BEGINNING It's damn cold and I'm standing on the platform of Putney station wondering, as I take long drafts of my rum and coke not-so-cunningly hidden in a water bottle, is this seemly? Appropriate even? Why am I hiding my alcohol? (in denial of drink problem) Are these wedges too high? (definitely, can hardly walk) Skirt too short? (no problem picking up punters tonight then luv!) CHRIST! IS THAT A CLIENT! You see, even the 'alleged' perfect have issues and boy! I have more issues than Vivienne Eliot on a good day. Part of the paranoia is that training has just finished and I'm in private practice. How grown up does that sound? Frankly, its bloody terrifying. I am in charge of facilitating clients mental health and here I am slugging back rum like a 5 Dollar Caymanian Hooker in Bodden Town. I have a client at the moment and she scares me to death literally. I keep visualising her pulling out a huge butchers knife from her bag and trying to carve Labour manifesto details on my stomach. I'm so rigid with fear that i disconnect and start thinking about what I'm going to cook for dinner. Now, for some people this is 'normal' thought. For me, its as alien as dating a small man. Cooking is the western front, Thermidor in the Revolutionary Calendar, The Gulag, Alistair Campbell’s venal ambition and modern vicars who shave their hair and say 'bollocks' a lot.Pretty scary places. As it turns out the woman is mad as a hatter. So I refer her to the Tavistock Clinic which is the equivalent of bid-up TV on satellite television. Fucking No-man's land. My mother rang to day and asked what i'd be wearing for my first 'paying' client. As if they are special .... well, of course they are because they pay. But not in terms of quality of treatment. I ummmmed over the phone and replied, 'jeans probably'. A shriek of outrage! 'you can't wear jeans. Wear a suit!!!' Suits to a certain generation are the OBE of clothing. 'I have to be comfortable'. 'But what about impressions, I mean ...jeans!' 'Mum, Jean's are not the haut couture of Satan. I think its important to show them who I am...' And so it goes on ... until I say through gritted teeth ....... ....'I'll wear the SODDING suit!' Trains coming in and I've already tripped over my heels twice.
MEDUSA STRIKES My new supervisor is a consummate bitch and she disapproves of me. Not professionally of course, just personally. Supervisors of therapists are like Head Teachers. You feel desperate to please them – bring all your juiciest cases to tempt them. The more salacious the better. The other counsellors in the group remind me of Show dogs at Crufts. All wagging tails and wet noses. Admitting to terrible faults just to get a biscuit – in this case a bloody garibaldi. I mean, seriously, what is the point of that sodding biscuit unless you want to gravely insult someone. The reasons she loathes me is because I ‘challenged’ her. This is the equivilant of multiple murder in supervisor terms. Here’s how it went ….. S was talking about a client with a borderli ne personality disorder. Now these guys are tricky fuckers – not least because 80 percent of the population fit snugly into this category, including, I might add, most of the people in this room. But, because they have only vague symptoms. You know, passive aggressive behaviours, tendency to blame others, lack of honesty, anti-social habits, verbal aggression, a heavy bent towards anger – I mean, shit, I could be describing half of the estate agents in London. But S was saying that the stress was making her drink more. I could see Consummate Bitch (CB) wriggling her chubby arse in exhilaration. ‘So you have a drinking problem?’ (nervous pause) ‘Well, no, I mean it’s a couple of glasses’. ‘A week, a day, per hour!’ ‘In the evening, you know’. ‘No I don’t’, the Consummate Bitch, ‘Im not an alcoholic. I suggest you talk to your counsellor about this immediately. ‘Hold on’, I say. (painful silence as CB turns her Gorgon gaze towards me) ‘ You have something to say?’ says CB, but it sounds much more Teutonic and Nazi-fied in the moment. ‘I think you’re being rather unfair!’ (fierce beam of interrogation lamp shines in face – I blink twice) CB softly ‘you do?’ ‘Well, what’s wrong with a couple of glasses of wine a night. I mean dealing with nutters day in day out – Shit! I down a couple of bottles’! (Weak giggle from me – terrible gasps from the rest of the Crufts) End of session. I have been forced to seek supervision elsewhere due to my apparent lack of self-awareness (I disagreed with her), my booze problem (probably right about that) and being a subversive influence on the others in my group (I brought the Daily Mail in ONCE! For fucks sake). I was lucky not to be sent to the Gulag.
