Dr. Linda Martin's office, Baltimore, Friday

[betterthanaplan]

Duke's regular therapy appointments tended to meander around the day of the week, but he'd managed to be in Linda's office pretty much weekly. And he was there today, slouched on her couch, wondering when this whole therapy process would feel less like he was auditioning for something.

At some point this would feel normal, right?

Right?

[for the doctor, natch, and likely some slowplay!]

Comments

[exasperangel]

"I want to talk more about your mom next week," Linda said. "She's obviously been instrumental in shaping your defenses into what they are."

She held out the form for her. It was neatly divided in three vertical sections.

"I want you to think about moments with your mom that might have been traumatic or left a real imprint," she said. "Like the car ride. You write them down in the left column, and then in the middle, you write down your immediate feelings about that. The third column is for thoughts you might have about how useful or rational those feelings were then - and whether they still are."

[betterthanaplan]

Duke winced. He really didn't want to spend that much time thinking about his mom.

"How many instances are we looking for here?"

[exasperangel]

"As many as come to mind," Linda said. She smiled a little. "I know this sounds rough. But like I said, trauma embeds these emotions into our minds and then gets us stuck in them. And this is how we give them that little grease we talked about."

[betterthanaplan]

Duke wasn't looking anyone in the eye right now. He was glaring down at the paper.

"Right. Emotional grease."

[exasperangel]

"This is exactly why it's important, Duke," Linda said gently. "You've been avoiding her."

[betterthanaplan]

“Seems only fair. She spent most of my life avoiding me.”

[exasperangel]

"You're not doing this for her," Linda pointed out. "You're doing this for you. To free up a part of yourself that, whether you like it or not, she currently owns."

[betterthanaplan]

Duke shuddered faintly at that.

“Yeah. Alright.”

[exasperangel]

"That's all we're doing with any of this," Linda said, her tone growing even more gentle. "Making sure you can make the decisions you want to make. Not the ghosts of the abusive people you grew up around."

[betterthanaplan]

"Which apparently requires me to put way too much energy into thinking about them." Duke shook his head. "I said alright."

[exasperangel]

Linda nodded. "Alright," she said. She folded her hands together. "Was there anything else you wanted to talk about today?"

[betterthanaplan]

"Nah. I . . . guess we've covered everything." And anything he tried to talk about now would have the specter of homework hanging over it. "Thanks again, Doc."

[exasperangel]

"See you next week, Duke," Linda said, smiling. "...And don't forget to remind your boyfriend that we're still stuck in Baltimore."