Sessions

“I’d like to talk about something you’ve said multiple times now.” Today she looks more casual then usual. Her business suits have given way to a comfortable dress and a light jacket. Its unseasonably warm dress considering the weather, but she appears content. She crosses her long legs over each other and clutches her clipboard comfortably on her legs.

Across the room, her patient sits in silence. He looks different too; each session his clothes seem to lighten, gradually. First it was all black – black pants, black shirt, black boots. Then he came in all black and jeans. Then it was a black shirt and boots with off colour jeans and a hat. Now all that remains of that old ensemble is the boots; everything else is static. Unimpressive. Unmemorable. Except for the boots. And his persona seems to stay with them. They give him security. They make him feel larger than he is.

It’s unconscious comfort.

“What?”

There is a momentary silence. She watches him. He seems disinterested today. The snow outside the window is much more interesting to him.

Her eyes glance down at her clipboard. Since the first session she’s been making note of how often he speaks of certain things. This word comes up frequently in conversation, often in association with Pauli. But there is something else to it. Another level of interpretation.

“Why don’t you tell me.”

He snickers, lightly. Bemused. “Fuck, probably.”

She can’t help the smile that parts her lips. That word, also, is welcome in his mouth. But it holds very little significance to her. It, like many of his other habits, is also a defence mechanism. The use of profanity is another way to keep people at arm’s length. He uses it as a buffer to protect himself, subconsciously. But this word is much more relevant to him.

“No. Though I’m sure you say that far more often.”

He snorts again but says nothing.

“You don’t know?”

His thoughts are drifting. She’s losing him. His eyes haven’t ventured at her since he sat down in the room. Instead his imagining something else. Another place. Other people. He smiles at a memory that is lost on her. Perhaps it will come up in a future session. Or now, if the time is right.

“Monster.”

The word strikes him and his attention snaps back to her suddenly. “What?”

“You use it a lot,” she replies, completely ignoring his response. “What does it mean to you?”

He stares at her. His expression is clearly confused. The word is familiar but given his response he doesn’t quite know how to respond to her. “I do? I didn’t...when?”

“You don’t recall?”

His surprise is genuine. “No.”

“Perhaps not then; I’d assumed it was significant.” She writes something down; Surprise in response to use of monster. Suppression. Then her eyes drift upward. “What does the word make you feel?”

He shrugs absently. “Nothing.”

“Jan.”

“How many minutes are we up to?” he asks with a smirk. Today he’s feeling more impish then usual. Which is good; she prefers him when he’s feeling impish to when he’s feeling defensive. He’s more forthcoming in those sessions.

She smiles. “Five. Five minutes of talking from you earns you a cigarette break.”

“Five.”

“Yes five. Unless you think you can handle another increase.”

He snorts. “No. Five is good. I’d be happier if we went back to three.”

Her expression softens. He’s more open today. Perhaps he slept well. Or maybe he got a personal visit from someone.

Doubtful. He spends much of his time alone. Thinking. Writing. Playing the guitar he snagged from one of the social rooms.

“Well, I think five is a good number. You’ve been doing very well.”

He says nothing but glances down at his hands. His fingers are often of intense interest to him. Especially his guitar nails. They’re long on his right hand and they always seem to delicately fluctuate between instrument and weapon. Right now they’re an instrument. When he plays they’re an instrument. But when he thinks...if he thinks too hard...they become a weapon.

“So tell me about the monster.”

He smiles, bemused. For a moment he almost looks embarrassed, but it gives way to the outer shell of security. “It’s nothing.”

She notices the smile. He genuinely smiles so rarely that it stands out and she makes a note of it, then continues. “It must be something or you wouldn’t mention it.”

“It’s...it’s stupid.” He shakes his head and some of his hair falls in his eyes. He doesn’t seem to notice (or if he does, he doesn’t care). “I made it up. When I was little.”

This intrigues her. For the most part, every mention of his childhood is brief and terse. But this is something different. She waits.

After a moment’s pause, he speaks. “Sometimes when Pauli would get really bad...Lusa and I would hide in my room under my bed.” He narrates with some level of detachment – though there is obvious emotional value to his father in many of his sessions, the abuse seems to be a footnote in this story. The focus is a young Jan and Lusa. “And she would be really scared and she’d be crying.” He pauses and glances at her, the amused look still plastered across his face. “Kerstina wasn’t really...anything more than a baby then. But Lusa would get scared. And so...I made up the monster for her. Kind of.”

“To comfort her?” There is no judgement in her voice, though it’s clear she’s mildly confused.

He laughs. It’s not forced. “Fuck it. I knew you wouldn’t understand.”

She is intrigued and a smile breaks her face. “Then explain so I do.”

