Therapy, first day.

I was sitting in the waiting room completely fascinated by the noise machine and the warm deadliness in the whole floor. It was 10am and there was only one white girl sitting next to me, browsing the New Yorker like she didn't care. I didn't even see what she looked like, only the paleness and frailness. And i was anxious. Anxious about what i should say and what i should not. But my therapist was this tall warm woman, came up to me asking if i was wen (the entire time i was thinking if i was her first Asian client). She asked me if i wanted some hot tea and automatically liked her just that much more.

The office was awesome. Bright and green and warm and the window covered the entire wall. No tribal decorations or pictures of starving black kids. I was relieved.

She said you must be anxious because i'm a complete stranger to you now. I felt all prepared by some HBO therapy tv show and 4 year of college psychology course and a psychologist mom and a social worker girlfriend! In this way it's actually good that she is a complete stranger. I felt really scattered about my personal history and sometimes i couldn't remember or articulate what happened especially during my high school time in seattle. I remember it was probably the most depressed period of my life so everything seemed so stale and static. Part of me really resisted revisiting it. I thought i had already done all the healing and analyzing and introspecting and so sealed it in a box and buried it under my bed. My memory of 17 was a blank and lots of dates and calorie counts. She asked me how long has it been since Anne was gone i didn't have that number in my mind only 2004. I said August 2004.

I think whats good about therapy is that you could hand something you've been occupied with temporarily to the therapist so you don't obsess it over the day and night, knowing that someone will go through the trauma or stress or obstacle with you. Even though after all the shit is still mine and i am the one who has to take all the consequences, it's good feeling that someone is bridging the gaps from irrational destructive thoughts to the possibility of healing.