Chapter 82: Chapter 82
After the last needle, my nurse lets the sedatives wear off to see how I’m doing. My affect is devoid of emotion. The nurse tells me they are starting me on a medication called Paxil, giving me the first pill with a bit of water. My mouth feels like it was full of cotton from being so dry and I’m desperate for a shower. My hair is matted and grungy.
“Can I take a shower?”
“Sure, it's down the hall. Towels are on a cart right next to the shower room.
Are you hungry, dear?” the nurse asks genuinely concerned. “No, I’m not yet.” I hadn’t even thought of food. “Okay, dinner is at 6:00,” my nurse informs me.
I trudge down the tiled hallway that reeks of antiseptic. Aligning the corridor are rooms with fresh beds and others that are messy. All the rooms seem empty right now. It’s 1:00 p.m. There is a receptionist with "Psychiatry" in bold letters on the wall behind her head. I stopped and looked; I’m stunned. A psych ward? The receptionist looks back at me but that is as far as her acknowledgment goes. She is enclosed in a glass partition, no doubt for her safety. I guess it protects her from the likes of me. The empty rooms and the time of day lead me to the assumption that people must be having lunch, together.
I find the shower, imagining the germs and bacteria floating around this place. I go inside and strip down. There is an emergency button in case I need a nurse. It is nice to feel human again. I close my eyes as the tepid water cascades down my body. I’m hoping I’m dreaming, and that I’m not here. I reopen my eyes to the same place as when I close them.
On my way back to my room I see people leaving what I assume is a lunchroom. Some of the people I see look normal, yet others don’t. They are of different ages; some sadly enough are very young, like teenagers. The most notable ones speak to themselves, wear headphones playing loud music, look unkempt.
The nurse is in my room waiting. “The doctor wants to see you in his office now.”
“Where’s that?”
“Follow me.”
I shadow her down several corridors until she stops to tap on a doctor’s door. She introduces me and leaves the room. I look around his windowless office, thinking it looks as desolate as I feel. It consists of a cluttered desk, two patched-up leather chairs, and a cramped dusty old bookshelf.
The little man with coke bottle glasses appears to need a shower himself. He has a very approachable, friendly look to him but it irks me that they don’t find me a female psychiatrist after being raped by a man. Maybe if they double my dose of Paxil, the aliens will come back and my world will be better?
He studies my appearance before introducing himself, “HI Isabella. My name is Dr. Bill Carson, but for our sessions, you can call me Bill.”
“Hi,” I said.
“No couch?”
“Do you need one?”
“No, not really.”
“Why are you here?”
I notice his open question. It is the kind of question designed to open a can of worms. “Do you want me to psychoanalyze myself? If you do, I would say because I’m suffering PTSD”
“How so?”
“This will take longer than seventy-two hours,” I complain.
“I’m not going anywhere, so yes, for you, I do have the time. Let’s start with you telling me about your childhood. Was it a happy one?”
“Yes, it was albeit an abnormal one.” “Why?”
“I never had time to hang out with kids my age, I was either at school or in the arena.”
“Did you like that?”
“For the most part. I didn’t know anything else.”
He studied me for a minute and then says, “Tell me about your mom and dad”
“Mom was my primary caregiver and dad. They spent every last spare dollar on my figure skating. I almost quit in my teens due to an injury.”
“What stopped you?” he asks.
“Meeting Scott, and trying something new, namely pairs figure skating.”
“Are you glad you kept going?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me about Scott,” he delves.
“We were paired up when he was nineteen. I was a little younger. We fell in love and got married. Then we ran into problems after the shows stopped our relationship started falling apart.”
“Can you tell me why you think that happened?”
“We never got over missing the training part of our careers. We had to find new things to spend our time on. Family secrets started surfacing and he had this unreasonable jealousy towards my ex-boyfriend at the time Michael.”
“The one who assaulted you?”
“Yes.”
“Scott and I found it hard to talk to one another. We closed ourselves off.” “Can you tell me a bit about his personality? How were you treated by him?”
“We started as friends. He was sweet and we worked hard together.” I lamented.
“Looking back, I think I was always attracted to him but I had Michael at the time. Scott forced me to break up with him to concentrate on my skating and I resented him for it.”
"We got married soon after winning the Olympics. When dad died, Scott supported me more, cared for me more. He was taking on his role too. He was supportive, nurturing, and a good provider but he would never replace my father. Scott became the center of my universe. I became too dependent on him. It was unhealthy. So he pushed me away to work on his issues.”
“How did that make you feel?”
“I felt like I was sinking, lost, alone. I misinterpreted it, as a personal rejection, which led to fighting. I fell into a depression and lost thirty pounds.”
“Did you become suicidal?”
“I wanted to die, but I would never kill myself.”
“Are you divorced?”
“Yes.”
“Do you still see him?”
“All the time, we work together and remain friends.”
“So, how is your relationship with him now?”
“Closer.”
“Our session is over. We’ll pick up tomorrow, where we left off.”
“Thanks.”