Medi-Cal Fraud

My therapist is a homely looking man with crooked teeth, and balding with some grey on the sides of his head. He usually hides himself under a ball cap.

He takes me to a local coffee shop (one of my favorites) for our sit down, so Mom tells me not to complain. "At least you're getting free coffee out of the deal," she comments.

He always asks, "Do you have something you want to talk about today?"

I always answer, "No," and then hide my gaze into the white lid of my cup. Silence stretches for minutes.

For some reason, last Friday morning, I asked him finally when I couldn't take the awkwardness anymore if he liked to write. He does have a Master's in social work (which means he would have done lots of writing). Which is odd because he doesn't do social work, he's a psychotherapist. In my biased view, he's underqualified.

"Sure, I write song lyrics," he replies.

My new case manager is a writer too, but she explained to me that she didn't want to take creative writing at the local community college because she wasn't ready to deal with how bad her writing was when all her life she's been told she's good at it. 

Having nothing better to say, I retell a story that the Engl 201B professor told class--that Emily Dickinson wrote during the 1860's but that her poems went largely ignored until the 1940's. Imagine dying and thinking no one will ever read your notebooks that you have stashed in your isolated bedroom.

By some odd coincidence, Harry wrote in a recent book review of this very fantasy--that if the writing is good enough, it will be discovered sooner or later--and appreciated.

But the case manager redirects the conversation to talk about sexual orientation.

I identify as bisexual, although I never could see myself in a long-term, committed relationship with a woman.

We discuss this because the case manager is gay, and didn't come out until later in life (after being married to a man for twenty-four years).

In fact, we usually talk about her, instead of me. She talks about being suicidal before she was comfortable with being a lesbian, about riding motorcycles, about bringing women to orgasm (a difficult feat, I admitted to her), about taking drugs, about her Christian college experience, about her food habits and being overweight, about how she doesn't allow her daughter to wear much makeup, despite the child's complaints, about her beliefs on evolution and creationism, and etc. This would be great if we were friends, but we're not. I'm supposed to be the client in this situation.

She asks almost every week, "How do you feel about getting that B on your essay? Are you feeling any better? Are you berating yourself less?" Because school is the only topic I don't feel the need to hide away.

We don't talk about Morpheus. She is largely unaware of his influence over me. I mentioned him in passing, only referring to him as an ex- who had re-contacted me. We don't talk about my weight gain (I would feel silly for doing so since she has her own issues with weight), thanks to the Seroquel. In fact, I've made up my mind that the reason why Morpheus doesn't want to see me again is because I'm fat. Because I am no longer fulfilling the stripper fantasy.

We don't talk about how my self-therapy is eating ice cream and drinking wine at night.

All of the assurances she gives me or the psychological insights--I've already heard before, either at Stanford or through my own personal study.

I spend two hours in therapy every Friday, and I look at it as a fraud of Medi-Cal.