Talking To June

“How are you doing?” June asks me. June is my boss. She’s in her mid-sixties, with beautiful, unapologetically grey curls. She is wearing black rectangular glasses, a white top and blue linen pants that are flowy enough to pass for a hippie and yet elegant and a little bit formal. She’s been dressing for this job for a long time, and she’s good at striking the subtle balance. “Good, good.” I say nervously. June is also my mentor, the person teaching me about being a therapist. Normally I treasure her council. Her mentorship is why I work here. She’s the kind of therapist I want to become, calm and collected, with an air of wisdom that surrounds her. Today the air of wisdom is a physical thing, a green, aura-like mantle. I’m really not sure how to handle that. This week has been… weird.

What’s on your mind?” June asks, and I’m really not sure how to answer that. Since my session with Julian everything has been strange, bordering on absurd. I keep falling into the dark, dissolve-y state anytime I’m with a client. Which sounds like it should be scary and unpleasant. In fact it’s somehow really quite pleasant, which in itself is scary. It really doesn’t make any sense. In theory it would be great to be able to talk all of this through with someone. Someone older, and wiser, who can credibly reassure me that I’m not going to pieces. “I’ve had a bit of an odd week”, I try. 

“How so?” June asks. I pause. I’m not at all sure how to go about telling her what’s going on. She is my boss, after all. I’ve probably been extremely unhelpful to all of my clients this week. I just sit there and let them talk. In my last session I said hello, and goodbye, and three things in between. It’s like I’ve lost the ability to follow through with any kind of method. Like all my plans dissolve before I can put them into action. And then there is the… thing. The thing where I can somehow tell stuff about what’s going on for them. Or at least it seems like maybe I can. Like I’m sensing their minds directly. But that can’t truly be a thing, can it? I feel like someone would have told me at some point in my life if that was a thing. “Uhm”, my mouth says.

June looks at me, her eyes piercing. I can feel her evaluation of the situation, her process of evaluation. It’s like a white-ish bit of machinery in her head, with moving shapes that are gold and delicate. It’s mesmerizing, really. I watch the shapes moves and change, wondering what they’re telling June about me. “What’s going on for you?” she asks and even though her tone is gentle the words have a quality to them. A gentle but persistent power, as if she knows I’m hiding something important and wants to draw it out of me. The machinery keeps whirring, processing all the little cues she has about me. “Do you sometimes feel like you can sense stuff about what’s going on with other people?” I ask her. She nods. I really wish she would say more now. Maybe what’s been happening with me is normal? Maybe all therapists can do it.

“What kind of things?” June asks. My mouth is dry.  “I don’t know.” I say. “Like their… mood, sort of?” It’s a cop-out, and I know it. Probably she knows it too. I’m not sort of sensing their mood, I’m seeing their minds. In great moving detail. June keeps looking at me quietly. She is a master of the therapist pause, pulling more information out by simply staying quiet at the right time. I shift in my seat nervously. I want to tell her, I really do. But I’m having trouble forming the words. A light glow emanates from June’s head and torso as she waits for me to answer. It softens my edges where it touches me, pulling on me to open up. “It’s like a felt sense”, I say, carefully walking the line. “Their mood has a color, and texture, like a felt sense.” 

June looks at me discerningly, like she can tell that I’m not telling her the whole story. The machinery keeps trying to figure me out. I have such mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, if she can read my mind, then maybe this whole thing is okay. Maybe she’ll tell me that the whole thing is okay. On the other hand, maybe the whole thing is not okay. Maybe I’m falling apart and she can tell. Maybe I shouldn’t be responsible for clients. Maybe I shouldn’t be working at all. I don’t know if I can afford not having a job. The white and golden shapes seem ominous now. Like something in me is telling me not to trust them.

“Therapists can often tell a host of non-verbal things about their clients.” June says. I nod, unsure where this is going. Does she mean a host of non-verbal things like ‘I’m reading people’s minds’? Or a host of non-verbal things, like someone put on their shirt backwards so we reasonably assume they were in a hurry? The ambiguity feels stressful. Maddening. I really wish she’d just tell me one way or another. June keeps going. “Sometimes there can be an uptick in how much we can tell about others and that can be unsettling. Does that sound similar to what’s happening with you?” I stare at her vaguely. How the hell am I supposed to answer that? An uptick. Sure. “Yes”, I say. “That’s what it is.” I stare at the floor between us, feeling dull. I can’t quite tell if I’m relieved, or disappointed, or both. I remind myself that at the very least I’m not getting fired.

“Sometimes it can take a while to adjust.” June says cautiously. “But you’ll find your way with it. It’s important, as we run the IFS process, to stay true to what feels right and important in each moment.” I nod again. That’s true, and also extremely annoying advice. Unhelpful. Really really unhelpful. Helpful would be to know what to do when all of a sudden you’re dissolving, and feel like you can read people’s minds. Helpful would be to know if I’m going crazy. Helpful would be to know whether normality as I remember it has been a sham. Whether everyone else knows and I’m the last to catch on. Or whether I’m the only one in the know. I nod again, thanking June, and pack my things for the day.