Chapter 29 Maybe therapy doesn't suck

Chapter 29 Maybe therapy doesn't suck
Stephanie

My fingers were interlaced as I laid on the couch, my eyes fixated on the too white ceiling. There was a tiny black spot on it. It felt wrong and out of place with the remaining decor. Or maybe I was the wrong and out of place thing. The stain on someone's otherwise perfect life.

Either way, someone needed to take care of that black spot. Maybe if I stared at it hard enough, it'll disappear.

The sound of someone clearing their throat pulled me out of my thoughts. I dragged my gaze away from the black spot and stared at the doctor. She gave me a pointed look.

“Sorry.” I said and rose from my laying position.

In my defense, I didn't just walk in and sprawl on her couch. She had been in the bathroom when I entered and I had gotten entranced by the black spot on the ceiling.

“It's okay.” she offered me a warm smile that seem to make me feel relaxed almost immediately. It was so different from the cold, empty smile the girl in the lobby had given me.

“The girl at the lobby, she says she used to go to my school.” I started.

“You know I don't share personal information of my other clients.” She responded.

“Right. Sorry again. She just seem a little… intense.”

Not to mention, she seem to make people uncomfortable without even realizing it. Or maybe I had judged her too fast and made up the entire narrative in my head. The girl was friendly the entire time, even if her eyes had been slightly… unnerving.

I felt guilty for thinking that about her and quickly banished the thoughts from my mind. I sat straighter on the couch.

“How are you doing today?” Dr Martins
asked, effectively changing the subject and saving me from beating myself up mentally.

“I'm fine.” I answered.

Not entirely, but I wasn't on the verge of throwing a tantrum and fleeing because I couldn't answer a difficult question. So I guess, I was fine.

In general, my life was going great. Well, aside from the shit with Sophie among other things.

“I can sense a ‘but’ coming.” she said.

I sighed. “There's this thing that has been happening to me in the past weeks that I don't understand.”

Then I told her about the Vault, how I had just froze when the fight broke out that day. I told her about the pool and that the same thing happened again.

“I know it's a panic attack, but I don't understand how. The two situations are entirely different. There was no clear patterns, no way of figuring out what had caused it and how to prevent it from happening again. I'm losing my mind here, doc. Literally.”

I watched as she scribbled something on her notepad.

“You know, you can just prescribe something for me. Maybe some Adderall or some Xanax, that would really help me.”

“I am not going to prescribe drugs for you. I'm not even licensed to do that.” she said.

“Right.” I nodded. “So what do I do? I have a revenge to plan, a gazillion books to read, and a future to prepare for, and I need my brain in peak condition for that.”

“A revenge to plan?” The doctor arched an eyebrow.

“Long story, I'll tell you about it later.” I waved her off.

She gave me that stern look that always got me talking even when I didn't want to. It took all of five seconds for me to succumb.

“The girl that pushed me into the pool, Sophie, she's my stepbrother's girlfriend, I think. We had a disagreement on my first day of school at assembly. I think that's the reason she pushed me in the pool. She probably wanted to embarrass me at the party.” I explained.

“And you're planning a revenge.” She said.

“I don't know what I'm going to do yet, but I don't want her to get away with bullying me.”

What I didn't say was that I was tired with everyone thinking they can walk all over me without any consequences. But Dr Martins seem to read the unsaid words on my face. She scribbled something on her notepad again.

“What are you writing?” I asked, unable to resist myself. She was writing so much today.

She gave me a warm smile. “Have you confronted Emily yet?”

My body went cold. I regained myself back after a few seconds later. The thought of speaking to Emily hadn't crossed my mind in the past few days. I was absolutely content with letting the memory of her fade into the back of my mind. I didn't let myself think of her or her betrayer. I wouldn't.

“Why are we talking about her?” I said calmly. I swallowed hard, trying to stop the tightening in my chest.

Pretense. Deflect. Rage.

Pretending I was fine would work for me now. The alternative was letting this ugly feeling crawl all over my chest and end up suffocating me to death.

“I'm guessing you haven't.” she said. When I didn't give her a response, she dropped hey notepad, giving me her full attention.

“What you went through in the past year was really traumatic. The two people who had helped you through it were your ex boyfriend and Emily. And now your find out that they had both betrayed you, but you don't want to talk about it.”

“I did talk about it at length last session. There's no need to revisit the topic.” I shrugged, trying to appear casual even as my insides churned painfully.

“You didn't. You told me what happened but didn't want to discuss how it affects you. You told me about Emily and your mother's relationship, but you didn't mention how their closeness made you feel so alone after the incident last summer. You needed someone close to you, but you got competition for your mother's and boyfriend's love in form of your best friend.” She said calmly.

“That is not true.” I scoffed. “I didn't need any of them. I handled everything on my own.”

“But you didn't handle it, Stephanie. What you did was push your emotions away instead of addressing them. Now, when those emotions get triggered by an event, they overwhelm you and make you freeze.”

I mulled over her words. She waited patiently while I tried to make sense of what she said. The more I thought about it, the more I realized she wasn't entirely way off. I had taken my mantra seriously this past few years.

Pretend everything was fine and I wasn't fucked up in the head.

Deflect when anyone get close enough to figure out how fucked up I was.

Rage when they finally figure it out and want to fix me.

It was what I was doing, what I had always done. But maybe it was time to reconsider my approach.

“So what you're saying is that the panic attacks are as a result of my unresolved emotions?” I asked.

“Yes, but not entirely. They're specifically tied to an emotion. One you're not used to feeling because it makes you extremely vulnerable, but you've had to feel it in waves during the incident with your father.”

I instantly knew what emotion it was. “Fear.” I muttered.

I hated being afraid, but I had been during the fight at the Vault and also when Sophie pushed me into the pool.

“Exactly.” the doctor smiled. “Because fear is greatly tied to your trauma, it becomes the trigger for your panic attacks.”

“So I should just stop being afraid?”

“No, you should face the things that are making you afraid in the first place. It's the only way to get over fear.”

I stared at her, unsure of what to say. After a while, I sighed and leaned back into the couch, “You make it sound so simple.”

“It's might not be simple, but it's definitely not impossible. When you confront those emotions you've been suppressing, you can finally let it go and be free.”

The thought of ever seeing Emily again or confronting that part of my past made my guts churn, but I was also willing to do anything to be better. I didn't want them to have control over my life anymore.

An idea crossed my mind, and I immediately knew what I had to do.