Open Writing

Just a word before I start – I am not rubbishing all therapy. This is just an account of an experience I had, which left a bad taste in my mouth and was of absolutely no help to me.

As a fully-paid-up, card-carrying cynic, I should have known better. But some ten or eleven years ago, when my marriage had broken up and I was feeling dazed and confused, I thought I’d go for some therapy. As in the-rapy (what it does to your head…).

On the recommendation of a friend – remind me to shoot her – I signed up with a therapist, whose field of expertise was something called – well never mind. Just think I’m OK, You’re Not Bad, He’s a Dork. He was based in a cathedral city I’ll call Madchester.

We got off to a bad start. Every question I asked, I got “What do YOU think?” Nobly, I refrained from answering “I’m asking YOU.'' Doh. Never did like one way conversations which is why I am trying to give up talking to myself, or even to the cat. “Meow” is not really a satisfying contribution to a discourse, is it? On a few occasions, he shouted at me. Doh again. That I can get quite easily elsewhere and not pay fifty quid a throw for it. My bovine ordure meter was beginning to emit faint and rather plaintive bleeping noises, but I persevered, hoping all would become clear.

However, he suggested I join his therapy group, and I agreed. Unsmart move. On the first night, I turned up, hoping for a few answers and all that. I found they all knew each other and had for a long, long time. That in itself set a few alarm bells clanging. Erm – if it’s not working this far down the line, why continue? If it’s for the social chat – rather expensive, no?

We were waiting for the therapist – I’ll call him Jonty – to arrive. They all gossiped among themselves about the wedding of one of their number, and ignored me totally. “Well, they’re a bunch of bonny samples,'' thought I, “No manners, no social graces... I’ve got a feeling this isn’t going to work out.”

I was right, but stuck it out for a couple of months, after which I could stomach no more. Far be it from me to minimise other people’s problems, but to my way of thinking, you could sum them up with a line from an old song:

“Daddy wouldn’t buy me a bow-wow.”

The old bovine ordure meter became more insistent in its bleeping as time went on. On one occasion, we had to chant, playground style, at one of our number, whom I’ll call Peregrine:

“Per-e-grine is wonder-ful
Per-e-grine is wonder-ful”

To the tune of “Ner ner ni ner ner”, last heard by me in my primary school days. What? My little friend the meter nearly bleeped itself into a coma.

It got worse. At times it felt like being back in the school playground, with the bullies all ganging up on me – except Peregrine, who was always kind and civil. He WAS wonderful, I concluded. The chief bully was Jonty. More shouting. The meter clamoured to be heard, but I thought I’d give it a week or two more.

Then came the penultimate straw. We had to sit in a circle around one of our number, whom I’d summed up quite early on as a big girl’s blouse. Each of us had to say something good about him. I got anxious, because I’d had a foul day and was rather full to the brim with my own stuff. Sure enough, when it got to my turn, my mind went blank, and I explained politely that it had, and why. The big girl’s blouse acquired a few flounces and the group and Jonty threw some reproachful remarks my way. And there I was thinking we had been told to be perfectly honest in the group.

Finally I witnessed something ludicrous, embarrassing and ultimately quite disturbing. One of our group announced that she wanted to be “rebirthed”. Say again? So the group and Jonty built a barricade out of sofa cushions and beanbag seats, for this woman whom I’ll call Thyrza (a sufficiently unlikely name for my purpose and very far removed from her real name). She got down on her tum and Jonty tucked a blanket around her. Then she was off – panting, pushing, wriggling and shoving her way through this barrier of soft furnishing, to the accompaniment of cheerleading type noises from the group and Jonty. Half of me was thinking “What DO you look like, you sillyborn bitch?” (she was rather red in the face by this time). The other half was thinking “I’m watching something degrading and exploitative, and I don’t like it.”

(I have since found out by reading round the subject that rebirthing is considered to be dubious and in some cases, harmful – including a case in America where a little girl suffocated to death. Thyrza was not wrapped up so tightly that this was ever possible, but I still felt very uneasy – and embarrassed both for her and for myself.)

The last evening ended with a bang, after some vituperation from the group in general and one woman in particular. I drew myself up to my full five foot something and announced that I was going, and that I considered that they were being robbed blind (plus a few fairly trenchant remarks about navel-gazing bourgeoisie, I must admit). Then I made my exit.

As I was walking to my car, I heard a wailing voice crying after me “Oh Jill come back – we love you!” It was the vituperative woman. As I was brought up not to shout in the street, especially after seven pm (like sounding motor horns) I made no reply. I thought of a few things, though. One of them was that I would stick to music in future, if I wanted solace and consolation:

“Hello central, give me Doctor Jazz
He’s got what I need I’ll say he has
When the world goes wrong
And I’ve got the blues
He’s the man that makes me get out
Both my dancing shoes
The more I get, the more I want it seems
I’ll page Doctor Jazz in my dreams
When I’m trouble-bound and mixed
He’s the guy that gets me fixed
Hello central, give me Doctor Jazz.''Just to make a fitting end to a far from wonderful evening, I found I had a flat tyre and had to summon the AA.

You may think me very unkind about troubled people. Perhaps I am. But they had bought into this whole load of phoney baloney, and I found myself unable to. So we were at odds, and what with my bovine ordure meter continually going off, and my dander getting up (on provocation only), we didn’t stand a chance of agreeing. So I got out. I hope they all came through, though – especially Peregrine.