Sep 16

 There are things in life, being a human, that will never sit right with me. That at this point, seems fairly evident.

Everytime I see a photo of Athena that fact is as fresh and raw as ever.

I do not like the world works that way. And Athena is gone.

This is how the world works. This is how the universe with its myriad of energies and forms, and eventual meta of biological evolution sits at its resting point on this planet. Tiny short lived bursts of stable patterns that decay into nothing. The patterns are nothing short of miraculous. Wondrous. Living, breathing, self aware, sentient experiencers of joy, pain, watchers of the stars.

The fact that this creates and destroys over and over. A constant line of creation of beauty, destruction of beauty is something I cannot accept.

I am at odds with reality. The unreasonable man.

But larger than that. Than just beautiful Athena. Suffering. In general. There are aspects of life I do not like. Beyond all my usual horseshit of living a fairly tortured life these days. I do not like the hangovers of evolutionary pressure. Do or die. Struggle. Strive. Die anyway.

It is to my estimation of some higher order nonsense of value, of experience, downright cruel. An engine of torture. Precisely because it generates something wonderful. Then destroys it. The ultimate spiteful child taking something nice, and then stomping on it. 

No matter how much time passes. No matter what philosophy you take. No matter that I endure it, understand the realities.

I don't accept it. It is like some ridiculous hard line. I cannot. Will not. Ever come to terms with.

And so, perhaps as the buddhists say, if you cannot learn to make sense of the suffering, to work with it and around it, then you are doomed to eternally suffer with it.

So here I am.

Eternally tormented by it.

And at its most simple, less deep. I can just miss my mutts.

But it runs so much deeper than that. Touches the very nature of the universe and the arrangement of atoms and the lack of meaning in the quantum wave soup.

At best. It slides out of view sometimes. My mind distracted by something. I am human. I have limited bandwidth to process things at once. Like a memory swap - a memory fault - things are paged out of working intellect into storage whilst we consider something else. I can consider many things at once - a curse. Because it means distractions have to absorb a lot of that capacity before some of those distressing things are cleared out of working memory. But once a task is done. Short. Long. Or interrupted half way through to refresh. It is still there. That. Major misalignment.

This is one of the reasons I say I am broken. Fundamentally. I no longer work well in my environment. The car with four flat tyres.

No says the therapist. No say people around me.

I let those words pass over me.

You do not know. I can explain it. And watch you sidestep it. Which of us lives in reality. And which of us lives in a state of coping.

But don't get me wrong. I am not advocating for my position. But objectively. That nihilistic sharp edge of brutality that strips humanity to the bone. It is cruel. Anything else. Is just a coping rationalisation. As much as that is sensible. Like putting on your radiation suit in a hostile environment. Necessary.

My health is on a low at the moment. A low of a low if you like. Because it's never good. The correlation with the return of the fistula has not escaped my notice. But I am pretty sure its just coincidence. Not causation. Probably.

This week at therapy was difficult. I gave the therapist a dressing down. I explained to them in detail how they had fucked up. Badly. I didn't want to have that conversation. I had to have that conversation. If. There was any chance of me continuing with the therapist. And given what I know of the therapist, I knew they would also want to know.

A few weeks ago, on a whim, I gifted the therapist a set of graphic novels. Something I knew they wanted. Something I knew they would like. But. I was also aware the likelihood would be, they could not accept them. Not a foregone conclusion. Therapists come in all different shapes and sizes rather than a homogenous whole. But still. The most likely outcome was they couldn't accept them. Fine. But I made the gesture anyway. No big deal.

Last week they said they couldn't accept them. Expected. And they then spent an hour fishing for my emotions about it. Was I rejected. What did it mean. What did I feel. And from the outset I said, it's not a big deal, a book is just a book. Not emotionally attached to your acceptance. Within 10 minutes after constant pushing I said, to be brutally honest, I don't care. You do you. The therapist did not ask why. The why. Was that this is me. I think of people. And sometimes, less often these days. Will just do something "thoughtful" for someone. Just because. Spread a little joy. Without strings. Not transactional. Not billed. Not demanded. None of the usual awfulness the world usually revolves on. Just a little bit of old school innocent magic of santa claus turning up and leaving something for your at Christmas. Adults tend to lose that sense of magic. In the most peculiar of places. Like forgetting how to play. Just engaging in crafts just because. Not because of an end goal. Or a business plan. Or a responsibility. And you will see. People remember what it was to be a child again. Even if its not conscious. Mucking around with glue. And paper. And making something.

Anyway.

The other reason I didn't care. Was last week was terrible. It followed a bad week, and then overwork, and then collapse and then the realisation my fistula was back. Which. Pushed me lower than I realised. On that Monday of therapy. In the morning. I had wobbled again with suicide. Bleak.

To say that the return of the books was the very last concern I had would be an understatement. 

I. Did. Not. Care.

But the therapist went on. All session. Looking for something that wasn't there. On. And on.

