So It Goes
May 17, 2008
A couple of appointments ago, my doctor and I were chatting about, of all things, his idol, Sigmund Freud. He had declared that I have a “cathexis” with Xanax that is “amazing and just fascinating.”
He looked at me when he had said that asking if I was going to ask him what it was. I told him I thought I knew and that it meant an obsession of sorts, a central focus on something, tunnel vision if you will. He said “Sort of, but not exactly.” When I asked him to explain, he told me to look it up which I did and in case anyone is wondering, it is a redirection of emotional energy to an object. Woopie! So, we chatted about that for a while, argued about increasing the doseage (he wouldn’t–surprise) and then it came back to his asking me what I am going to do about all of this.
I informed him that the ball is in his court because I had agreed to go to therapy, he said he would get back to me and it had been 2 months and he never did. He muttered something along with a Jesus Christ, told me stay where I was and not touch his desk (afraid of script theft or something??) and that he’d be back in 10 seconds. He ran out to the hall and called a man’s name.
He said “John? Lisa. Lisa? John. You two have met before. Do you remember, John?”
John answered “Sure but it’s been a while hasn’t it?”
I told him that indeed it had been a while and that our one and only meeting a year earlier had not ended well. The doctor interrupted me telling John he wanted me in therapy and could he fit me in? I felt the obligation to tell John that I don’t like questions and I don’t like talking so, I don’t know how the doctor thought “TALK” therapy was going to work out and that I was just agreeing to this because he promised to increase the Xanax if I went. The doctor looked at me and said “I don’t really remember that.” John said “Sounds like blackmail to me.” I just said that he definitely did but whatever and waited for someone to explain to me how talk therapy would work with someone who doesn’t talk much. The doctor again interrupted saying “The thing about Lisa, John, is that she is smart, funny and a bullshitter, not a great combination. She doesn’t like questions but I told her sometimes we have to ask them to further progress and she talks just fine. It’s a matter ofgetting her to talk about what we need her to talk about rather than what she wants to talk about.”
So, we set up an appointment and I went.
See the next post.
