Last night I gave my therapist, Babs, the heave-ho.
I had been seeing her pretty on and off since November and she was OK. She wasn't awful but I never got the impression that she and I clicked. I didn't hate her we just didn't mesh well together.
I originally started seeing a therapist to deal with some of the emotional issues I had with moving back home after living on my own for such a long time. Of course through therapy other issues came out. One of the main ones was me and relationships.
For obvious reasons I'm not going to go into what exactly we talked, but a few weeks ago Babs concluded a session with, "Well did you ever think that maybe you don't want to get married? Maybe you don't want to have kids?"
"Huh..." I stared at the ceiling, "Maybe. I've never thought about not doing that."
That session kind of blew me away. I've always thought that I wanted to be married, wanted to have kids. But after Babs and I talked about it I found myself being OK with the notion of not having all of that. And being OK with it was not something I wanted to be comfortable with.
Last week I brought up stopping therapy. I'd been grappling with the idea of even going to therapy since the first day I started. Did I want to do this? Why was I doing it? Did I need it? I decided that maybe at this point in my life I wasn't ready for it. But after I told her I didn't want to come back I told her I'd think about it.
Obviously Babs wanted to know why I didn't want to come back. And I hate answering the Whys.
"Um. I just do. I don't want to think about being single at 50."
"But you may do things that keep men away."
"That's because all the guys I date are idiots."
"But your sub-conscious may be telling you that you don't want to get married so you do things to push people away."
"Um. I went on dates pretty much every day from 2006-2007 and there was not one person I wanted to go on a second date with. I'm sorry but if a guy gets so drunk on a first date that he tries to lick me goodbye, I'm not going to pursue it."
"But what are the benefits and losses of always looking for things to pick apart?"
Argh! Again with the questions!
My therapist also has it on good authority that I like to flee; run away before getting too close. God, how cliche is that?
So last night at the beginning of our session I told her I wasn't going to continue with therapy.
Babs folded her hands, crossed her legs and told me to "tell her more about that."
"I just don't want to continue."
"Why?"
"I just don't."
Her eyes bored into mine. Whenever I'm silent in therapy I always think of the scene in Good Will Hunting where Will just stares at the clock for the full hour of their session; ticking away the seconds until the end. Robin Williams thinks its impressive. I think my therapist just gets bored.
At the end of the session she asked, "Where this left us."
"I'm not going to come back."
"Well why don't I do this. I'll hold next Tuesday tentatively open for you and you let me know if you want to come back."
I started to say OK, like my mouth was forming the words but then I snapped to attention. "Yeah you know what. Don't bother. I'm not going to be continuing therapy. With you."
Babs got quiet and pursed her lips. Then she spoke, "So that's it. You're just going to run away? Flee?"
Harsh. But true.
"Yup!"
I shook her hand and went on my way. She wished me well and that was that. We'll see. I'm not one of those people who doesn't believe in therapy. I think it's a good thing, I just don't know if I want to go there just yet.