Counseling 101

If a counselor’s office is the supposed shelter for a life in upheaval, then the women’s restroom down the hall is the first safe harbor on the journey. Here you will bump into other hurting souls who are either on the way in, or on the way out, in various degrees of tearfulness.

After an anxious bladder, the next hurdle for the new counseling client is surviving the waiting room. Where to sit? Where to look? One does not want to make eye contact or in any way express, “Why are YOU here?” Where is the new patient form? Will my insurance cover it? Will anyone I know walk through the door next?

I could not understand why grief left me in worse shape than my older sister when my brother-in-law died suddenly of a heart attack at age 49. I felt uneasy, withdrawn, and had to speak sharply to myself to arise each morning: Get up! Pack four lunches! Everyone out the door to school and work! I fulfilled my parental and wifely obligations with little joy. Peanut butter sandwiches once fashioned with love were now smushed together with no thoughts of the happy PB&J song in my head.

Then I saw an article about PTSD, which I had assumed was always associated with severe trauma. But one cause listed was an unexpected, upsetting phone call. (I had, in fact, been the first to receive the pre-dawn ER call from my sister in St. Louis. In shock, she relayed that her husband had just died in bed beside her.)

Six months later, severely depressed and not sleeping, I was finally convinced to call a counselor. My four attempts to request an appointment would have made a good YouTube video as I panicked each time and hung up at the “beep.” I chose my most comfortable outfit for the first visit and wore the same clothes for the next six sessions. My counselor couldn’t have been more empathetic as she listened to a long list of sorrowful events.

Having avoided counseling for months, it took only two sessions before I was totally devoted to my therapist and desperate for my appointments. Paying out of pocket, I managed to keep seeing her occasionally even when fully well because she brought such balance and perspective to my life. If she hadn’t retired, I’d still be dropping anchor on her office couch in stormy seas.

As a writer, my over-active imagination often ran wild in the waiting room. What would happen to the clients if their beloved counselor never arrived?

There is nothing like the complete attention of a supportive and sympathetic professional for fifty minutes during a dark stage of your life to get you feeling positive about yourself and the world once again. And ready to move heaven and earth if that counselor turns up missing.

Barbara Sharkey is a Seattle freelance writer and former elementary school learning disabilities teacher. Her new novel Counselor Stories is a funny and tender ride with the five clients of two dedicated counselors, who are not above needing a little help themselves. It can be found at: https://www.google.com/#q=Counselor+Stories+Barbara+Brunk+Sharkey

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