The ‘Real Work’

Why won’t my therapist just tell me what to do?

I have always had a Cabinet of advisors on stand-by to help me make decisions. Friends and family vested with different portfolios. What spectacle frames to buy, whether I should go on a trek, should I just discard my career like a car in the middle of the road with its engine running. Any question at all, there was someone I could call.

Making decisions is scary because what if I make the wrong one? My brain slowly adopted the bureaucratic process of a ministry from the 80s – decisions involved the filling of forms, multiple signatures and a processing time of 8 to 12 weeks.

From a distance this inability to decide may look like, well, indecision. But it’s not so simple. The driving force is a need for permission. Someone other than me has to say it’s okay. My Cabinet was gradually dissolved, and all power was concentrated in the hands of two people - Tara (who more assumed the position than being appointed) and Usha¹, my therapist for the last five years (who was forced into the role against her will).

Usha notices that this indecision theme keeps cropping up in our sessions and says, “What do you think is going on here?” - (Isn’t it your job to tell me that, Usha?) “I don’t know. I guess can we talk about it.”

***

There is something I’m a little too fond of. A fondness that sometimes resembles dependency. It doesn’t matter what the thing is because these toxic relationships are not about the thing itself, as much as about the relationship. So, let’s say it is apples.

It started out innocently, but gradually I became a slave to apples. Personal scheduling was guided by them. If I got home before others, I would squeeze in a quick apple. Social plans, too. “Listen, is it an apple scene?” I would ask, trying to decide if I should go. “Not only is it an apple scene, my friend. Someone is bringing an apple pie.” – “On my way”

At some point, the ritual became as important as the thing. To sit down at my desk with my apple tools at the end of a long day, and take my time to peel, core, cut, would signal to my body that it could relax. I would take my last few bites before going to bed. I would sometimes take a bite in the morning. They had started making me anxious, those apples, though this would never happen in the early days. And to make it worse, I was a high-functioning apple eater, so anything I had to do, I could do with an apple by my side. It’s dangerous when your habit does not disrupt your life, because then there is no pressing reason to stop.

Then, a few months ago, I quit cold turkey. No exceptions, no loopholes. Even a bite from someone else’s apple was off-limits. I did not, and have not, faltered.

Things improved overnight. It feels good to break free from the hold something has over you. I am less anxious. I have more time in the day. I no longer need apples as a form of self-medication. And my relationships are better. I’m more focused, more present.

“Undoubtedly, the right decision”, I tell Usha as I stretch to pat my back. A decision that comes with no regrets, no loose ends.

There’s just one problem. I think I miss apples.

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“I’m not fiending or anything. And it’s been a couple of months so I’m probably over the dependency. But you know, they added something to my life,” I say at the start of our session, hoping she will give me the go-ahead by the end.

“And what did they add to your life?”

Apples made me happy. They made music and books better. Conversation got sillier or deeper, or both. A few bites could lead me down a weird thought rabbit-hole and I would laugh so hard. I didn’t take the small things, or myself, too seriously. And it gave me access to my creative side. Apples just agreed with me.

It goes without saying that nobody wants a toxic relationship, but if I can be sure that the dependency is broken, can’t I eat an apple occasionally?

“How do I know which one it is? Is the dependency broken, or will I fall back into it?”

“Does it have to be one or the other?” she says.

I think about this and drift off, my attention turning to how annoying Usha is, and why she always plays spoilsport. Things are not so neat, she has said many times. The ends are always a little loose. Even after we tie them up.

Can I just say - if there’s one advantage of my lifelong decision paralysis, it’s that I’m at no risk of being impulsive. You know those people who can just…do something? I’m not one of them. If I’m tempted to do something on a Tuesday, the earliest I can get to it is on Saturday, after therapy on Friday.

“It seems like you don’t have faith in your inner voice,” she says, interrupting my thought digression.

(Thanks for that startling revelation) “Hmmm ya. So what should I do?”

Her typical laugh. “We’ve been through this. I can’t tell you what to do. I’m not a life coach.”

(Just blink if it’s a Yes) “But I’m really stuck.”

“This is the work. Sitting with the helplessness of not knowing what to do. That’s the real work.”

It doesn’t seem right that I hire someone to perform a task and they refuse to do it. I feel like I’m paying a cook to sit in the kitchen and watch me cook. And if I complain, teary-eyed through all the onion chopping, they say ‘that’s the real work'.

To be fair, Usha was clear about psychoanalysis from the start. That it would take years and there would be no agenda, structure, or continuity between sessions. We’ll follow your subconscious to wherever it takes us.

I ask her a direct question. She has a bag full of evasive replies. Apart from being uncooperative, she is also highly secretive.

I asked early on if she had ever tried an apple. That’s not relevant to our work, she said, citing some reason rooted in psychoanalysis. How a blank slate therapist is better for the process – the less information I have, the more I can project. And something about boundaries or transference or some such. I can accept that I shouldn’t know too much about her but not everything needs to be a state secret. Why should Have you watched Friends? meet with such resistance? Maybe she’s a spy. I wonder if Usha is really her fake name.

Sometimes I ask her a low-stakes personal question just for kicks. The trick is to do this suddenly. It was difficult for me around that time and the noise in my head wouldn’t sto - Do you like chocolate ice cream? But she’s learnt my tricks. She just sits there quietly with her infuriating smile.

When we had just started, I was so fascinated by the psychoanalytic space that I told a friend all about it. How I never got advice. How sometimes all I got was a vague, abstract response. And this last one was rare, but how in some sessions almost an hour would pass in silence, with neither of us saying a word.

“WHAT? You can just be silent on your own.” he said.

“No dude, that’s meditation. Different from therapy.”

“But why are you paying for this?”

“She said this is the ‘real work’.”

It is also frequently the most meaningful hour of my week. A great feature of therapy is that it’s an outlet for your worst and vainest self. It is impolite to talk about yourself too much, but in therapy you can for an hour, without interruption, and you’re allowed to say anything. The person listening is trained to help you make sense of it all. If you keep showing up, week after week, year after year, with your person, you can get quite far.

Five years in, I see that there is more work to be done than I could have known when I first texted for an appointment. Imagine going to an architect with the brief of building one room, only to find yourself embroiled in the construction of a skyscraper. It is overwhelming, but you can see much more of the city from up there.

Image source

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It is not that I cannot make the decision about apples. I could. I am just missing a crucial piece of information: exactly how each of these choices would play out.

“But, say you make a decision and discover it was the wrong one. Can’t you retrace your steps? Learn from that experience and course-correct. Do you trust yourself to do that?”

(Trust? Myself? Usha, have you been zoned out the whole time?) “I don’t know. What if I get stuck and can’t get out.”

What follows is some talk of the inner parent and inner child and who is hearing who say what to whom. All of this is quite confusing and immensely clarifying.

“Well. Uncertainty is a part of life. Either decision will come with a sense of loss. That’s reality.”

We say nothing for several minutes. We wait for time to run out. Then she says what I know she will. “We have to end for today.”

“Before we go, tell me what you think? Can I take a bite of the apple?”

“You’re an adult. You can choose to do whatever you want.”

(Can I choose to not pay your bill this month?) “See you on Friday.”

I shut my laptop screen and think for a while. Should I just do it - eat the apple? Should I wait?

There are many Saturdays still to come, and maybe on one of them I will know what to do. Until then I just have to keep showing up every Friday.

1. Name changed. You must be mad if you think I’m revealing the therapist’s identity. She’s mine.