Charlotte Roche - Wrecked

That’s the way it plays out in my head every time I have to ride up those eleven floors to see my fucking therapist, who insists on having her practice all the way up there. And I stare the whole time at the sign in the elevator that represents all my fears: in case of fire, do not use elevator. I can definitely agree to that. But what happens if a fire breaks out when I’m already using the elevator? Didn’t anybody think of that? Of course not. When I reach the eleventh floor and, miracle of miracles, the doors open normally, I march out like a survivor. A passerby might think from my demeanor that I’m relaxed and happy. But then comes the next problem. Someone on her floor smokes in his apartment. We’re eleven floors above the earth and he’s playing with our lives! The building seems to sway. I tell my therapist all the time that the foundations aren’t solid. You can tell when it’s windy. When it’s windy I can feel the way we’re all swaying inside the building.

Once in a while I encounter someone in the hallway on the eleventh floor. When that happens I’m immediately diverted from the frightening images swirling in my head. Because I suddenly think, So that’s what my therapist’s patients look like? Though of course there’s no guarantee that the person has come from her office. I get upset that she even has other patients. I read in a biography of Brian Wilson that he had his therapist live with him. What a good idea! That would be my dream—to have Frau Drescher at home, all to myself!

I’m totally convinced that I simply couldn’t live without her. But I want to be her only patient. I know only monotheism—from my mother, of course. She never taught me anything else. It’s always mother’s fault. I’m sure someday my child will think I’m to blame for everything, too. That’s just the way it works.

I try to glean as much information as possible in the few seconds during which I can actually see my therapist. She shrouds herself in a mysterious cloud of noninformation. She says I should know as little as possible about her. All I know about her is what I can see. And what little she divulges. Which is next to fucking nothing. Particularly in comparison to what I divulge about myself. It’s not fair. But I guess that’s the way it’s supposed to be with therapy. I’m not meant to understand—I don’t have a degree in it, after all.

My soon-to-be-former best friend also briefly went to a therapist—though naturally she didn’t do it very intensively or for very long because otherwise she would actually have had to do some soul-searching. But she went to a therapist that every one of her friends—except me—also went to. What a sick idea. My therapist thinks so, too. You can’t talk openly in a situation like that. What if you had a problem with one of your friends? The whole idea behind therapy is that the therapist doesn’t know the people you are talking about. That way the therapist can’t have an opinion about them independent of yours—her information is limited to what the patient says. If you’re insanely jealous about all your therapist’s other patients, just imagine what it would be like if you constantly ran into your friends coming out of her office. “Oh, hi, I was just talking to your therapist about your abortion! Oh, sorry, you hadn’t told her yet? That explains a lot!”

Aha, I think to myself in the hallway, looking at a person who must be another patient, she takes on boring-looking patients, too, eh? She does it with any old person! Hopefully that person’s psychological issues are more interesting than his clothes! The patient doesn’t make eye contact with me. How uncool. Hey, we’re all fucked in the head, don’t worry about it. But you’ve got to be able to meet my gaze when I say a friendly hello.

Perhaps he’s more ashamed than I am that he has to go to therapy? That’s annoying, too. Once he’s walked away, I can ring the doorbell. There’s a sort of agreement among all the patients that there should never be more than one in the office at a time. Not like at a normal doctor’s office, where all the patients sit in a waiting room together. When I’m in her office, I can be sure that the only other person there is Frau Drescher.

She’s furnished the place oddly. I hope it doesn’t reflect her true taste. I hope she’s furnished the place this way just to meet patients’ expectations and make them comfortable opening up. If not—if this is how she actually wants it to look—it would be really tragic.

I ring the bell now that the other lunatic is gone. A buzzer lets me in. As usual, she is hiding in her office, a room I’ve never seen. Through the frosted glass I can see only that she’s sitting at a desk in there. It’s very fuzzy, but there’s a large desk, and I can make out the shape of a person dressed in pastel clothing. She likes to wear pastel-colored sweaters, often cable-knit. I can also vaguely make out her blonde head of hair. She looks very feminine and friendly. She’s got a 1970s kind of sexiness to her. Sometimes I worry that she’s a lesbian, but I’ll never find out. I wouldn’t like it if she were a lesbian. I want her to have all the same difficulties in life that I have: husband, child, the whole shebang.

I have to wait until she’s ready. She always needs ten minutes between patients to clear her head and cleanse her soul—which, of course, does not exist. I have no idea what she does for those ten minutes. I suspect she looks over her notes, because it doesn’t seem possible that she could remember all the mothers-in-law and ex-husbands and children’s and pets’ names that people jabber on about all day. In eight years with her, she’s never made a single mistake about things like that with me. I keep waiting for her to refer to my husband as Oliver or whatever. Or to say “your son” instead of “your daughter.” That’s why I think she hoards notes about all of us loons behind that frosted glass—notes she quickly updates after each hour with the various new names that have come up. I imagine her partner—hopefully a man—quizzing her about all the names of her patients’ family members.

I have my choice of sitting on a chair in the hall or going into the room where she hosts group sessions. There are probably a dozen chairs in that room. It’s where the group marriage counseling takes place. Back when we went to marriage counseling to save our relationship, my husband and I chose to do it privately, just us two, rather than with a group. My husband is very much opposed to groups—whether it’s tai chi, therapy, or whatever. Only when it comes to sex is he not opposed to groups.

There are pictures on the walls that I think Frau Drescher painted herself. They depict naked people in the Garden of Eden. Snakes are wrapped around the bodies. There are brightly colored flowers all over the place. The people aren’t fully visible—they’re more like silhouettes. In the group room is a well-stocked bookcase, which I find reassuring. It’s proof that she did study the stuff she uses to fiddle around with my head. It shows she’s clever, and if she doesn’t manage to make progress on something she can consult her books. When I arrive much too early, I grab a random book off the shelf, open it to a random page, and try to understand what’s written. But it never works. It’s insanely complicated stuff.

At the top of the hour she quietly emerges from her office and comes to look for me. I hear her footsteps, always following the same route: first she looks in the hall, then she comes down to the group room. She stands in the doorway and says, “Right.” She smiles encouragingly.

I stand up, go confidently toward her, look her in the eyes—as my parents taught me to do—shake her hand, and say, “Guten Tag.”

I find it uncomfortable making physical contact with her. But it’s part of being a member of society. Still, I’d rather not touch her. Not because I find her disgusting, but because I feel as if we should have a strictly mental connection, and physical contact of any kind disturbs that. Disturbs me, anyway. I’ve never talked about it with her. Maybe I should sometime. Then perhaps we could forgo the handshake. A lot of what I think I want to talk about vanishes from my mind once I’ve had to use the elevator or see Frau Drescher. Things usually go in a completely different direction than I anticipated.