The Appointment- Originally posted by Adam Langley

THUNK.
A whine of static.
“Test. Test. One, two, three. Test.”
A small knock as the recorder is set down. The sound of footsteps drawing away from the device, toward the other side of the room. Silence, punctuated by the sound of a clock.
Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.
A brief rattle of fingertips on a keyboard. The click of a mouse. Then silence once again, punctuated by the almost imperceptible sound of the Clock.
Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.
A sudden drawing in of breath, followed by a soft sigh. The soft roll of wheels on a rug followed by a quiet knock as the office chair is put into place. Footsteps on a carpet. The creak of a door being opened.
“Hello” A voice. Soft, baritone, male. “Would you like to come in?”
New footsteps now. Softer, less sure of themselves. They shuffle into the room and for a minute all you can hear is the sound of this new individual making their way across the room, their heels brushing against the wiry fabric of the carpet, their breath short and shallow. Suddenly, and with the sound of someone lowering themselves onto a chair, this delicate footfall gives way to a much heavier sound of someone walking across the room until they cease and the protesting sound of someone rather heavy sitting on a leather chair briefly fills the office.
Again, silence is broken only by the tick, tick, ticking of the clock.
“So how are you?” asks the Baritone.
“About the same, really” replies a new voice. This one is definitely female-it is higher, for one thing, without the softness of the Baritone, and husky.
“So there has been no real change since last week?”
“No.” Slightly impatient now. “I just told you.”
“Good. That’s good. I mean, granted, you are not feeling any better, but that has to be preferable…ah...” a forced-sounding chuckle “to feeling worse, right?”
“Hmm” She lets out an equally forced-sounding noise which is obviously intended to sound amused, but actually manages to create the image of a grimace.
A deep intake of breath. “So…let’s get started. Have you thought any more about what I recommended to you last week?”
“Yes”.
“And?”
“I’m going to have to say no.”
“Any particular reason why?”
“Because those things were what started all this to begin with. If I had been stronger in myself, if I hadn’t pretended that everything was fine when it clearly wasn’t, then I would…well, you know, I would… still be with Greg.”
Ticking. Ticking.
“I’m sorry…what do you mean “If I hadn’t pretended everything was fine when it clearly wasn’t?” What are you trying to say there?”
“I’m saying…look, you must have come into contact with your fair share of addicts during your time here, right? What I am saying is that maybe I was addicted to those things. Maybe that’s the reason I didn’t see what they were doing to me.”
“Is that what you think? That you were an addict?”
“Well, yeah. I mean, it makes sense if you think about it. I was so dependent on those things that I didn’t care what I might be doing to Greg. All I cared about was feeling good. That sounds like an addiction to me.”
“Well, I’m not so sure about that….” The Baritone has dropped an octave, becoming slower and softer. He is obviously trying to create an air of intimacy and empathy. It is a well-practiced tone of voice that is obviously used quite a lot; you can imagine him using it to calm someone who is hysterically sobbing, or someone who has just thrown a chair across the room in a blind rage. It is a voice perfectly suited for diffusing extreme situations. But in this situation, it sounds patronizing and slightly fearful-he is talking to her as though she is in the throes of a violent emotional reaction.
“Really? Well, what would you call it, then?” in a slightly annoyed tone.
“I wouldn’t call it an addiction” He replies in that same quiet, careful voice. “I would say it was a perfectly natural thing to do in your situation at the time. You were ill, you were prescribed a system of treatment, and you followed it. Many people would have done exactly the same thing.”
“Yeah. Exactly. Many people called Addicts.” She replies abrasively.
Pause. Tick, tick, tick.
“So” he asks, breaking the silence “if not medication, how exactly do you propose to manage your condition? I only ask because I imagine it would be quite difficult for you to find time to attend regular sessions like this one under ordinary circumstances…”
“I would” She interrupts. “I would find time.”
“That’s not what you said last week. Hang on…” papers rustling. “Ah, here we are…you seemed to think that your life was too crowded, if anything. Greg, your… ”exhausting” search for work, various other social and financial factors…you seemed to think that you didn’t have enough time. You obviously seem to have many sources of anxiety in your day-to-day life, and the last thing I or any of my colleagues would want to do is add to it by making you feel like you needed to attend any appointments when you think you could be doing something more worthwhile. Do you see what I mean?”
