I mention this because I sometimes wonder whether to consider Dr. Bowen a friend. In some ways, he is. We speak every week and he knows me better than anyone. He’s the only person who knows how much I actually used to contemplate suicide after my injuries—daily, if you’re curious—and he’s the only one who knows that I feel very low every year on the day my parents’ plane crashed. He knows how much sleep I get, how many beers I drink in the course of a week, and how hard it used to be for me to control my anger in situations where I should have simply rolled my eyes and gone on with life. Once, about nine months ago, I was standing in the checkout line at Home Depot when the next aisle opened up. The clerk there said he could help the “next person in line,” which was me, but the man behind me rushed over instead, taking what was rightfully my place. No big deal, right? Maybe an irritation, but what was really at stake? A few minutes? On a day when I wasn’t really doing anything at all? The point is that it shouldn’t have bothered me, but it did. I was bothered, then angry, and then, as the emotion continued to build, enraged. I stared at the back of his head with death rays, and I ended up walking out the door less than half a minute behind him. Watching him in the parking lot, I had to fight the visceral urge to chase after him and tackle him to the ground. I imagined pummeling him with my fists, even if I could make a fist with only one of my hands; I imagined driving a knee into his kidneys or his stomach; I visualized ripping his ear off, just as I’d lost mine. My jaw was set, my body bracing for confrontation as I began to walk faster when all of a sudden, it dawned on me that I was experiencing a symptom of PTSD, one that Bowen had repeatedly warned me about. I’d been in therapy for a while by then, and like a steady voice of reason amid an orchestra of emotional noise, Bowen was telling me what to do, telling me to change my behavior. Stop and turn away. Force yourself to smile and relax the muscles. Take five long breaths. Feel the emotion, and then let it go, watching as it dissipates. Weigh the pros and cons regarding the action you want to take. Check the facts and realize that in the broad scheme of things, what really happened doesn’t matter at all.
When my anger finally dissipated to a manageable level, I was able to drive home. Days later, I poured the whole story out to my doctor, but in the following months, I told none of my friends. Nor did I tell my friends about the nightmares and the insomnia or anything else that was making my life a trial. And I wondered: Why can I tell Dr. Bowen, but not the people I consider friends?
I suppose it has to do with fear: fear of rejection, fear of disappointing others, fear of their anger or their judgment. This says more about me than it does them, but I don’t feel this way when I speak with Dr. Bowen. I’m not sure why. Maybe it has something to do with the simple fact that I pay him. Or maybe it has to do with the idea that, for all our conversations, I know little about him.
In that way, we’re not friends at all. Because he wears a wedding ring, I assume he’s married, but I have no idea who his wife is, or how long they’ve been married, or anything else about his wife at all. I don’t know whether he has children. From the diplomas on the wall of his office, I know he went to Princeton as an undergraduate and Northwestern for medical school. But I don’t know his hobbies, or the kind of house he lives in, the food he likes, or any books or movies that he may have enjoyed. In other words, we’re friends, but really, we’re not.
He’s just my therapist.
Eyeing the clock, I saw it was almost time for our weekly call, so after rinsing my dishes in the sink, I propped open the back door for some fresh air and put the computer on the kitchen table. Dr. Bowen liked to see my eyes when we spoke, so he could tell whether I was lying or hiding something important. On my end, it was a lot easier than meeting him in person, and I had easy access to the bathroom if I had to go. No reason to put the session on hold, no matter what. I could just carry the computer with me while I did my business.
Kidding.
At the top of the hour, I logged into Skype and it automatically dialed the number. When the connection was made, Dr. Bowen popped into view. As usual, he was at his desk in the office, a place I’d visited more times than I could count. Slightly balding with round, wire-rim glasses that made him look more like a professor of mathematics than a psychiatrist, he was, I guessed, about a decade and a half older than I was.
“What’s up, Doc?”
“Hello, Trevor.”
“How are you?”
“I’m fine, thank you. How are you?”