9 a.m., I've sent different pathetically formulated messages decorated with “I'm so sorry”s to excuse myself from our scheduled ZOOM appointment. 

I’m aware that this is completely inconsiderate of me. Canceling a meeting 10 minutes before our set time? This is Jessica’s job, this is how she gets her money. I should have told her at least the day before. If a more responsible someone had excused themselves days prior and the only time they could possibly meet was Tuesday at 9 AM; but, since that was MY time, Jessica couldn't offer it to them. How selfish of me! How self-centered! God! 

Don’t get me wrong, I love my therapist. Jessica is a very spiritual and soulful being. She speaks in whispers that instantly induce you into a calm mood. Her curly hair and welcoming blue eyes are easily nurturing and trusting.  Rather than me blabbering on and on for an hour, our meetings typically focus on what my body is trying to communicate. It’s grounding and refreshing. Yet come Tuesday morning, I’m filled with dread at the thought of giving an hour of my day to her. I feel drained just thinking of it. These feelings I harbor for Jessica are new, because at the beginning she was the one person I couldn’t wait and talk to. 

Jessica and I started our sessions four months ago, after I had a paralyzing panic attack in my college dorm. Dani, my boyfriend, had recently told me he was moving to San Francisco. This meant that our long distance relationship would go from 190 miles to 2,565 miles apart. I felt suffocated in the tiny college dorm that I shared with my roommate. There was no room for crying, unless I wanted an audience to ask if I was okay.  Of course I’m not, can’t you see? 

It all came to a tipping point one Friday night. Already in my PJS, I was so excited to curl up in bed and just watch one episode of “Sex and The City.” I heard my roommate arrive, she was with some friends, but they had stayed in our common room area. When she came into our room, she looked at me and asked “you’re in bed already?!” The clock read 9 p.m. I only offered a whine as a response, and she went back out to her friends. 

It was my self-care night, and after an incredibly long and conflicting week, I just wanted my show and the comfort of my bed. I had to wash my face, but the laughter from the main room just kept getting louder and louder. However, in my head, walking past them was not an option. Sure, I knew them and they were all nice girls. But I just couldn’t do it. I felt so pathetic in my cherry patterned PJs. So, I stood there in the middle of my room, looking at my bookshelf for 30 minutes. Sylvia Plath, Emily Henry, bell hooks, and all other stacked books bore witness to this paralyzing moment. I noticed the collar of my pajama shirt getting wet, I brought my hands to my cheeks and realized I’d been crying all along. 

I still could not go out there, even though I really wanted to wash my face. I called Dani, but it just became a cycle of guilt. Calling him or my best friend, throwing my problems onto them and dragging them down a path I myself didn’t understand nor wanted to be in. I don’t want to throw my pain and struggles onto the people I love. They don’t deserve that pile of heavy shit, because I don’t even want it. 

After that night, I decided it was time to look for a therapist. They would serve as an unbiased entity. Someone  I wouldn’t have to feel guilty for throwing all of my heavy, dirty baggage.  

I started to look for a therapist through Zencare, a platform that helps you find one according to your particular set of preferences. I checkboxed a few, among them: female, LatinX/Hispanic, fluent in Spanish and English, specialized in anxiety, depression, existential crisis, etc. I’ve never dated, but this is what I imagined online dating would feel like.

 The website took me back to snuggling up with my best friend as we scrolled through her Tinder feed, determining what person was attractive enough for them to share a coffee or dinner with. Somehow, the stakes were even higher now because I was determining who was suited to take care of all my  secrets. As I scrolled through the profiles, I was amused by how each therapist had their own brand with heavily curated messages. Some included videos of their bright colored offices, leather couches, and pictures of themselves with warm smiles that I thought were supposed to read  as “tell me all of your secrets.” 

A part of me didn’t want to go through with this. It’s just too much work – to ask for help and then talk about my problems. Coming face to face with checkboxes that would determine which  strangers I’d have to spill my guts too. It’s strange how commercialized it is. It once again felt like dating, trying to find my perfect match through some generic qualifications and a lot of hope. I have to pay so much for someone to hear myself blabber on for fifty minutes; I call my best friend to do just that all the time. Even though it all seemed too daunting,  I was determined; I needed to at least try and find a good match. I knew that for my relationship to survive, I needed to heal those parts of me that paralyzed at any sign of change. I ended up having fifteen-minute calls with four therapists that the platform recommended. 

I’d met with Jessica first, and it was love at first call. She understood me – we laughed so much together, and I just felt comforted by her motherly voice that coiled like a hug around my heart. I didn't click with the three others. One of them felt it too and before we hung up she gave me a short speech about how it’s always better to explore different therapists to make sure you have found the right one. 

