Tell my therapist I lied to her. Well, not completely, but I hid stuff from her. I know, it’s the guilt again. She would have said, “Let the guilt go. Forgive yourself,” but I wonder if she will say the same if I had done something to her. The thing is, I haven’t really done anything to her or to anyone else for that matter. I know, deep down, that I make a big deal of things. But this one is different. This one is worth feeling guilty about. That’s what you say about each one, I imagine her saying.

You see, we spent one year together – my therapist and me. I grew attached to her when I barely knew what follows after her first name. She was inconsistent and I thought for a second – for very many seconds – if she was a real therapist. I faulted her for ghosting me, sometimes, when she knew I was suffering from a major ghosting that was affecting me, badly. But did she really know? Is it really sane to think she would gather a whole lot of information from the crumbs I drop and get to really know?

And I expected her to know that I get attached easily when the only hint I dropped was a wannabe poetic expression, “I stick to the butt of the ones I love.” Let’s pretend she got it. But how would she have known that I thought I loved her? And that, I hated her, sometimes.

How would she have known that while she tried to help me get over my obsession with my estranged best friend, I was fantasizing about meeting her and living with her? I wished she was my mom a few times because she got me so well and sometimes, she didn’t. But she seemed to understand teenage exuberance and would not raise her voice at me because she couldn’t. I used to wonder if she was really that understanding to her teenage niece, if she had any and if my own aunty, was so understanding, to another teenage girl in her neighborhood, miles away. Then, I concluded that aunty Ade, my therapist, is a fraud. I said, why can she not extend this understanding to the girl around her?
That was me judging blindly.

She was not any of that, but I was sure she was a liar because, the next day, she tried to convince me I was a good person, regardless of the fact that I had judged someone blindly. If you think I told her she was the one, you’re wrong. Till the end, I never repented from dropping crumbs and crumbs of information.

You see, if she allowed me to know her a little more, perhaps, I would have found out she didn’t like puzzles as a child. She would have told me I’m messing with her head and I’m making it hard for her to help me. But she continued. I wonder how fast she arranged the information I gave but one thing I know for sure is how quickly she let it fall. I don’t know her, but she was clumsy and maybe it was just with me, and this makes me smile. She was lost for words and she substituted for hmm quite often than I would have liked.

I really did not hate her for that. I really did not hate her, at all. But, every time she said hmm or when she ghosted for a while or refused to get into my mind and understand what I really wanted to say, and every time she replies to my complaints of anxiety with let’s get on a call today as if phone anxiety isn’t a thing and whenever she just breathes and tells me the things I want to hear, I think, “I’m too much for her.”

I might have digressed a little too much but here’s why I feel guilty and why I’m pleading you should tell her I lied to her and I’m sorry.

Don’t judge me, but – she, without her consent – was an experiment for a book I was writing. Yes, I have my own issues and I need therapy, really, for me. But I thought it was fun to know how a real therapist will reply to my character’s issues and write them down instead of answers I made up myself. Months after months, I fed her information of a mere character. I let her brainstorm for answers and maybe wonder how possible it is for someone to be this person, but I know, she couldn’t tell me to go away but she was very close to telling me I needed Jesus.

Before we conclude if that’s intellectual theft or not – using her words for a book – think with me, how possible it is to do this to someone and not feel guilty.

I love to have fun in weird ways, but I really wouldn’t pay to do this. Do you think I will? You see, aunty Ade, my therapist, who is not really my aunt, is a kind person. She counsels me for no cost at all and she reads my writings and says, “Bravo! You write really well, Princess.” No matter how tempting it was for me, I kept the book a secret, but I felt guilty a few times. I don’t know why it hits harder today. As she would probably say when you find her and tell her I lied to her, “It’s no big deal” just before she sends a text to me, “Good morning, Princess. How are you?” But, I wouldn’t wonder if she has something she wants to ask me but she’s too shy to like I used to be. I know, the next time she texts me is when she has heard the news.

Will you stay with me a little now that you have heard the real gist? No, I’m not attached to you yet, I promise. I just want to tell you about the final ghosting. Slowly and slowly, the information I gave reduced until it was nothing – until there was only a “fine” for every “how are you?” she asked. I didn’t tell her about my day and about school and about the people I didn’t like anymore. I thought, “Do I frighten her when I say I don’t like people? Am I too much for her? Or perhaps, she always drops the book after the first page of a story like mine?”

And again, I wondered, “Is there a rule in her career that says she must always be fine?” I thought it was unfair that I’d share and she wouldn’t, and she was fine every day that she texted, but that’s because I was mistaking her for a friend. She was a lovely, kind therapist but she wasn’t my friend. So, slowly, the less I spoke, the farther she became. Somehow, I knew that was the final ghosting.

When you tell her that I lied to her, she will say to me, “Let the guilt go. Forgive yourself. I guess you have learnt from me.”
But this one is different, I’ll whine.
“It’s not much of a big deal.” That’s the last thing she would say.

And, really, it’s not much of a big deal since my book is an autobiography and my character is me, but I’ve only shared with her as much as I want the world to know. It’s not a big deal but just like many other things, I refused to let her know that the me who is not in the book, loves to seek validation – and now, I need her validation before I hit publish.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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