Maybe You Should Talk to Someone_A Therapist, HER Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed Read online

  Contents

  * * *

  Title Page

  Contents

  Copyright

  Epigraph

  Author’s Note

  Part One

  Idiots

  If the Queen Had Balls

  The Space of a Step

  The Smart One or the Hot One

  Namast’ay in Bed

  Finding Wendell

  The Beginning of Knowing

  Rosie

  Snapshots of Ourselves

  The Future Is Also the Present

  Goodbye, Hollywood

  Welcome to Holland

  How Kids Deal with Grief

  Harold and Maude

  Hold the Mayo

  The Whole Package

  Without Memory or Desire

  Part Two

  Fridays at Four

  What We Dream Of

  The First Confession

  Therapy with a Condom On

  Jail

  Trader Joe’s

  Hello, Family

  The UPS Guy

  Embarrassing Public Encounters

  Wendell’s Mother

  Addicted

  The Rapist

  On the Clock

  Part Three

  My Wandering Uterus

  Emergency Session

  Karma

  Just Be

  Would You Rather?

  The Speed of Want

  Ultimate Concerns

  Legoland

  How Humans Change

  Fathers

  Integrity Versus Despair

  My Neshama

  What Not to Say to a Dying Person

  Boyfriend’s Email

  Wendell’s Beard

  Part Four

  The Bees

  Kenya

  Psychological Immune System

  Counseling Versus Therapy

  Deathzilla

  Dear Myron

  Mothers

  The Hug

  Don’t Blow It

  It’s My Party and You’ll Cry if You Want To

  Happiness Is Sometimes

  Wendell

  A Pause in the Conversation

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Connect with HMH

  Copyright © 2019 by Lori Gottlieb

  All rights reserved

  For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to [email protected] or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

  hmhbooks.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Gottlieb, Lori, author.

  Title: Maybe you should talk to someone : a therapist, HER therapist, and our lives revealed / Lori Gottlieb.

  Description: Boston : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018042562 (print) | LCCN 2018045914 (ebook) | ISBN 9781328663047 (ebook) | ISBN 9781328662057 (hardback)

  Subjects: LCSH: Gottlieb, Lori,—Health. | Psychotherapists—Biography. | Therapist and patient—Biography. | BISAC: PSYCHOLOGY / Psychotherapy / General. | BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Personal Memoirs. | SELF-HELP / Personal Growth / Happiness. | FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS /Love & Romance. Classification: LCC RC480.8 (ebook) |

  LCC RC480.8 .G68 2019 (print) | DDC 616.89/14092 [B]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018042562

  Cover design by Martha Kennedy

  Hand lettering © Gill Heeley

  Cover photograph © hatman12 / iStock / Getty Images Plus

  Author photograph © Shlomit Levy Bard

  v1.0319

  Illustrations on page 42 copyright © 2019 by Arthur Mount. Emoji art on page 49, from left to right: Standard Studio via Shutterstock; Sovenko Artem via Shutterstock; Park Ji Sun via Shutterstock; Rvector via Shutterstock.

  “Welcome to Holland,” copyright © 1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley. Reprinted by the permission of the author. All rights reserved.

  It is proposed that happiness be classified as a psychiatric disorder and be included in future editions of the major diagnostic manuals under the new name: major affective disorder, pleasant type. In a review of the relevant literature it is shown that happiness is statistically abnormal, consists of a discrete cluster of symptoms, is associated with a range of cognitive abnormalities, and probably reflects the abnormal functioning of the central nervous system. One possible objection to this proposal remains—that happiness is not negatively valued. However, this objection is dismissed as scientifically irrelevant.

  —RICHARD BENTALL,

  Journal of Medical Ethics, 1992

  The eminent Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung said this:

  “People will do anything, no matter how absurd,

  to avoid facing their own souls.”

  But he also said this:

  “Who looks inside, awakes.”

  Author’s Note

  This is a book that asks, “How do we change?” and answers with “In relation to others.” The relationships I write about here, between therapists and patients, require a sacred trust for any change to occur. In addition to attaining written permission, I have gone to great lengths to disguise identities and any recognizable details, and in some instances, material and scenarios from a few patients have been attributed to one. All changes were carefully considered and painstakingly chosen to remain true to the spirit of each story while also serving the greater goal: to reveal our shared humanity so that we can see ourselves more clearly. Which is to say, if you see yourself in these pages, it’s both coincidental and intentional.

  A note on terminology: Those who come to therapy are referred to in various ways, most commonly as patients or clients. I don’t believe that either word quite captures the relationship I have with the people I work with. But the people I work with is awkward, and clients might be confusing, given that term’s many connotations, so for simplicity and clarity, I use patients throughout this book.

  Part One

  Nothing is more desirable than to be released from

  an affliction, but nothing is more frightening

  than to be divested of a crutch.

