Hollywood Lied

Chapter 10: Gilbert & Therapy

Gilbert talked me into going to therapy.

Not for the drugs, not for the drinking—those were symptoms, not the disease. It was because there were nights when I’d get so wasted I could feel that thin line between anger and violence disappearing. I wasn’t afraid of dying. I was afraid of waking up one morning and realizing I’d actually hurt someone. Or worse.

And I’m not a peaceful person. You already know that.

I’ve always carried this fuse inside me—short, frayed, sparking at the slightest touch. When liquor gets involved, that fuse turns into a live wire. Therapy wasn’t some heroic step on my part; it was damage control. Gilbert knew it, and on some level, so did I.

I didn’t want to end up on the news. I didn’t want blood on my hands.

So I went. Not because I believed in healing or redemption or any of that sentimental crap… but because the alternative scared me more than the truth.

Marjorie supported my going to therapy.

She didn’t nag, didn’t guilt‑trip, didn’t lecture—she just showed up. On that first day, she sat beside me in the waiting room, her knee brushing mine, her fingers tracing circles on my palm like she was trying to keep me grounded.

And honestly? I needed it. I had plenty of issues. The kind you can’t just drown in booze or bury under a needle. The kind that sit on your chest at night and whisper every stupid thing you’ve ever done.

She didn’t pretend I was fine. She didn’t pretend she could fix me.

But she believed I could do something other than self‑destruct, and that alone made the room feel a little less suffocating.

When the therapist finally called my name, I felt like I was walking into a goddamn courtroom. But Marjorie squeezed my hand and said, “Go. I’m right here when you’re done.”

And for the first time in a long time, I actually went.

“Tyler, would you please introduce yourself?” the head therapist asked, turning toward a guy whose straw‑blond hair looked like it had been cut with a lawnmower.

He blinked slowly, like he was waking up from a three‑day nap. His whole vibe screamed goofy as hell, but I kept that thought locked behind my teeth. This wasn’t the place to start s**t, and I knew it. Not with everyone already sitting in a circle like we were about to summon some therapy demon.

Tyler cleared his throat and stared at the floor as if it owed him money. “I’m… Tyler,” he muttered. “I, uh… get angry. A lot.”

I almost snorted. Buddy, welcome to the damn club.

But I stayed quiet, hands folded, trying to look like I belonged in a room full of people who were trying—really trying—to get better.

“Does anyone else suffer from this?” he asked, curious.

I lifted my hand all the way up, higher than anyone else in that cramped little room. If I was going to be judged, then fine—judge the hell out of me. The world had been doing that since I was five, so why stop now?

Even back then, I never had a shred of privacy. Not a moment to breathe without someone turning it into a comedy sketch at my expense. People still quoted that scene like it was the funniest thing ever filmed—Grandpa Wilcox holding up a trout the size of a toddler and booming, “My, what a big one!”

It was obviously about the fish, but no, everyone and their grandmother acted like he was talking about a damn d**k. They’d repeat it nonstop, circling me on the playground like vultures laughing their lungs out. I couldn’t go a day without someone whispering it behind my back or shouting it across the yard like it was the punchline of all punchlines.

So sitting in that therapy room, raising my hand? Yeah—this was nothing. I’d already lived through the humiliations people would write memoirs about.

I cleared my throat and tried to sit a little straighter, though my nerves were buzzing like live wires.

“What is your situation, Cody? Wait—aren’t you the former child actor?” he asked, eyes widening like he’d just spotted a celebrity at Disneyland.

“Yeah, I am,” I admitted, already regretting it. “But don’t let that affect how you see me, though. I’m only a human being. Flesh and bone. Muscles and nerves.”

It came out shaky, a little too rehearsed, like I’d said some version of it a thousand times before. Because I had.

“I won’t. I promise,” he replied, letting out a long, contemplative sigh—except it wasn’t the kind of sigh people make when they understand you. It was the kind they make when they think you’re being dramatic.

As if I’d just made some tongue‑in‑cheek joke. As if my whole life wasn’t the punchline already.

“Now, who here struggles with a drug or alcohol addiction?” he asked, his tone dropping into something solemn and performative. “Many depressed people turn to substances to cope with their issues. They lead a path straight to their demise.”

That word hit me wrong. Demise. It sounded theatrical, like something a Victorian doctor would whisper over a fainting widow.

I clenched my jaw.

