How Does That Make You Feel? by Sherry Amatenstein

Author:Sherry Amatenstein
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781580056250
Publisher: Da Capo Press
Published: 2016-08-19T04:00:00+00:00

My Old Therapist Plays on a New Team

| Kate Walter |

“I’m Sarah. I’m a psychotherapist,” said the chatty woman I’d been talking to on the bench outside Integral Yoga near my home in the West Village. She was a stranger, but people often socialized after class. “Do you live in this neighborhood?” she asked.

“I live in Westbeth,” I replied. It’s a nearby artists’ housing project locally infamous for its oddball characters.

“Everyone I meet who lives in this neighborhood has seen a shrink in my building,” said Sarah. “It’s huge and full of therapists.”

When she told me the location—off Fifth Avenue—I pictured the lobby in my mind. “Oh, my former partner Slim and I saw a lesbian couples counselor there a long time ago, like in the 1990s,” I said. “Michelle. Do you know her? I can’t recall her last name, but she’s cute and short. My regular therapist recommended her. We wanted to see a gay woman.”

“Yes, I know Michelle. But she’s not a lesbian,” said Sarah, looking puzzled. “She’s married to a man. Has been since I’ve known her, about ten years.”

“What?” I yelped. “Are you sure we’re talking about the same person?”

Sarah said Michelle’s last name; she was definitely my former therapist. I almost choked on my granola bar as I tried to process this new information. I had always thought my old shrink was gay, like me. I tried to create a time line. Had Michelle been having a sexual identity crisis while Slim and I were her patients? If so, might that confusion have affected the way she practiced therapy? I’d assumed a lesbian could best understand queer couple dynamics and that’s why I’d insisted on that criteria. Had Michelle’s interpretations consequently been too cautious and unchallenging? Suddenly I worried her comments, helpful at the time, had been off base.

Slim and I went into couple’s therapy because we’d been screaming a lot. (One night our cranky upstairs neighbor even called the police.) Getting help was my idea, but Slim agreed we needed an intervention. I was the shrinkaholic in the family, so I appreciated her making this effort.

Michelle proclaimed we had power and control issues. It was funny and complicated in a very Sapphic way. Michelle’s analysis was that Slim, a fashionable femme, was acting like a stereotypical man—cutting off and refusing to explore her feelings. I was the soft butch, nurturing the relationship, acting like a typical woman. Slim wanted me—the sensitive one—to initiate sex, yet Slim, the control freak, insisted upon running the relationship. I resented doing all the emotional work, especially since I often felt powerless.

Counseling helped us learn to communicate better. Michelle taught Slim to own her feelings and use the first person: “It bothers me when I just swept and you spill crumbs on the floor when you eat,” as opposed to saying: “You are such a slob with food.”

During our time with Michelle, we also addressed our battles over Slim not being out in her workplace. This regression occurred after she switched careers.

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