Here Goes Nothing

Yesterday I ended up meeting with a counsellor at school for an intake appointment. Yes, that’s right...I actually went through it, and it was interesting to say the least. Anyway, this appointment was supposed to be a sort of evaluation session to figure out what kinds of issues I’m having, what type of counselling would work best for me, what I wanted to get out of this and establish that patient-counsellor relationship, amongst other things. 

I started and left work early to make it on time to the health clinic on campus. It was a tiny office that you had to ring into, in order to protect patient confidentiality, which was sort of comforting. What wasn’t so comforting was all the paperwork I had to fill out upon arriving there. Most of it was pretty general: allergies, medications you’re taking, family medical history, etc...but once it started asking questions like, “Have you or anyone in your family been diagnosed with depression?” or “How often do you have thoughts of suicide?” or “When was the last time you considered harming others?”  or warning me that “the clinic must take reasonable action if they suspect that there is a potential for you to hurt yourself or others”, it got a little intimidating. I asked myself a couple times if I was actually going to do this. I didn’t want to be looked at as depressed or suicidal or have the cops called on me by doing this, but I still carried on with the questionnaire anyway. Even more intimidating were the questions asking what issues I hoped to resolve. I couldn’t help feeling just a little pathetic writing down that I was having trouble maintaining my relationships and interacting with people. And it’s still a little unsettling that somewhere out there, there’s a record from myself in writing, which tons of medical professionals have access to, stating that I might be gay. 

After all that was done, a somewhat stern looking woman came to greet me. She introduced herself as Liz, and told me to come with her. She was kind of stoic, not particularly friendly, but she wasn’t exactly condescending or rude either...just sort of cold. I don’t know, maybe that’s not a terrible quality to have in a counsellor, in order to keep neutral and non-judgemental, but I was a little taken aback by her demeanour. We walked in silence deep into another part of the building, to a small office that seriously looked like an interrogation room: one little desk lamp, one small table and two chairs, no windows. Not intimidating at all...I think I even grimaced as i walked into the room. After sitting down and getting some basic stats from me, Liz asked “So why are you here, Matt?” I chuckled to myself and thought, “Well, here goes nothing...”

And so I told her most of the things I’ve written here on the blog. I said to Liz’s face, a complete stranger, that I was questioning my sexuality and told her about the confusion that was causing. I told her that I’ve hidden my true self, and that I’m not as open with people as I’d like. I also told her how that causes me to assume what other people are thinking and how that influences my self-perception and behaviour. And then I explained to her how that was disrupting or hindering my relationships with other people. I talked about the Lindsay situation and the current distance there is between us (we haven’t talked in about two weeks) and how that was stressing me out. Liz seemed to sympathize a bit, advising me to give Lindsay some time. I also mentioned how lying to my parents was also stressing me out (I told them I had a meeting with my work coordinators), and again she sympathized, suggesting that having them know would take a lot of stress off my back, but never once implying what I should or should not do. Weird...this non-judgemental thing is really bizarre. 

The session ended with Liz asking me what I expected to get out of this; “How did you expect to be a better person after 10 or 12 sessions?” “If all your problems disappeared right now, how would you be better off?” Truthfully, I hope that I can be more honest, more confident in myself and dealing with other people. I want to be able to consistently have long and meaningful conversations with people, and not be afraid of offending someone or sounding stupid or gay or the like. Even just typing this out, I’m starting to realize self-confidence is a huge issue for me...and hopefully this experience can slowly start to fix that.    

But all in all, a good experience once I started I got past all the intimidating bureaucratic stuff and actually talking. Talking about myself and not having to worry about how what I’m saying was affecting the other person was an odd, sort of unnatural experience for me, but it felt pretty good in the end. So much so, I’m trying to make time to go again. Only problem is, with my job and the commute, making an appointment is impossible unless I take time off or a half day or something. I’ve also got to come up with an excuse for my parents for why I’m not around, which is going to be tricky...I’m running out of excuses. Plus, it sucks to lie, I’m really afraid I’m going to trip up one day and I’m going to have to explain everything or make something up that will probably make my parents suspicious or disappointed or just generally freak out. But who knows, I may have to “go out for coffee” or something again in the near future anyway.