NORMAL? It amazes me, bemuses and confounds me that clients see me as this pinnacle of virtue and purity. I feel I should climb on my chair and scream like a virago that I have sex, have taken many, many pharmaceutical substances in my time, am sloppy at home and sleep with my dogs in my bed. That I had a client who was the daughter of a hugely famous writer and I had to sit on my hands to stop slipping scripts in her bag whilst distracting her with a ‘lets try some relaxation… first close your eyes…’ type of scenario. I’ve also learnt to falsify my profession. I once spent an hour and a half helping a British Rail Guard comes to terms with his brothers booze problem on a journey to Dorset. I missed the bloody wheelie bar three times as I desperately tried to manage his hysterical tears and grab a miniature brandy simultaneously. On reflection, I’m not surprised that the wheelie woman gave me a wide berth. I was trying to attract her attention with a grotesque pantomime of winks and head twitches as the Guard buried his head in my shoulder sobbing. And picking up blokes at parties? Fuck that for game of soldiers. Men react in three ways. There’s the wild eyed look of terror as they back away slowly, searching left and right for the men in white coats. Then we have the funny boy. ‘You’re not going to mind read me are you … ha ha ha? ‘No, I’m not’. ‘Or analyse me here and now…. Ha ha ha? Or head shrink me? Ho ho ho!' ‘No, I’m pissing off to the bar now’. And the third, by far the worst. ‘So a psychiatrist eh?’ ‘I’m a counsellor, not a psychiatrist’ ‘So, a psychotherapist eh? No, I’m a counsellor, its slightly different’. ‘In what way’? (yawn) 'Its complicated' ‘ Well, maybe you can help me – I have this strange rash on my…. (leans forward furtively) ….On my balls!’ ‘That's nice - I’m pissing off to the bar now!' So I end up getting smashed, avoiding and being avoided by all blokes and getting picked up by bi-sexual,investment banker chicks… But that’s another story…
EVIL VICARS I’ve become bewitched by Catholicism! Not in a converting type of way. But by the history, the mystery and … quite frankly the robes. The incense swinging is also pretty sexy. I’m well aware that its also patriarchal, archaic and fairly irrelevant to contemporary society but it has this crumbling elegance. Did you know that the Vatican is rumoured to have the Largest Collection Of Pornography In The World. Go on my Sons! I’m not sure you’d find Penthouse and Hustler there but probably loads of other good stuff! I have also been researching the notion of ‘evil’. No, not because of my experiences with the Consummate Bitch although sub-consciously she probably has imprinted on my psyche in some traumatic way. Oooooh! I can feel a civil suit coming on! But more importantly for the psychological thriller I’ve been umming and aaahing about for some time. So in great excitement after reading pages of catholic tracts on demons and evil things I make an appointment with the vicar at my local church. I envisaged this marvellous hour of excellent red wine, smoky fires and many mystical and extraordinary things being unveiled to me after an ancient initiation! What a let down! The ‘vicar’ arranged to meet me in Café Nero on Putney High Street. Ok! Well, maybe it’s the cosy corners or there’s a secret passage way that I’ve never seen. He arrived in brief satin shorts and a navy singlet! He'd been running for fucks sake! (not a very 'vicarish' activity in my opinion)AND not a bloody robe in sight! I, on the other hand, was fetchingly attired in as much velvet as possible and a Medici scarlet mouth. It was a bloody disaster. He dismissed ‘evil’ as a ‘load of old bollocks’, the catholic church as ‘bunch of nutters’ and as much as said that I must have a severe case of the drama queens if I was interested in ‘a load of old tosh like that’. AND had the audacity to ask as I was leaving if I was coming to church on Sunday. ‘I would’, I replied loftily, ‘but I have a Black Mass to attend’. Anyone know a good priest ....? (hic)
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