$20 copay, some sense of relief

So I had my first appointment with the counselor, Linda. I liked her immediately. Unfortunately, she's not who will see me regularly, she's more of a psychological gatekeeper of sorts. You meet with her for your initial appointment and she determines your level of craziness as well as who is best suited to deal with your craziness. I can't help but imagine her completing a checklist to help determine these things.


Patient: Jacki Jaguar

Reason for pursuing therapy: Infertile while everyone around her is very much not, feels broken, stress management

Level of Craziness (check one):
___ Mild...schedule again within next two weeks
___ Moderate...schedule again within 3-5 days
___ Severe...discourage her from leaving her home until she is more stable
___ Bat shit crazy...distract patient with retractable pen and magnetic paper clip dispenser until the men in white arrive.

Most suitable therapist would be: Beverly because she tolerates patient's pity parties and random crying jags.


Linda let me leave the office at the end of the hour, so y'know, that's promising. Even though the session's purpose was primarily information gathering, it still felt good to just talk about everything and get it out of my head. Plus, Linda gets paid to listen to me so there's no sense of guilt for dominating the conversation and time with talk of my issues. That was actually weird. I try to be very aware in conversation of not focusing only on myself and making sure a chat is balanced. But in therapy, it's about you, so you talk a lot. I had to keep reminding myself that it was okay and that I didn't have to ask the therapist how things are going with her.

A few days later, Beverly called. We have our first session on Wednesday. I hope I'm as comfortable with her as I was with Linda. And I hope she doesn't think I'm more crazy than Linda does. If she hands me anything retractable, I'm making a run for the door.