I hated that word. I wasn’t marching toward some tragic ending. I wasn’t planning to off myself with a needle. I was careful—meticulous, even. I knew my limits. I knew my dosages. Hell, I’d overdosed at twenty‑three, and all it earned me was a skull‑splitting headache and two days of withdrawals that felt like a fever dream from hell.

No bright light. No angels. Just me, the toilet, and a promise to never mix suppliers again.

So no, I didn’t buy his dramatics. Not for a second.

“I don’t see the point of this group. You can’t fix what’s been broken too many times,“ I admitted.

He just gasped and the whole room glared at me in annoyance.

“Okay, I’ll stay. But this group better fix me,” I muttered, my jaw clenched so tight it hurt.

For a moment, the whole room went still. Even the air felt heavy, like everyone was bracing for something to shatter.

Tyler’s eyes widened. The head therapist leaned forward, his voice steady but carrying that quiet urgency only professionals seem to master.

“Cody… what you’re feeling is serious. And you’re not alone with it. But I need you to hear me clearly: there are other options. We’re here to help you find them.”

That steadiness in his tone only made the pressure in my chest twist even harder. My hands trembled in my lap, and I dug my nails into my palms just to feel something sharp, something real.

“You don’t have to handle this alone,” he added, softer now. “Not anymore.”

“Good to know,” I muttered, disbelief dripping off every word.

I slumped deeper into my chair, staring past the circle like I could glare my way out of the room. Therapy had never done a damn thing for me. Not the talking, not the breathing exercises, not the journaling, not the “inner child” bullshit.

My real therapy? h****n when the world went gray. Cigarettes when I needed something to burn besides myself. Alcohol to knock the noise down to something survivable.

Pot made me paranoid, so that was a no-go. And those cursed morning glory seeds? I still felt sick thinking about them.

Hours of vomiting. Zero visuals. No epiphany. Just me, hugging a toilet and then eating a burrito that tasted like a religious experience.

That was it. That was the whole journey.

And now here I was, in a folding chair in a beige room, expected to believe these strangers were going to fix what drugs couldn’t even numb anymore.

Yeah. Right.

Marj was on her feet the second I walked into the waiting room. Her eyes were wide, worried, searching my face for even a sliver of hope.

I didn’t give her one.

I sank into the plastic chair beside her, elbows on my knees, breath shaking. When she asked how it went, I didn’t have the strength—or the patience—to sugarcoat anything.

“Godawful,” I spat, the word ripping out of me like it burned. “They act like they understand an addict’s mind. They’re not f*****g doctors!”

My voice cracked into a full‑throated roar. The sound bounced hard off the walls, trembling through the cheap artwork and the receptionist’s desk. For a split second, the whole room seemed to flinch.

Then everything inside me just… collapsed.

I folded into myself and sobbed—loud, ugly, desperate. The kind of crying that had no dignity left to protect. The kind that only happens when you’re dangling over the edge and your fingers are slipping.

This wasn’t sustainable. This wasn’t survivable.

Something had to give, and fast. Because if it didn’t, I was going to shatter—or lose my mind completely.

And perhaps I did lose my mind that day.

It didn’t feel like a dramatic snap or some cinematic break. It was quieter than that—like a thin wire inside me finally giving way after years of tension. One moment I was sobbing in that hard plastic chair, and the next it felt as if something had slipped out of alignment in a way I couldn’t undo.

The colors in the room seemed too bright. The buzzing from the overhead lights drilled straight into my skull. Every breath dragged like sandpaper.

Marj kept talking—soft, frantic—but her voice sounded like it was coming from the bottom of a swimming pool. I could see her lips moving, see the fear in her eyes, but none of it registered the way it should have.

I wasn’t inside myself anymore. I was watching from the doorway of my own mind, feeling everything and nothing all at once.

If that isn’t losing your mind, I don’t know what is.

She called the psych hospital Mallory Wayne’s that day. A stupid nickname. A careless one. But it hit me harder than any insult ever could.

For a while, I treated it like a betrayal. Like she’d tossed my pain into a joke box and wound the crank just to see me twitch. Every time I replayed it in my head, the anger scattered through me like broken glass. Sharp. Pointless. Endless.

But anger has a way of corroding the person who carries it. And I was already rusted through.

So eventually—slowly, painfully—I let it go. Not because she deserved forgiveness in some grand moral sense, but because I couldn’t keep living with that acid eating through my ribs. I had enough poison inside me already. I didn’t need to nurture another dose.

Forgiving her was less a gift to her and more a quiet mercy for myself.