More than Anxiety

“So, Emily, what brings you here today?”

Jacob was in his late 40s with large glasses and ears that stuck out slightly. While waiting for me to speak, he fiddles with his hearing aides. I take a deep breath and begin.

“Well, about three years back I did something really stupid. You see, I decided to write a book fictionally based on my college days and most of my friends took offense. Kimberly in particular. Even though she was one of my closest friends sophomore and junior year of college, by senior year, it was obvious that I did something to displease her and she went about turning all my friends (who I introduced her to) against me. She would have gatherings and deliberately exclude me and I suspected (and now know) she was badmouthing me behind my back. In any case, I thought as now grown ups in our 40s, we had gotten past that and we could be civil. I was wrong.”

I take a deep breath and continue,

“About this book, I figured that I didn’t say anything bad about any of my friends and focused on my first love and heartbreak. Kimberly did not see it that way and wrote a “review” that was really her personal lists of grievances against me. I was so hurt by what she said, that I distanced myself from everyone who had a personal connection to her, including Abby. Abby, up to that point was one of my best friends despite her closeness with Kimberly. I essentially ‘ghosted’ her, stopped answering her calls, disappeared from her life without an explanation.”

Jacob stopped fiddling with his hearing aides and adjusted his glasses, “And?”

“I wrote a second book, which ironically, was based on the one truly fictional character in the first book. However, there was a secondary character that had a few things in common with Abby. Kimberly saw this book, accompanied by the ghosting, and went on a complete rampage in her review, holding nothing back in her dislike and contempt of me. She accused me of bashing Abby with that character and she was angry on her behalf. I did my best to move on ‘drop it’ as my father and other friends had suggested. I thought I did a good job until a year after I unpublished both books and took down my author blog, I get a private message from Gloria, Abby’s sister. Gloria lives out of town and I guess somehow on her visit home she and Kimberly had a talk about me. Gloria started her message with ‘I know a good lawyer’ and ended with ‘F*** you.’ So you see, despite my father’s advice to drop it and my mother’s stupid cliche sayings like, ‘Empty barrels make the most noise, the tongue wags but the brain lags.’ I can’t drop it, because they won’t let me! And my family doesn’t understand how bad this has gotten. I haven’t even told them about Gloria because I just know they will minimize it.”

I am screaming now,

“I never meant to hurt anybody.”

Jacob scratches his chin thoughtfully,

“So, has Gloria contacted you since?”

I shake my head and Jacob continues. “It looks to me like you have a classic case of anxiety. As for your parents, everybody has their problems. My dad comes up with cliche sayings all the time. ‘Jacob,’ my dad advised, ‘you know a bird in the hand is worth two in a bush.’ Empty barrels make the most noise...that’s a new one.”

He chuckes and waves his hand dismissively, “This isn’t a big problem.”

I can tell then and there that Jacob really doesn’t understand at all, maybe even less than well meaning friends and family do. In the coming weeks, I research anxiety, and this drama really has nothing to do with the obsessive version that Jacob has diagnosed me with. I have good reason to believe that Kimberly, and by extension those around her, actively dislike me because I have history and proof of her actions. Maybe because he is male and does not understand female friend dynamics or maybe because I didn’t make my point clear enough, but I am annoyed by Jacob’s pat diagnosis and his invalidation of my problems. I see him two more times and I tell him what he wants to hear and when I get a $1200 bill for 3 sessions, I realize I should have gone with my first impression that this wasn’t a good fit and he didn’t understand what I needed.