He ponders. Whatever this memory is, it obviously amuses him. Whether it’s because he thinks his behaviour ridiculous or because the memory holds nostalgia is unclear. “I’m sure you know who the real monster was,” he says after the brief pause.

She nods. “Pauli.”

“Pauli.” He sighs. The name is another disconnect. It keeps him focused on the story at hand so he doesn’t have to worry about the unconscious pull his father has on him, even from miles away. Pauli is a buffer zone. It’s safe. “Yeah, well, he was the monster. And it was...ridiculous. The monster...the one that I invented had everything a monster should have to make it hideous. Scales. Talons. Fucking...feathers...and shit.” He snickers again; clearly the mental image is far more amusing then he’s able to describe. “I mean it was hideous. I drew it once. We put it on the wall. Didn’t label it or anything. But we both knew what it was.” He pauses in thought; he almost looks sad. “Shit. I left it at the house.”

“The drawing?”

“Yeah.” His voice tapers off. This, also, was discussed briefly in a session – his great exodus from the Hakala household. How Pauli ousted him after he was arrested for unruly behaviour in public. If not for the hospital he would have no real home right now. He had told her as much. He didn’t even have a car to live out of anymore. “Fuck. I hope Lusa has it.”

She says nothing but waits. He’s gotten better at talking without prompting.

There is a moment. He’s thinking. The snow swirls outside the window and the frost begins to fog up the glass. His eyes settle on the outside movement for a while, then softly, “How much was that?”

A flick of the wrist. Her watch clicks the time. “A little over a minute and a half. If you take out the stops.”

He sighs. He doesn’t wait for her to say more but continues in the same vein as he was before stopping. “Well, anyway. The monster was kind of a joke. If we could laugh about it, it wasn’t so scary. Even though it was scary.”

She nods, listening.

“And we used to...pretend...God it was so fucking retarded...” His humour is losing its edge. Just below it is the fear that the humour was meant to disguise initially. “There’s this movie we saw when we were kids. Some American film. I don’t know; I don’t remember too much of it. But...the little girl...she wants to be a bird so she can fly away. So...we used to pretend we were birds. We’d go out on the balcony sometimes at night and we’d lean over the banister and pretend we were flying.”

The image dances in her mind but she remains silent.

There is a long pause and he shifts on the chair. He knows he hasn’t spoken enough yet, but he’s unsure what else to say. Despite the fact that he finds things to say to the woman, it never gets any easier. Each story has multiple layers and multiple meanings. If he presses too hard he gets angry, and that’s what he wants to avoid. So he sidesteps Pauli whenever he can. Sidestepping Pauli is difficult in this story.

“Yeah, well, we were...kids. Kids are stupid,” he says suddenly, flippantly, his mood shifting to one of protection. It’s gotten too close to the pain and the fear. He doesn’t want to go there.

“You were protecting your little sister,” she says softly. The compassion is there in her voice, but it never outweighs her control.

“He still hit her,” he replies quickly. It rolls off the tongue with minimal effort. Whatever she meant by her previous statement, he disregards it. Protection was impossible. “He was still a monster.”

“Is that how you see him? That creature?”

“I can’t see him as human.” Again, the answer is automatic. An impulse more than a carefully pondered response. “Humans don’t do that to each other.”

“But monsters do?” she presses.

The words seem to hit somewhere and he inhales sharply. The air rattles in his lungs and his eyes grow distant. He’s looking at the window but he’s not seeing it. He shakes his head no in response to a memory she is again not privy to. To tap into his thoughts now might be prudent. He may have earned his incentive but its clear something else has clicked in his brain. She needs to keep him talking. “Where are you, Jan?”

He sighs when he hears his name. Each time it gets easier, but he can never quite shake the feeling it gives him. He waits for a moment, then finally allows, “Somewhere I never should have gone.”

It doesn’t answer her question so she waits. Her pen taps the clipboard absently. The sound is sharp and rhythmic. And the rhythm seems to pull him deeper into his thoughts. Something about it unsettles him. He glances at her suddenly. “Would you stop?!”

Silence. She holds her pen up between her fingers.

Then, subtly, “Sorry.” It’s unconscious. And it’s only happened a few times. He finds it difficult to force it out, but he’s been trying harder for the past two weeks. Whenever irrational anger takes the place of common sense, he is learning to recognize it and apologize for it. This came more from his anger management classes, but he exercises it here, in this room, with her. He tries it whenever he can. And it’s paying off. “It just...reminded me of someone.”

“Who?”

The air seems to grow heavy. This pain is unique. Whereas the pain of his father carries with it the weight and fear of abuse, this pain is very different. She waits. Then, mournfully, “Tuomas.”

She’s heard the name before but can never get him to say much more than that. Perhaps today.