“Well…yeah.” More defiant now. “But if it helped me and Greg, then I would definitely find time to make an appointment, either here or somewhere else. I accept the fact that, yeah, my life could do with a few less stressful things in it, but at the end of the day…it’s not really as stressful as some other things, is it, coming here? It might even help me put some things in perspective, and that’s got to be a good thing. Right? I couldn’t do that on medication.”
“So what you are saying is that you would rather have face-to-face meetings, even though it would be less stressful for you to be prescribed…”
“Yes.” Annoyed. “I have been saying that for the past three weeks and…ooh, six minutes, now. I don’t want to be” she spits “medicated. I want to just talk out whatever **** is bothering me and get back to my life. I won’t be able to do that if I walk around stoned to high heaven, will I? How will I be making things better for Greg or anyone else if I take tablets that switch off half my brain?”
Silence, ticking, the soft, smooth rustle of someone sitting back in their chair and placing one leg on top of the other.
“It’s not….” She starts tentatively. “It’s not like I would be here if I had decided to get off the pills sooner.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Well, if I had gotten off the pills when I found out I was pregnant, then maybe my hormones or whatever wouldn’t have been so thrown out of…I dunno…out of synch. And if that hadn’t happened, then maybe all the rest of it wouldn’t have happened. You know?”
“No, not really, I have to admit.” A low, forced-sounding chuckle. “I have to say, you aren’t really making much sense. Do you mean that you think the pregnancy was affected by the medication you were on at the time?”
“Yes. Yes, I do. I have been over this loads of times with loads of people. The medication must have been responsible for the complications, you know, because of the way it affected my hormones. No other explanation for it. I mean, there is no history of Autism in my family. So it must have been something like my medication affecting how my body handled the pregnancy. That’s what I think.”
“And what about the Father’s side of the family?”
“What about them?”
“Well, you never seem to talk about Him. Maybe the condition is prevalent in his family? In which case it wouldn’t have been the medication at all…”
“Look, if I knew who he was, I would ask. But I don’t, so I can’t. All I know is that no-one in my family until Greg has Autism, and that I was on medication while I was pregnant with him. What does that tell you?”
“So you never made any effort at all to find out who the Father actually was?”
“No. Why would I? Why would he want to see me again, for that matter? Face it, if you had just slept with someone who took one look at you and burst into tears in the morning, would you want to see them again?”
“You cried? You’ve never mentioned that before.”
“Well…yeah, I did. That’s kind of how it works for me, on the bad days…first, I feel like I could cry about anything. You know” almost questioning “like nothing in the world is right and nothing I can do will make it better again.”
“So you feel powerless?”
“Yeah. I get quite bad stomach aches when that happens too. It’s almost like I’m being stabbed, except it feels cold. Not that I’ve ever been stabbed” She hastily adds in what she plainly hopes is a jovial manner.
“I see. And what comes next?”
“I feel…energy. That’s the best way I can describe it, it’s like I can do anything, and do it forever. Like I could run a marathon.” Pause. “It kind of varies what I do each time, though. Sometimes I exercise; sometimes I go out drinking….”
“And sometimes you sleep with people?”
Quietly, she replies “Yeah. Yeah, I do, sometimes.”
Silence again, although this time with an edge of shame and awkwardness accompanying the ever-present ticking of the clock.
After about a minute, the Baritone speaks again. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of, you know. There are cases of people with your condition experience periods of hyper sexuality, and by and large….”
“Look, I know what you are going to say, and no. I am not going to take pills because I feel upset, so I think it wouldn’t make any sense if I took them when I felt horny.”
“Actually, I was going to say that these feelings of hyper sexuality are usually countered by more…platonic forms of social interaction. Tell me, when are do these feelings become an issue?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, are they stronger when you are on your own, or if you are in a group?”
“On my own, I suppose…”
“There you are then.” A small note of triumph from a man who has so far had little luck breaching her verbal defenses. “And you were on your own, the night Greg was conceived?”