  —James Baldwin

  1

  Idiots

  Chart note, John:

  Patient reports feeling “stressed out” and states that he is having difficulty sleeping and getting along with his wife. Expresses annoyance with others and seeks help “managing the idiots.”

  Have compassion.

  Deep breath.

  Have compassion, have compassion, have compassion . . .

  I’m repeating this phrase in my head like a mantra as the forty-year-old man sitting across from me is telling me about all of the people in his life who are “idiots.” Why, he wants to know, is the world filled with so many idiots? Are they born this way? Do they become this way? Maybe, he muses, it has something to do with all the artificial chemicals that are added to the food we eat nowadays.

  “That’s why I try to eat organic,” he says. “So I don’t become an idiot like everyone else.”

  I’m losing track of which idiot he’s talking about: the dental hygienist who asks too many questions (“None of them rhetorical”), the coworker who only asks questions (“He never makes statements, because that would imply that he had something to say”), the driver in front of him who stopped at a yellow light (“No sense of urgency!”), the Apple technician at the Genius Bar who couldn’t fix his
laptop (“Some genius!”).

  “John,” I begin, but he’s starting to tell a rambling story about his wife. I can’t get a word in edgewise, even though he has come to me for help.

  I, by the way, am his new therapist. (His previous therapist, who lasted just three sessions, was “nice, but an idiot.”)

  “And then Margo gets angry—can you believe it?” he’s saying. “But she doesn’t tell me she’s angry. She just acts angry, and I’m supposed to ask her what’s wrong. But I know if I ask, she’ll say, ‘Nothing,’ the first three times, and then maybe the fourth or fifth time she’ll say, ‘You know what’s wrong,’ and I’ll say, ‘No, I don’t, or I wouldn’t be asking! ’”

  He smiles. It’s a huge smile. I try to work with the smile—anything to change his monologue into a dialogue and make contact with him.

  “I’m curious about your smile just now,” I say. “Because you’re talking about being frustrated by many people, including Margo, and yet you’re smiling.”

  His smile gets bigger. He has the whitest teeth I’ve ever seen. They’re gleaming like diamonds. “I’m smiling, Sherlock, because I know exactly what’s bothering my wife!”

  “Ah!” I reply. “So—”

  “Wait, wait. I’m getting to the best part,” he interrupts. “So, like I said, I really do know what’s wrong, but I’m not that interested in hearing another complaint. So this time, instead of asking, I decide I’m going to—”

  He stops and peers at the clock on the bookshelf behind me.

  I want to use this opportunity to help John slow down. I could comment on the glance at the clock (does he feel rushed in here?) or the fact that he just called me Sherlock (was he irritated with me?). Or I could stay more on the surface in what we call “the content”—the narrative he’s telling—and try to understand more about why he equates Margo’s feelings with a complaint. But if I stay in the content, we won’t connect at all this session, and John, I’m learning, is somebody who has trouble making contact with the people in his life.

  “John,” I try again. “I wonder if we can go back to what just happened—”

  “Oh, good,” he says, cutting me off. “I still have twenty minutes left.” And then he’s back to his story.

  I sense a yawn coming on, a strong one, and it takes what feels like superhuman strength to keep my jaw clenched tight. I can feel my muscles resisting, twisting my face into odd expressions, but thankfully the yawn stays inside. Unfortunately, what comes out instead is a burp. A loud one. As though I’m drunk. (I’m not. I’m a lot of unpleasant things in this moment, but drunk isn’t one of them.)

  Because of the burp, my mouth starts to pop open again. I squeeze my lips together so hard that my eyes begin to tear.

  Of course, John doesn’t seem to notice. He’s still going on about Margo. Margo did this. Margo did that. I said this. She said that. So then I said—

  During my training, a supervisor once told me, “There’s something likable in everyone,” and to my great surprise, I found that she was right. It’s impossible to get to know people deeply and not come to like them. We should take the world’s enemies, get them in a room to share their histories and formative experiences, their fears and their struggles, and global adversaries would suddenly get along. I’ve found something likable in literally everyone I’ve seen as a therapist, including the guy who attempted murder. (Beneath his rage, he turned out to be a real sweetheart.)

  I didn’t even mind the week before, at our first session, when John explained that he’d come to me because I was a “nobody” here in Los Angeles, which meant that he wouldn’t run into any of his television-industry colleagues when coming for treatment. (His colleagues, he suspected, went to “well-known, experienced therapists.”) I simply tagged that for future use, when he’d be more open to engaging with me. Nor did I flinch at the end of that session when he handed me a wad of cash and explained that he preferred to pay this way because he didn’t want his wife to know he was seeing a therapist.

  “You’ll be like my mistress,” he’d suggested. “Or, actually, more like my hooker. No offense, but you’re not the kind of woman I’d choose as a mistress . . . if you know what I mean.”

  I didn’t know what he meant (someone blonder? Younger? With whiter, more sparkly teeth?), but I figured that this comment was just one of John’s defenses against getting close to anybody or acknowledging his need for another human being.