And so, my meetings with Jessica began. The honeymoon phase, as in any relationship, was all bright and rosy tinted. Every Tuesday, I would wake up full of excitement to talk to Jessica. To see what new connections and parallels I’d rehash that morning, and make sense of why my roommate was driving me crazy. I’d journal after every meeting, excited as if I’d just gotten home from an incredible third date. At some point, the honeymoon phase started to fade away, and my eagerness turned into grunts of “why do I have to do this?”

I’ve always been hesitant about therapy. Not about its concept, but about me getting anything productive out of therapy. The first time I ever encountered a therapist I was eleven-years-old and my parents had taken me and my little brother to one of their couples counseling sessions. It was a very big room, with three, long brown leather couches. He had a playing area for little kids off to the side, which my little brother instantly hogged. The man asked me a few questions and I responded accordingly, with nods, the occasional yes and “they do whatever they want.” Most of the time I didn’t really say what I believed, but I said the right things. I know this because the white haired man who asked the questions by the end just said “you are a very mature child, Diana.” I shrugged, ready to get out of there. 

Four years later, after my parents’ divorce, I told my Mom that I wanted to talk to someone. We set up my first meeting, with my Mom next to me explaining to the woman with the questions about our situation. My mom left the room, and I looked at this woman – all I remember is brown, very dark hair – and I just mumbled and nodded for the next thirty minutes. So many thoughts were screaming to get out but I didn’t say a word to her. How could I trust her? She would definitely just tell everything to my Mom. I went to three meetings after this first one, and in each one I just stared at the wall behind her and said nothing. I wanted very badly to lay down on her love chair, like they did in the movies. She never offered though, so I assumed it wasn’t allowed. In the third session, I completely nodded off and fell asleep in the uncomfortable chair. I didn’t go back after that. 

With Jessica, that feeling isn’t there. I can open up and just let it all out. Sometimes though, nothing has really happened in the span of a week and the truth is there is nothing to say. Some weeks, I feel light and airy and am actually proud of how good I’m doing. But Tuesday comes around, and I just freak out. I whip up the saddest thought that has crossed my mind that morning and we just go back to the same parallels and cycles I fear I’ll never outgrow. 

Every week, I gather little pieces of sadness to feel like I have something valid to talk to her about. I tried talking to her about nothing once, because that’s what was going on in my life – nothing. And I could just feel the disappointment in her voice, or perhaps I invented it. But even now I am so happy, I don’t want to think about the trauma my parents caused me. I know the full story already, because I lived it. 

I resonated with an episode of Ted Lasso’s season two, when the very high-spirited coach reveals a second side to himself. One that has raw wounds, in part left by his parents. Even though he serves as a motivational, fixer-upper figure in the lives of all the characters, he himself is hesitant to open up to other people and especially through therapy. There’s a new therapist for the team, and Coach Lasso simply can’t stand sitting in front of this woman. On his second sitting, after abruptly leaving the first one without a word, he says“I mean here you are saying you’re only interested in the truth and yet here you are charging an hourly rate for fifty minutes of work. Like I said, it’s bullshit.”  

I started to feel the same way Ted did. Does Jessica actually care for me? She’s definitely getting something out of it, because it’s her job. What if she thinks all of my problems are dumb? What if she actually doesn't truly care for me? Why does she keep making me talk about my parents? How can I be vulnerable with her if I don’t really know how she feels about me? A therapist is supposed to be that impartial entity in your life, someone who will take your side but also speak reason to the chaos that inhabits your mind. 

Every week, I’m supposed to trust Jessica with all of this chaos. It comes to a point in which that’s all she’ll ever know of me – the chaos. I’m wrecked by this thought.  How can she like me then when all I am to her is my problems? The very problems I already despise myself for. 

In a song by Hayley Blais, “Coolest fucking bitch in town,” she sings “Am I just a hypocrite or is there something wrong with it? /  I want my therapist to think I’m cool.” I always laugh a little at that line, because I do too. I want Jessica to think I’m the coolest patient she has, even though I know that in reality that’s something that will never cross her mind.

I recently read an article titled “Please Don’t Ghost Your Therapist” by Marina Harris Ph.D on Psychology Today. She makes the case that, like any other relationship, client and therapist requires all the care and respect – even when we are saying goodbye. Jessica, more than anyone knows of my commitment and abandonment issues. She shouldn’t be surprised. But also, isn’t that the point? For her to think I’m cool and surprise her and get over those exact issues we’ve been working on. But then again, isn’t it easier to just not show up?