“He...doesn’t believe in monsters.”

She doesn’t know who he is, but she has just learned something about him. That the monster, something prevalent in Jan’s youth, is something this other person doesn’t believe in. So she presses, “Why not?”

He sighs. It’s a bitter sigh. Empty and cold. “Because he’s stupid.”

She won’t take that, though she falls silent again. Give him space to talk if he wishes.

“I...” His voice trails off. He looks sad. Worse then sad; he looks hopeless. Broken. Then, softly, “I can’t talk about him.”

“Jan...”

“No. I can’t talk about him. Not yet.” This is not him being avoidant. Again, it comes out of a real need to protect himself. The emotions just under the surface are rising. His vulnerabilities are showing through. He doesn’t deal well with being vulnerable. Monsters are safer so he shifts back. “Pauli wasn’t the only monster.”

She wants to go back to the topic at hand but she knows now is not the time. He has indicated he isn’t ready. She will respect that. She makes a brief note of it before moving on; Mentioned Tuomas. Sadness and pain evident. May be able to discuss later. Tuomas is off limits. She returns to monsters. “Who else was a monster?”

He’s silent. Blue eyes lock on the floor. He’s staring at his boots. His feet shift a few times; another nervous tick. This, too, is a painful thought for him, though the fear of his father is again absent as he pulls deeper into himself. A melancholy falls over both of them. Despite the fanciful descriptions of his childhood imaginings, they are very real to him. They are more than just a coping mechanism. They pain him.

“I…” His voice breaks. He finds himself vulnerable again despite how he has been avoiding it and he fears that. It’s so hard for him to be vulnerable in front of her. “I am.”

Initially she has no response for that. It surprises her, though after he says it she finds that it suddenly fills in a lot of the pieces. His defensiveness. His brazen personality. The persona that he wears from time to time to keep himself safe. She suspected some level of poor self-confidence. But this is a clear indication of self-hate. His father is not the only person he hates. She can see that now.

The silence hangs for a while, then she pushes him. “Why do you say that?”

“Because I am.” Again, it’s automatic. His brain has shut off. It functions just enough to allow him to speak, but he’s not thinking about it. It’s too difficult to think about.

Another prolonged silence hangs between them. She watches him, trying to share some level of compassion without breaching the doctor/patient relationship. But this admission is significant. It’s a step forward. He’s acknowledging how he feels about himself, and up until this point he’s been using the persona to describe himself. This is real. This is Jan.

He has stopped speaking. She pries. “Do you really believe that?”

An inhalation. He blinks. He’s hurting. He believes it. Even though he has yet to say it, she knows that’s what he thinks. Still, she needs him to say it aloud. To admit it to himself so he can overcome it. Finally, a soft, “Yes.”

“It isn’t true.” It’s a statement delivered as fact.

A headshake. “You don’t know me.”

She keeps her eyes locked on him. He’s not going to talk anymore. Now is a time for her to speak; usually she tries to let him lead, to talk as much as possible, but this is a situation where her voice is needed. “Jan, I’ve been meeting with you for a few months now. You are not a monster.”

He ignores her. He is unconvinced.

“Jan.”

His name hurts. He flinches. His eyes flicker up to her for a moment only, but he says nothing.

“If you want to get past your anger, you need to overcome this.”

Weight shifts.

“You aren’t a monster.”

“You don’t know what I’ve done,” he says suddenly. His voice is low. It’s shaking. He’s suddenly insecure. And he’s right; she doesn’t know what he’s done. She knows he had a fit that got him arrested. She knows that he fought back against his father when he was small and it got him hit, beaten and verbally abused. But what he’s done that could possibly make him into a monster...this is a story she hasn’t heard. His anger directed at his father? Mostly for preservation. That can’t be what he’s thinking about.

“You’re right,” she says softly. “I don’t. But you can tell me.”

“Not right now. I’m not ready.” His voice has steadied. He’s regaining control again. “Besides, it’s been more than five minutes. I want my cigarette.”

She sighs. The small amount of openness she got, the little glimpse into something deeper, has been lost. He’s gone. He was already drifting when he first came in for his session, and he needs to protect himself. Still, she isn’t discouraged. He’s making progress. Slowly. She can sense it. Each session he seems calmer, his lapses into rage less and less frequent. She’ll relent. She pulls the cigarettes out of a desk in her office and hands two to him. “I think you’ve earned a couple today. I’m impressed.”

He doesn’t say anything but takes them from her and shoots up out of the chair, making his way to the door. Even though they have close to fifteen minutes left, it’s obvious he’s done. “I’ll see you on Friday.”

She doesn’t get to say anything as he slips out through the door and is taken by the orderlies.

Gradually. It’s happening, but gradually.