Tales from Therapy #1: my first session
On the obsession scale, I would put my love of The Mountain Goats at about a 6.5. I really like the band, I listen to their albums, and buy tickets to see them on their ever increasingly rare tours of Australia. However, there are much bigger fans who know all the words, have the bootleg downloads and literally only listen to The Mountain Goats. I am not at that level.
John Darnielle, however - a straight 10/10. John Darnielle is one of the Great Men. There was a period of time in 2022 where I listened only to John Darnielle interviews. I wish more people were like John Darnielle. I wish I were more like John Darnielle.
So what does this have to do with my first therapy session?
I am getting there, eventually.
In 2015 I went to see John Darnielle speak at the Sydney Writer’s Festival following the release of his first novel, Wolf in White Van (yes, I think you should read it). During the Q&A section - a section I normally loathe - a woman asked him a question regarding writing about empathy and alienation and his response was so eloquent and so moving that I thought about it regularly for years after (You can listen to the question and his answer from 1:02:15 of this link).
This is a good example of why I would like to be more like John Darnielle.
If you didn’t listen to the question and his answer, and brownie points for all who did, he speaks of being able to access not so great times in his life and being able to sit with them and in them to gain information from them. It can scorch, but ultimately it does not hold power over him. And he did this through - you’ve guessed it - therapy.
Alongside being a counsellor I have been in my own therapy for seven years now, a period of time that feels ridiculous to type. I do not think this is particularly poor form to disclose this information to the world, although I understand reasons why people may disagree. I think the best analogy I can come up with is the personal trainer being out of shape or the GP putting out a cigarette. Practice what you preach etc.
So how did I end up in therapy?
In early 2016 I went through one of the Top 10 life stressors. Which one it was does not actually matter. Sitting with it now brings on a bit of a sweat (although that could also be the 70% humidity we have today). There is a fair amount of that period I really do not remember at all, whether it is self preservation or just the passing of time. I do remember a fairly heavy fog that seemed to have descended on me, alongside an inability to string a sentence together. Whole chunks of my vocabulary evaporated, seemingly overnight. A friend concerned that I was eating Gnocchi every single night.
It was an hour to hour, day to day type of thing.
Survival mode had kicked in.
Was it always going to be this way?
I remember making a call to my organisation’s Employee Assistance Program and blurting out a few words regarding what was going on and if I could see someone. There was definitely some excuse made for why I was going to be in late.
I remember the building I had to go to. It was sterile and grey, or at least that’s how my memory has coded it.
Yellow fluorescent lighting.
Not exactly a Wellness centre.
I found myself next to it last week and had a moment -it was oddly the perfect place for this stage.
The only reason I remember the therapist who was assigned to me is that I still have the same therapist seven years later. I could barely look at her for probably my first five sessions or so. Grief, shame, anger, sadness, denial - you name it, I was feeling it. This was acute.
I would be lying if I said I remembered exactly how the first session went. I think I may have spoken for about four of our allotted fifty minutes, the rest being either me crying, silence, being told to take my time. More silence, more crying. There was no huge revelation, no real clarity. I don’t even know if I felt any better in all honesty.
But I went back.
And I have continued to go back.
So something worked.
Hindsight is always 20/20 but I believe it was the space itself for me to say as much or as little as I wanted, to say things I could not say to literally anyone else, to allow words to fall out of my mouth and not see the world crumble around me as I said them, that kept me coming back. The vulnerability. The safety.
The work.
To paraphrase the great man, I am leaving that version of Richard behind, but he’s always there. He’s grown.
Onwards.
(The author and John Darnielle pictured at The Union Chapel, London in 2007. Please forgive my leather jacket. Copyright C Cooper)
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You can find out more about my work at
https://www.richardbrowne.com.au/