  “Ha-ha, my hooker!” he said, pausing at the door. “I’ll just come here each week, release all my pent-up frustration, and nobody has to know! Isn’t that funny?”

  Oh, yeah, I wanted to say, super-funny.

  Still, as I heard him laugh his way down the hall, I felt confident that I could grow to like John. Underneath his off-putting presentation, something likable—even beautiful—was sure to emerge.

  But that was last week.

  Today he just seems like an asshole. An asshole with spectacular teeth.

  Have compassion, have compassion, have compassion. I repeat my silent mantra then refocus on John. He’s talking about a mistake made by one of the crew members on his show (a man whose name, in John’s telling, is simply The Idiot) and just then, something occurs to me: John’s rant sounds eerily familiar. Not the situations he’s describing, but the feelings they evoke in him—and in me. I know how affirming it feels to blame the outside world for my frustrations, to deny ownership of whatever role I might have in the existential play called My Incredibly Important Life. I know what it’s like to bathe in self-righteous outrage, in the certainty that I’m completely right and have been terribly wronged, because that’s exactly how I’ve felt all day.

  What John doesn’t know is that I’m reeling from last night, when the man I thought I was going to marry unexpectedly called it quits. Today I’m trying to focus on my patients (allowing myself to cry only in the ten-minute breaks between sessions, carefully wiping away my running mascara before the next person arrives). In other words, I’m dealing with my pain the way I suspect John has been dealing with his: by covering it up.

  As a therapist, I know a lot about pain, about the ways in which pain is tied to loss. But I also know something less commonly understood: that change and loss travel together. We can’t have change without loss, which is why so often people say they want change but nonetheless stay exactly the same. To help John, I’m going to have to figure out what his loss would be, but first, I’m going to have to understand mine. Because right now, all I can think about is what my boyfriend did last night.

  The idiot!

  I look back at John and think: I hear you, brother.

  Wait a minute, you might be thinking. Why are you telling me all this? Aren’t therapists supposed to keep their personal lives private? Aren’t they supposed to be blank slates who never reveal anything about themselves, objective observers who refrain from calling their patients names—even in their heads? Besides, aren’t therapists, of all people, supposed to have their lives together?

  On the one hand, yes. What happens in the therapy room should be done on behalf of the patient, and if therapists aren’t able to separate their own struggles from those of the people who come to them, then they should, without question, choose a different line of work.

  On the other hand, this—right here, right now, between you and me—isn’t therapy, but a story about therapy: how we heal and where it leads us. Like in those National Geographic Channel shows that capture the embryonic development and birth of rare crocodiles, I want to capture the process in which humans, struggling to evolve, push against their shells until they quietly (but sometimes loudly) and slowly (but sometimes suddenly) crack open.

  So while the image of me with mascara running down my tear-streaked face between sessions may be uncomfortable to contemplate, that’s where this story about the handful of struggling humans you are about to meet begins—with my own humanity.

  Therapists, of course, deal with the daily challenges of living just like
everyone else. This familiarity, in fact, is at the root of the connection we forge with strangers who trust us with their most delicate stories and secrets. Our training has taught us theories and tools and techniques, but whirring beneath our hard-earned expertise is the fact that we know just how hard it is to be a person. Which is to say, we still come to work each day as ourselves—with our own sets of vulnerabilities, our own longings and insecurities, and our own histories. Of all my credentials as a therapist, my most significant is that I’m a card-carrying member of the human race.

  But revealing this humanity is another matter. One colleague told me that when her doctor called with the news that her pregnancy wasn’t viable, she was standing in a Starbucks, and she burst into tears. A patient happened to see her, canceled her next appointment, and never came back.

  I remember hearing the writer Andrew Solomon tell a story about a married couple he’d met at a conference. During the course of the day, he said, each spouse had confessed independently to him to taking antidepressants but didn’t want the other to know. It turned out that they were hiding the same medication in the same house. No matter how open we as a society are about formerly private matters, the stigma around our emotional struggles remains formidable. We’ll talk with almost anyone about our physical health (can anyone imagine spouses hiding their reflux medication from each other?), even our sex lives, but bring up anxiety or depression or an intractable sense of grief, and the expression on the face looking back at you will probably read, Get me out of this conversation, pronto.

  But what are we so afraid of? It’s not as if we’re going to peer in those darker corners, flip on the light, and find a bunch of cockroaches. Fireflies love the dark too. There’s beauty in those places. But we have to look in there to see it.

  My business, the therapy business, is about looking.

  And not just with my patients.

  A little-discussed fact: Therapists go to therapists. We’re required, in fact, to go during training as part of our hours for licensure so that we know firsthand what our future patients will experience. We learn how to accept feedback, tolerate discomfort, become aware of blind spots, and discover the impact of our histories and behaviors on ourselves and others.