I’m sure I’ve already told you that my childhood wasn’t the best ever. Let’s just say that I had to enter twice through a door, in order to be noticed once.
That’s why I decided finally, and especially before the High Holidays, to do some self-analysis with the help of a psychologist.
I entered a very posh-looking specialist’s clinic, sat in the waiting room and looked respectfully at the many fancy doors, expecting to meet my new psychologist.
After a few minutes, a warm-looking lady opened one of the doors, and welcomed me in.
I sat down in front of her hesitantly. The doctor introduced herself by name. I looked around. “And where is the famous sofa?” I asked cynically.
The doctor smiled. “We can sit here through the introduction part,” she said, and then asked me the unavoidable shrinks’ preface: “How are you?”
Well, an experienced warhorse like me wouldn’t fall for this so easily, yet I found myself telling her about my troubles. “So, my parents preferred to fill me with junk food and sweets, instead of listening to my aches, listening to what I had to say,” I confessed bravely.
She nodded and kept listening, and then she said, “So from an early age, you ate sweets and sugars in order to ease the pain. And whenever something hurt, you taught yourself to ignore the pain instead of treating it.”
“Exactly.” I responded sadly.
I was talking and sharing with her, starting to feel some relief. Her questions were so accurate.
“And where, exactly, do you feel the pain?” she asked empathetically, and I pointed at my heart.
Then she said, “You know, we often tend to describe pains in our heart. You need to understand that we’re talking about a process, a painful process here, and it could take time. In a very, let’s say, technical way, we need to take all the past mistakes, the unawareness, the ways you’ve been treated before, postponing the opportunities to ventilate things and touch the pain. You were afraid to do it. You were afraid to deal with the hurt, with the knowing that the pain has to move out of your body. No more sweets and denial. Together we’ll be able to remove the aching, to ventilate, to clean and to put in a healthy, new substance instead of this empty, void space.”
I found myself crying, as she handed me a tissue. “You’re so right,” I said. “A new notion, a healthy one that will replace the old, rotten one that was put into my body and soul… no more fears, no more bad habits.”
The good doctor just smiled at me with her benign smile and nodded. We were silent for a couple of minutes.
“Thank you so much doctor,” I said finally, shaking her hand, feeling I could take the next breath easily. “I’m very optimistic. I think you’re an amazing psychologist.”
Her hand stopped shaking mine, and her eyes filled with a troubled gaze. “Psychologist? I’m not a psychologist, I’m a dentist. The psychologist is next door.”
Now, do as I did, and again look carefully at all that happened here, word by word. See?
Oh, and by way, I needed to search my problems from the roots up, so it may as well be through some root canal treatments…