the most unexpected role reversal

I went to therapy yesterday fully intending to discuss Monday’s tragedy. And although I did discuss it, I spent a good part of my time sitting and listening. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one that needed to talk.

I was feeling slightly better after expressing myself in yesterday’s post (writing about my feelings in this blog tends to be pretty good therapy) but I was in the mood to talk so I arrived in Dr. W’s office knowing what I was going to talk about. As Dr. W led me to The Chair, I sat down and she asked me how I was feeling. I told her, “Ok, I guess considering Monday’s events.” She asked, “The shootings, you mean? Did you know anyone?” I replied, “Well, Jesse’s an alum and all of his friends are alums, some of them are still in Blacksburg. A good friend of Jesse’s was in the building when it happened. He’s ok, but we were worried.”

Before I even completed the word ‘worried’, Dr. W blurted out, “Well, I’m a Hokie.” I had no idea my shrink was a Virginia Tech alumnus. I told her about what I understood the Hokie Nation to be all about. I get it. The camaraderie. The good times. The friendly atmosphere. The university and it’s close ties to the surrounding community. In my (almost) 3 years of dating Jesse, I feel as though I have a pretty good sense of the VA Tech experience. And she understood it all. Dr. W said, “I had applied and been accepted to these schools and I picked Tech because it was the safest. I feel as though I was violated because that is no longer true.” I argued, “I don’t think that’s true. This was just an isolated incident. I refuse to believe that Tech isn’t safe just because of this. Blacksburg is a good, close knit, trusting community. It shouldn’t define itself by this single, horrific act.”

Dr. W confessed, “I haven’t watched any of the news reports. I’m just not ready. I’m in the denial stage.” Denial stage? Spoken like a true shrink. I told her, “I just want to know why this happened. So I’ve been eating up just every single piece of news that I find about this whole thing because that is the only way I can understand and move on.” And so begins Dr. W’s game of 20 questions on Monday’s tragedy.

As she asked me everything she wanted to know about the tragedy but was afraid to watch on TV, Dr. W occasionally gave her opinion on the gunman’s mental state during my little information session. I was happy to hear a professional’s opinion. But she would sometimes finish her statements with “but I haven’t thought this through” and that was odd to me. For example, she said, “He was probably more than depressed. He was suffering from something far more serious. Not that depression isn’t serious. I haven’t really thought this through.” It’s almost as if Dr. W had to keep reminding herself that I was a patient and not a friend.

At the end, she said quietly, “You know, trying to find out every bit of information about what happened, that’s actually a good way to cope. You need to understand though that you might not find an answer.”

I replied in a voice barely above a whisper, “I know, but I still want to try.”

I don’t fault Dr. W for wanting to talk. I can completely understand. It was a horrific event. Everyone’s going to have some thoughts about it. Some people are going to need to talk about it. And if someone who makes a living listening to other people finally wants to talk, I’ll be the one to listen.