“Yeah, everyone had gone home for the summer….”
“And how did that make you feel?”
There is a brief silence. Tick, tick, tick. A sharp intake of breath.
“Where are you going with this, exactly?” she asks.
Another silence, more palpable this time.
“I’m not sure what you…”
“What do you want me to say? I mean, it’s obvious that you think I only did what I did because there was no one around to stop me, right? Why else would have we gone through all that ******** about “feeling powerless” and “hyper sexuality”? You want to make me out to be some co-dependent mess, is that it? Well, I’m not! How I feel has nothing to do with the fact that anyone is around! Oh, yeah, I see what’s going on here; you want to convince me to go on the pills again, so you are trying to make me think that I couldn’t survive on my own! Well, it won’t work, alright? Stuff like this has happened twice to me now, some Doctor wants to get rid of me, so he makes me think all manner of **** so he can put me on pills and send me on my way. Well it won’t work, okay? It. Won’t. Work. So stop it, just stop it.”
Another silence. This one is unlike the others-where before it was merely a pause in the proceedings, a way for them to gather their thoughts, it has become an almost tangible presence, made up of hostility and surprise in equal measure. You can hear the short jagged breaths of the Woman over the creaking of the heavy Baritone shifting in his chair.
“I’m sorry.” He speaks gently, without the earlier patronizing overtones. “I’m sorry. I was out of line.” It seems that the Baritone-who was so confident and condescending before-has suddenly found himself in a far more submissive state of mind.
“Why do you say that? I was the one who yelled.” Conciliatory, regretful. The Woman speaks again. “I tend to do that when people try to help. Too proud by half. Just a bit of a ******* like that. Don’t” she says with a tiny, rueful laugh “apologize.”
“I don’t think you are too proud.” His voice has taken on that empathic, condescending tone again-but this time, it seems, with good reason. “I think, that maybe you are quite angry with yourself. You said you didn’t know who the Father is, and for someone whose life relies very much on self-control, giving someone you didn’t even know that amount of power over you must have been quite scary. And then when you realized the consequences of that action, you must have felt…how do I put this…like you somehow…betrayed yourself?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, it says here that you have been through two courses of CBT before-one when you were diagnosed and the other about three years ago. It also says that you only attended a couple of the meetings regularly. After that your attendance became somewhat…well, let’s say sporadic. Could you tell me why that is, please?”
“Well, I…I felt better.”
“You felt better?”
“Yeah. I mean, I wasn’t completely, out-and-out…I wasn’t depressed. I felt that I wasn’t depressed. So I didn’t see why I needed to go on the days when I felt okay or when I could just talk things over with one of my mates.”
“I see. And your friends, what did they think of this arrangement?”
“They didn’t know. Well, a couple of them knew, they where the ones who encouraged me to get help that second time after I went to Uni, but I tried to keep it as quiet as possible. It’s not the sort of thing you want to hear, is it, when you first arrive at your halls of residence? “Hello, I’m Maniac Depressive! Let’s be friends!” No. No, they deserved better than to know, and I was enough of a burden as it was without any of this rubbish coming into it.”
“And do you really think you were a burden to them?”
“Well, I usually am. I’m usually the weird one who causes the most trouble; you know” a small, self-depreciating chuckle “why would it have been any different anywhere else?”
“Care to elaborate on that?”
A short intake of breath. “Well, it’s just…you know, something, that I have…found. Over the course of my life. Like, take my Mum for instance. I told her about her last session, remember?”
“Yes, I remember. You said something about her being in denial about your condition?”
“Yes, that’s right. As far as she’s concerned….look, don’t think too harshly of her, okay? It’s just how she was bought up, I suppose. Don’t judge her.”
