Things

There are so many things a kid can’t discuss in therapy. She tells him ”this is a safe place to share”, ”you can talk to me about anything” and ”everything we talk about in this room stays between us”, but it’s all lies. Honesty puts you ”at risk”, he learned this a long time ago. You’re left with the not-so-important things. ”How’s school?” Fine. ”Are you getting enough sleep?” I guess. ”Did you do anything fun over the weekend?” Not really. ”You look happy/sad/angry/bored today.” Sometimes she’ll ask him to fill out a form where you rate your feelings on a scale from 1-10. He never strays too far from what’s considered normal. Not too high, not too low, but somewhere in the middle. Indifference is good. A blank expression is even better. Don’t cross your arms, don’t clench your fists. Don’t cross your legs, it’s feminine. Don’t sit with your legs too wide apart, it’s threatening. Long sleeves, even though it’s 85 degrees outside. If pushed he’ll say, ”I miss my dog”. I miss. Me. She once asked ”Do you think you’ll grow up to be a perp? Is this something you worry about?” It made him wonder if she’d ask a girl the same thing. With boys it’s automatic. Only boys grow up to be perpetrators, abusers, rapists, wife beaters, sadists. It was a question made to rattle him, shake him up, make him talk, but he hates her now. Men are inherently evil, we’re wired this way. There must be something wrong with our bodies, something wrong with our brains. There’s something wrong with me. The truth is he’s more worried about growing up to be like his mother, hopelessly stuck and powerless, unable to do a damn thing about anything. He wants to say, “I have something in common with her, we’re both scared of men”, but it sounds ridiculous, funny almost. What if she laughs at him? He can feel his face redden. The pain stays. It stays right here.