4/2/2023 0 Comments Who committed suicide![]() ![]() What was I supposed to do with her name? Crossing it off seemed disrespectful. When I wrote that in, Becky was sitting in the room with me. ![]() The 1:00 Spot The next day I opened my planner and saw Becky’s name in the 1:00 spot. I was left with so many unanswered questions: Should I have detected something that last session? Was there something I could have done? Why did she do it? Fortunately, clients will find creative ways to draw my attention to what they want me to hear until I finally “get it.” But I wouldn’t have that opportunity with Becky. Blink and you will have missed the sighting. But sometimes the client’s thoughts swim deep underwater, like fish that surface only briefly. “All you do is just sit there and listen,” they often say. Some people think that being a therapist is easy. I want to die and I will probably burn in hell”? How had I missed that reference? Had she tried to tell me: “I am bad, a sinner. I tuned them out as I thought about the subtext of Becky’s Inferno/ Paradise Lost comments. Then Joe and Glynn were at it again, arguing about where to put the dishwasher. ![]() I imagined all the alternatives and finally settled on placing the sink towards the back. I found myself pondering the ideal location of the sink. Glynn needs to know.” Glynn was our contractor. “Marian, where do you want to put the bathroom sink? If we put it here,” Joe said, pointing to the back, “there’ll be more room for the closet. We were full of optimism and hope for rescuing this gem from neglect, but we hadn’t yet moved in. My husband, Joe, was already at the 1911 arts and crafts house that we had bought three weeks earlier. I’ll bet she flashed that same smile to the hospital staff before they let her go. Six hours later, she was discharged and ten hours later she was dead. Then she exited down the hallway.Īs I later found out, four days later she walked in on Matt with another woman and then drove herself to the emergency room because she was feeling suicidal. “Less intense? You mean, like, Paradise Lost?” A wide, brilliant smile. As I opened the door, I said, “Maybe you might try reading something less…less intense than the Inferno?“Īnd that is when she beamed that smile, forever imprinted on my psyche, as last looks must always be.And that is when she beamed that smile, forever imprinted on my psyche, as last looks must always be. “I’ve been reading The Inferno.” I didn’t follow up on her comment and she moved on to a new topic.Īt the end of the session, I escorted her to the door and, for some reason, I felt compelled to do “doorknob therapy,” unusual for me. “I like having more time now that school is over,” she said. Becky was having difficulty recovering from a breakup with Matt. And I wonder if being far away from Matt would also be hard,” I said. “But I need to be close to a therapist and psychiatrist.” I thought about the Peace Corps,” Becky said. “I really don’t know what I’m going to do now. The only clue I had was a casual comment made towards the end of the session. She had been struggling with depression, but she did not seem more deeply depressed than before, nor did she mention suicide. On my way over, I began to reflect on my last therapy session with Becky, a mere six days earlier. It was 9:45 and I was to meet my husband at our new house at 11:00. I need to clean up those dead leaves, I thought. The liquid amber tree was bare, dried leaves cluttering the bed. I hadn’t noticed how they had reddened, with berries forming, signaling the start of winter. I stared out the picture window into the courtyard where the heavenly bamboo were growing. I felt as though underwater, my voice garbled, when I finally managed to say, “Okay, thanks for telling me.”īecky’s gone? My patient committed suicide? I wandered into my living room, dazed. I knew I had to protect my client’s confidentiality, so I couldn’t answer that question. Becky “May I speak to Becky, please?” I asked the female voice that had answered the phone. ![]()
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