Goodbye... and Thank You

P---,

         I’m not good with emotions... or goodbyes... or being nice. I knew I wouldn’t be able to use words that the end of the last session because I’m…well, me. I was going to find some smartass card and write in that, but all of the thank-you cards I found were all sweet and sentimental and shit. Not my personality for sure, so I’m making my best effort to write with half-decent handwriting because a. I still don’t have a printer, and b. Handwritten letters are a tad more personal. It’s the closest I can get to sentimentality and proper emotional expression. So, here we go~

         I honestly don’t have words to express my gratitude. I was skeptical as all hell coming back into the program given my previous experience with mental health providers. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that, holy shit, a psychologist that actually cares—that makes an effort, asks questions, that guides me to answers rather than giving them to me, potentially giving me the incorrect impression of myself. And a psychologist that asks to work not only with my psychiatrist but also my primary care provider? I almost asked if I was fucking hallucinating. I was given options—asked about my goals, given different courses of action on several different occasions. You focused not just on the psychological aspect, but also on the physical (pretty sure regulating sleep saved my ass). I put in an honest effort with the nicotine and caffeine. That one didn’t change as much; sorry. The fact that you were concerned with withdrawals though. Despite it being a “habit”, you were still concerned. You didn’t push me to quit either. You have no idea how much I appreciate that. ...Granted, you probably realized had you tried, I would have likely deliberately resisted because I’m a stubborn asshole with a disdain for being told exactly what I “need” or “have” to do. Regardless, it’s much appreciated.

         I actually looked forward to session. I’d never experienced that before. I hated that goddamn litmus test exercise, but you appealed to that “inner scientist” that didn’t die despite my change in career focus (I know what you were doing when you called the nicotine/caffeine/etc. fiascoes experiments, by the way). I enjoyed the aspect of introspection. Self psychoanalyzation is fun. I had a few of those cliché light bulb moments that you see in movies. I could see, in my own expression, that blank stare of “what the actual fuck” spark the shock and realization of “Jesus H. Christ, it all makes sense” from a third person perspective. Then I’d look over to you, seeing that satisfied little smirk pulling at the corners of your lips. And I felt like, for once, I’d actually accomplished something. Looking back now, I see that I really made some progress in sorting out the fuckery that is the crossed, stripped, shredded, tangled, and in some places, severed wiring that is my psyche.

         And that is definitely your doing. You’ve probably saved my life. Medication alone can’t do it, and had you not caught it, Dr. B. probably couldn’t have really confirmed the Bipolar II diagnosis. We still would have been dicking with meds (I’m not allowed to take anti-psychotics—words straight from Dr. B.’s mouth). My brain chemistry is a bitch and a half, and you’ve helped me to communicate that to him more than once. You’ve helped me identify mood cycling triggers, track mood cycling, identify patterns of behavior in interpersonal relationships. One thing I’m particularly grateful for is when I slipped and started cutting again, you didn’t call it a relapse right off the bat. I did, but you called it a “lapse”. I was already beating myself bloody (pun not intended) mentally for it, but “lapse” took some of the sting out of the event. That little prefix, re-, has so much power. After a while, I thought of it as a lapse too, and it let me hate myself a little less for it.

         The only thing I would ever change about session is the fact that there was so little time. I wish I had come back to the program at the start. Maybe not by much, but I would have progressed that much more.

         Congratulations, Dr. N. You did it. PhD complete. Or as us game nerds would say: Achievement Earned: PhD Obtained. You will help so many people in your time as a psychologist. You care about your patients. That isn’t always easy to find. I swear, you have the patience of a fucking saint. You really get to know who we are as people. You know more us better than we do ourselves, but you share that knowledge to help us repair ourselves where we are broken and break cycles that we fail to see are destroying us. You are a guardian angel, to those who believe in that, guiding us to stability…when some of us may have never known what that is.

         I will miss session. I will miss the tidbits of psychoeducation. I will miss watching you try not to laugh at my blunt, typically vulgar euphemisms. I will miss the sense of “I am making progress” that I feel leaving, and I hope that I find something similar in the poor bastard that gets stuck with me in the next cycle of residents.

         Again. Thank you. So much. I will be forever grateful, and if I can do for my patients in the future what you did for me in the last 10 months… well, shit, I’ll feel pretty damn accomplished.

         Best Wishes,
                   Jessie

P.S. Those sticks you hand out… pretty fucking high quality. Must be California Redwood or something.