No I said.

No you've got that wrong I Said.

At 15 minutes in I voiced the opinion that the therapist, and their supervisor, and their supervisors supervisor were "overthinking it". Breathe. I said. Sometimes a book is just a book.

And still the therapist pushed on.

At 25 minutes I explicitly pointed at the clock.

We have been talking about this for 25 minutes I said. Overthinking.

And still the therapist went on.

I was not good. But. I could see the humour in it. Watching the therapist, their advisors, often bastions of the understanding to live in the moment, breathe, not overthink, succumb to their own ratsnest of overthinking. Whilst I am here. Bemused. As they rush by in a storm of chatter.

Perhaps the therapist said, the humour was masking the actual emotion.

Oh. My. Fucking. God. No.

The therapist pushed on. Continuing to fish in empty waters. Desperate to fit the narrative in their head to reality.

I noted it.

You have the wrong frame I said. This is not me. When all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. 

Still the therapist went on.

I once again mentioned the overthinking. This was I said becoming a case of physician heal thyself. Ironically. You are the one with the issue here. Not me.

Still the therapist went on.

More explicitly I said. To use your own terminology. You are not seeing me.

And still we went on.

Until the end of the session.

Frustrating. Crap. Borderline gaslit.

At no point had the therapist asked me how I was. What was important.

At no point did the therapist listen to what I said. Did not deviate. Continued on. Did not adapt. Did not assess me. Read the room. They had a story in their head. And they followed it. Oblivious to all the signs, implicit and explicit.

This week.

After I had thought about it for a week.

I opened saying they had not listened to me at all last week. They stopped listening. They had not done a "good job".

We talked a little about it. I Said I was loathe to waste more time talking about but it had to be brought up.

When I mentioned to be brutal about it. The therapist wanted to know. Drop the diplomacy.

Ok.

You fucked up.

You failed at your job badly in multiple ways.

I pointed out each time I had told them they were wrong. Stop.

The therapist started to defend the process. Asking questions. That was the point of therapy.

I know all this.

You can ask questions. I can see the process.

The problem is you went on and on and on and did not listen.

And now you are being defensive about it. You are dodging responsibility for fucking up. Hiding behind a process. When you clearly didn't listen.

I told them what my week before that session was. What my exact mindset was.

Did you know any of that I asked ?

No.

Did you ask how I was doing ?

No.

You were so busy asking about something that wasn't there, that you entirely missed the things I actually had to tell you.

I went through each explicit set of words I had given them.

They remembered each one. With a slowly dawning realisation of slight horror.

I Said this. I remember they said. You did not listen. Then I said this. You did not listen. I remember that said the therapist.

No defence this time. No leg to stand on.

What magical combination of words would I need to have said to actually make you acknowledge this wasn't correct and move on. Tell me.

Silence. The therapist just stared at me.

I left the silence hanging for a little while. 

This has caused me to severely doubt your capabilities I said. The professional evaluation I am harsher on. I went over that definition again - which the therapist knows - but was worth bearing repeating.

Professionalism is a badge on the floor.

No one forces you to walk over to it and pick it up. It is a choice. "Choice". Mostly. If you choose to walk over there, pick up the badge, pin it to yourself, you pick up a responsibility. A threshold of quality. Of output. If you do not meet that. You have failed in a responsibility. People are human. And make mistakes. And fail. No one is perfect. But that responsibility is still relevant.

For individuals. I have a lot of patience. No one gets asked if they want to be part of the world. They are shoved into it. No one gets asked if they would like to be billed to death. To have a set of responsibilities and bureaucracy and expectations lumped on them. And so. I have patience and understanding. That life is hard. People fail. And it's often not a choice. Or a hobsons choice.

I told the therapist they had failed professionally.

One of the core, if not the core point of their job was to listen. Assess. And. My expectation. Be able to adapt. Learn. They failed at all of these things. Failed at their core responsibilities.

I said I did not have a problem for a mistakes being made. I accept those.

The problem I had was not that we took a wrong turning and ended up on the M1.

The problem I have is that we then drove all the fucking way to Scotland despite being told its the wrong way.

That. Is unacceptable.

And if you cannot listen. Cannot adapt. Then we are done. Because no matter what I say. You will carry on. Believe what you believe. And that's fine. You can do that. But. You are no longer any use to me. Because you will sit there in your world. Seperate from mine. I might as well sit here and listen to you talk about the lord of the rings for all the relevance it has to me.

The defensiveness of the therapist had evaporated about a third of the way through the session. I dismissed the weak process defence. I zeroed in on the lack of responsibility being taken.

Either it is your ego that refuses to admit the mistake. Or. Your intellect cannot see it. It doesnt really matter the cause. The outcome is the same. You are failing.