“I promise. I have made it quite clear that your feelings are what are important in these sessions…”
“Yeah, terrific. Well….Mum isn’t exactly open-minded when it comes to mental illness. She’s sees it as…well, a lack of personal gumption, or whatever. Don’t get me wrong, she accepts the fact that it exists. But she can’t seem to accept the fact that it’s happening in her own house, you know? When I was first diagnosed, she insisted it was just a “confidence issue” or whatever it was she called it. Dragged me to three different specialists, and even when they all told her the same thing, she stuck to her guns. I remember her main argument was that since she and Dad weren’t mental-her words, not mine-then was no way I could be…”funny”. She said that it was just something I would grow out of. She didn’t want me seeing...someone like you…someone “who is going to fill your head with self-pitying rubbish”. She was adamant that it was a phase, you know? Like I should just grow up and stop trying to attract attention.”
“I see. And how did that make you feel?”
“Well, bloody furious as you can imagine, at least at first… upset and kind of scared as well, I guess. I had just been told something that could change my life forever, and my own Mother wouldn’t believe me. Even if I wasn’t eighteen and riddled with all the usual hormones, my initial reaction wouldn’t have been very pleasant. But eventually I realized that “hey, she’s just finding a way to cope” and that I just needed to accept her for what she was, even if she would never offer me the same courtesy.”
“It sounds as though you are quite bitter about the situation.”
“Well, you would be too. I mean, come on, if you child tells you they are ill, you don’t brush it off as attention-seeking, do you? You try to help. And if it turns out they were wrong, then lesson learned, right?”
“That sounds reasonable. I can’t help but think, however, that you are more similar to your mother than you give yourself credit for. Here me out!” He says over a small noise of indignation. “What I mean is that both you and your Mother like being in control. Neither of you particularly like accepting help; you prefer to work through your own problems. Do you think this is correct?”
“Well, I don’t think…I mean, I went through Therapy, and Mum would never do that.”
“Do you think she would benefit from any kind of therapy?”
“Hmm” uncertain now “maybe, who knows? She might be happier if she actually talked about stuff instead of just plodding along. Maybe if she had, she wouldn’t have that many problems with the idea that I have problems, if that makes sense.”
“Yes, it does. So what you are saying is that your Mother would benefit from accepting help…what I am curious about is how you think you wouldn’t. How is refusing medication any different to refusing to talk to someone? Especially when you add your son into the equation. Don’t you want to see him again?”
Silence. Tick. Tick. Tick.
“Well” she responds icily “It’s not like they are going to let me see Greg again for a while anyway, are they? They tend to look down on Mothers who try to make suicide a family activity”
“I wasn’t saying…”
“Also, in my case, I know that…that sort of help doesn’t work. I’ve tried it, and all it does is cause problems. Mum, meanwhile, has yet to even to try Therapy. So the difference is that I speak from experience, and she speaks from prejudice.” Quite pompously now “Besides, even if we were similar in that respect, our problems are too different. She doesn’t understand me, I don’t understand her, there’s no middle ground. Admit it; you wouldn’t use the same techniques on someone with schizophrenia as you would on someone with my condition, would you? Well then.”
“So you think your Mother might have some form of Schizophrenia? Have you discussed this with her?”
“No. For God’s sake, it was an example.”
“I’m sorry. Given the circumstances of your case, I thought that….”
Silence. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. An interval of minutes, rather than seconds.
The Baritone sighs. “I think an important question that needs answering here is: What do you want to get out of these sessions? Not just to avoid medication, we’ve established that, but what do you want to be the end product? How do you want our time together to benefit you specifically?”
“I want to get better. I want to not be so, so….I don’t want the stress of my condition anymore. I don’t want to constantly be on guard. I want to know how I can deal with it on my own. And I think that it would be a lot better in the long run if I talked things out rather than going on pills, because it would give them physical proof that I could look after my son again.”
“And going on medication wouldn’t do that?”
“No. I don’t think so.”
“Fine. It’s just that if you want to go down that route, I would advise talking to someone else. I’m not trying to get rid of you, you understand, it’s just that I don’t think I am qualified to offer you the sort of help you are looking for.”
“I’ve gathered that, yeah.”
“Really, I’m very sorry…”
“It’s fine, really.”
“I can put you in contact with some of my colleagues, if you want.”
“Fine. Not like I’m going anywhere, is it?”

The sound of creaking seat springs as the Baritone leans forward in his chair.
THUNK.