Therapy Sessions

Childhood Trauma

May 2019

The office was bright, lit with afternoon sunlight that peered through wide windows and poured into the spacious room. At the mahogany desk sat the therapist and across from him, his newest patient. She was a handful but intriguing none the less and he had mentally made her his new project. He aimed to tame her mind but knew upon their first meeting that it wouldn't come with ease.

Ana eyed the shrink, she was high on one of her favorite downers--xanax. It invaded her nasal passages in the form of fine white powder and scratched at her throat even now. Her eyes were blood shot, pupils completely shot, her mind deliciously numb. It was maybe one of the closest things to normal she had felt in a while. But she felt empty all the same.

"You'd mentioned childhood traumas the last time we met, is that still a topic you're willing to---want to---discuss?" his voice came smooth as he broke the momentary silence. Chocolate orbs watched as the brunette shifted in her seat. Discomfort was it? Unease?

"Rather discuss that than the murder," the words were laced with something that even her therapist was having trouble detecting. Mockery? Condescending? Hatred? Her tone seemed dark and she had just thrown a stab at his request from their last session.

"Are you high, Anastasia?" Dr. Michaels had taken note to the way her eyes seemed darker than before, glazed over, and more bloodshot.

"Yep," she leaned back in the seat and crossed her legs one over the other. "Brownie points if you can guess what drug it is," her words were slower than normal, tired sounding like she had run out of energy or had just completely ran out of f***s to give.

Dr. Evans seemed to be less than amused by her now, his face was straight and bore crude seriousness. "If I had to take a guess I'd go with an opiate maybe, definitely not pot but I'll let you decide then. We can either discuss this substance abuse problem you seem to have or we stick with the childhood traumas." It wasn't the usual course of talking to patients or getting through to them but Ana was anything other than usual. She had made that very clear.

"Trauma," she drew her purse onto her lap now, unzipped it and pulled out a fag. Raising it to her lips, she grabbed her lighter and sparked the end of the cigarette before inhaling, exhaling it into the air around them. "When I was twelve," she began after another deep drag of poison. "My mother was killed in a car accident on her way to pick me up from a friend's house. A drunk driver rolled her car. She died on impact." Pausing, she bit the inside of her cheek, she still had yet to get to the icing on the cake. "But that's not the trauma of the story. The gag of it all was my father turning cold and distant. Towards me specifically. To this day, he still blames me for her death," the cigarette found its way back to her lips, she took a puff of the tobacco fueled smoke and held it in for longer than she should have.

"You know it wasn't your fault, don't you?" As though she hadn't heard it a millions times already.

"Uh-huh," she was ashing the cigarette now, flicking the burnt up tip into the ash tray that sat on the edge of the desk. But wasn't it her fault? Had she not needed a ride home that day, odds are, her mother would still be very much alive. "When I was thirteen his co worker--" she wet her lips with the tip of her tongue and stopped herself. She had been honest enough for now and never did enjoy giving too much away, secrecy was her strong suit. "Hm.. we'll save that for a later date, why don't you tell me something about you, Peter?" she mused, the edges of her lips curling up. "What's your deepest, darkest secret?" Her brow arched. She ditched the formality and referred to him by his first name. "Ever f**k a patient? Steal from someone close to you? Shoot up hard drugs," she was prying, distracting from whatever she had started to tell him before deciding he didn't deserve to know that information about her.

"No," the words were stern. "You're good at that, I must say. Deflecting conversations," he could see right through her, and why wouldn't he?

"Have you ever considered going for it?"

"Have I ever considered shooting myself up with drugs? I can honestly say, no, no I have not."

"No," she chuckled. "I meant relations with one of your patients," if she hadn't already been, she was crossing boundaries now. She wanted him to leave her alone, to be so distracted by the conversation that he didn't recall what the had been discussing before. It hadn't worked.

"What about your father's co worker?" he pressed.

"Like I said, that's for a later date."