Slowly. The therapist shifted to more acknowledgement of the issue. But it was slow. And dragging. And couched. Well maybe. Well I can see you didn't like it. That fucking mealy mouthed wording. Dressing it up as a "me" issue. Rather than a no no, you fucked up. It's not a "from my point of view I have a problem, but you are pure and holy up there in your ivory tower having done nothing wrong". Fuck off. With the ego saving bullshit.

Halfway through this. I felt this was kind of pointless. I was done with them. Not enough acceptance of error. But also. I could see the therapist was on the backfoot. A few times those points landed hard. And controlled or not. The body language flinched. Oof. A physical shift backwards. The words hit. And stuck. And. It seemed clear to me. The therapist needed time to reflect. To tell the ego to shut the fuck up. And consider it more objectively.

Towards the end of the session I vocalised this. In my humble opinion I said. You need to sit on this for a week. And reflect.

The therapist agreed emphatically. Yes.

They also acknowledged by the end they had given me no space last week. That it was indeed all about them. And not about me. That they had thought it was important.

Yes I said. It's very clear YOU thought it was important.

Silence.

I know how this all goes. Already plotted.

The therapist wanted to know my endings.

1) You double down. You think my problem is actually a delayed reaction to rejection and that I am punishing you. In which case. I withdraw slightly. Thank you for your time. And we are done. I never see you again.

The therapist was slightly taken aback by that.

Even considering the relationship they asked ?

The fucking line. We get to a certain point. And suddenly here we are again. Consider the personal relationship to the therapist. I thought that's the point of your fucking process. There isn't supposed to be one. I said none of this. Instead I said.

Yes. At that point. You are no use to me.

Brutal.

2) You are defensive. You eventually accept some points. An apology. This is where we are I said. It remains open to what you next do. Up in the air.

3) You listen and apologise for your mistakes. No bullshit.

4) And I said. This one is perhaps a sign of the high esteem I hold you in. I thought there was a chance that before I opened my mouth this week, you would apologise. You would realise you fucked up.

At some point during the session the questions I knew categorically would come up, came up. This is part of the therapists subtle insecurities.

Was I disappointed with them ?

Yes. No hedging. No dithering. No caveats. Yes.

Was I angry with them ?

Somewhat.

Well done on that I said.

Well done ?

Yes. I'm usually pretty zen. You fucked up hard enough to annoy me.

Also at some point the therapist tried the defence of "only asking questions".

Sure I said with some disgust. Only questions. A bit like Fox news hosts will "just ask the question" of whether someone is a pedophile, they're not accusing that of course, they're just asking the question. All innocent like. I said that statement was disingenuous. Those "questions" are not asked in a vacuum.

Do you want pizza I asked ? And didn't want for a reply.

Do you want pizza I asked again and ploughed on.

I think you secretly want pizza.

I bet you do want pizza.

Do you want pizza ?

I'm just asking questions I said.

I had an unimpressed look on my face.

Towards the end I offered an extrapolation. I acknowledged it was just that. And I could be wrong. But I guessed that the meeting of minds the therapist had had with their advisors had resulted in a "consensus" that was academically routed. "The Process". And they had all convinced themselves this was it. And then you came into the session with a script in your head. A narrative. A way the world must surely be. And entirely missed the ballpark, let alone the ball. And more damning still. You could not course correct. Even when explicitly told.

You mistook the map for the terrain I said.

The therapist noted they did come with a preparation into that session. They also understood the phenomenon of people in a closed room all inventing a narrative that fits that can not in fact reflect reality. I didn't have to argue that one at all. They knew.

You applied dogma, and did not consider the individual.

The therapist is going to think about it. Reflect on their sins perhaps. Tentatively they asked, if it was ok with me, we would talk about it next week.

In the circumstances. Probably the correct amount of kow towing.

Sure I said.

I ended up apologising for all that I said. Not because it was wrong. Not because it didn't need to be said. But because I do not like making people suffer. And I had just nailed them into the floor. Not irrationally. Not unreasonably. But also not a lot of softness. Unassailable. My classic. Riding people down. It's rare I do it.

The therapist said I had nothing to apologise for. And they thanked me for telling them. And said I had done a good job articulating it. And actually saying that.

I think. They were slightly happy I had put a boundary down.

Fuck you. Transgression. Frustration. Anger. Pushback.

We shall see what next week brings. My expectation is that it will properly sink in. And they will realise the fucked up hard. Theres also a chance they fall back into defending some horseshit process. Take little responsibility. And ignore the fact they didnt listen. If the latter happens. I am done. There and then. If the former happens. I am not sure. They will have to do a good job earning back the trust they have burned.

At the end of the session I did say.

At the very least. This shows you are human.

Regret, sadness, realisation crossed their face, and they sighed, yes, human. 

I creaked my way out of the session. Went home. And collapsed into sleep. Exhausted.

Another week wasted.

The therapist did acknowledge this. I appreciate we have spent another week talking about this which isn't great.

In-fucking-deed.