The Psychologist Who Said „Shut Up!“

My story:

Once upon a time, my psychologist angrily told me to “Shut Up!”

Up until this point in my life, I had had a wife, a surgeon, a serial killer, a bartender, a musician, a teacher, a stranger, a brother, a priest, a cop, and now a psychologist, tell me to shut up!

 I also once had a psychiatrist kill himself a few days after our first therapy meeting. I did not blame myself for that!

which I guess is a kind of a - shut up!

Something was probably wrong with me.

My therapist asked me what I was talking about,

my pre-arranged mood?

“Was meinen sie?”

What do you mean?

Now of course, we were speaking in German, her native tongue, not mine, and perhaps something was lost in translation.

Then again, we English speakers think differently from Germans.

I told her that we should now create a mood specifically reflective of my feelings when I’m not here with you and a mood that causes me great pain.

I proceeded to ask her if we could pretend to be two passengers on the sinking ship Titanic,

alone together in the same small 3rd class room,

on its way, all the way, down to the sea floor.

Our discussion would take place in our “crooked room”

as it descended down into the abyss.

 I knew what was coming would not be funny,

 In “descendance” would be our first mood.

 It was going to be a make believe 30-minute ride down, 30 minutes of talk, therapy, sharing, and then the oxygen running out, the lights shutting down, and noises emitting from where the sun doesn’t shine. Like my own past rides down, mostly alone, took anywhere from a minute to three days to hit rock bottom, by myself, and not always necessarily alone. I sadly dragged anyone near me down, down, down. My poor wife, children, friends, colleagues...Of course, there would be pushing and pulling, darkness, changes in compression, latitude, altitude, attitude, thinking, ideas, mood swings, sound, and shallow breathing.

I then informed my therapist that the second half of the therapy hour should be the second pre-arranged mood:

"Rock Bottom"

And it would be a conversation as we, you and I, in fantasy sat at the bottom of the ocean with all the pressure, lack of light, coldness, boredom, thinning air, silences and us.

 Then I said, If you want to kill yourself down here, please do it off these premises., I meant the bottom of my sea. I knew she was role playing with me. Nice.

“I do not want to have to face another of life`s messes! "

And that’s when she said SHUT UP!

Loud and in psychologist anger.

Now I’m sure this reaction to my comments was just an explosion of a person fueled by frustration and burnout. Other fuels present by both of us were: lack of patience, wasted repetition of verbiage, questionable language skills, verbs at the end of sentences, illnesses, cancer, honesty, depression, blues, guilt, fear, despair. I wasn’t angry with her for telling me to shut up. I was trolling her, maybe. I just wanted her to share rock bottom with me and actually feel it and stop with any pre-arranged psychological milktoast and twaddle.

I only wanted to know WHY to stuff in my life, past, present,

and future with this thought experiment…

Why? Simply why?