Disenchanted

Frank made his way over to the receptionist’s desk and offered her a nervous smile. “Hi, can I help you?” she replied cheerily. She was pretty with long dark hair and Frank could just about make out a few tattoos almost covered up by her clothes, but not quite. “Uh yeah, I have an appointment with uh, Doctor Way?” replied Frank. It came out like more of a question than a statement and Frank felt his face flame with both embarrassment at how awkward he was with people and the fact that he was at the building in the first place, waiting for a therapy appointment. Frankly he was ashamed that he had let things get this bad again. More so he was ashamed that people had found out. Thankfully the receptionist didn’t notice Frank’s awkwardness, or just pretended not to. “Ok sweetie, can you tell me your name?”

“Frank. Iero,” he added as an afterthought. The receptionist typed something briefly, consulted the computer screen and looked back up at Frank, smiling encouragingly at Frank as he wrung his hands beside her. “Ok, great. You can make your way upstairs in the elevator or on the stairs and I’ll ring Doctor Way to let him know you’ve arrived. His office is just on the third floor, you can’t miss it.” Frank nodded gratefully at the woman in front of him then turned away towards the stairs. Behind him the receptionist picked up the phone and began to call Gerard’s office. Watching the small teenager make his way over to the stairs with a dead look in his eyes and a heavy step, the receptionist felt pity for him. She murmured to herself softly, feeling sympathetic for Frank. “Good luck in there, sweetie.”

Frank trudged his way up the stairs, his legs burning. He couldn’t explain why but he knew he’d feel guilty if he took the elevator and disregarded the stairs. He often got like this, feeling guilty for no particular reason. Sometimes it got so overwhelming that Frank felt like he was going to explode. He would listen to loud heavy music to try and block out his thoughts of inadequacy and guilt but most of the time it was useless. He couldn’t shake the voices in his head telling him that he was pathetic, useless, and worthless. He didn’t deserve to. He deserved every insult they hurled at him, knowing he felt the same way about himself. Frank reached the third floor in minutes and made his way to the waiting room of Gerard’s office. Although the room was quite big Frank felt suffocated with nerves. Needing something to focus on, Frank tried to steady his breathing and looked around the room. It was painted cream and a few pictures of supposedly calming scenes hung on the walls; a beach, a park, a lake. Several potted plants stood in each corner and chairs lined two sides of the room, the chairs on one side parallel to the chairs on the other side. The room was empty at that moment, something Frank was extremely glad about. With the way the chairs were situated Frank knew that if the room was full, the people in the room would not be able to avoid looking at each other. That was why, Frank supposed, there was a large wooden table in the centre of the room filled with magazines of all kinds.

Frank took a seat in the middle of the room and sat picking at the nail varnish on his fingers. He had no idea what was going on in the other side of the room, if Gerard was with someone right now or if Frank was supposed to walk right in. Frank didn’t have all that much experience of therapy but he was pretty sure he was supposed to wait until someone came to get him so that was exactly what he did. Frank had been waiting for just under ten minutes when he heard the voices in the room next to him rising in what sounded like friendly laughter. About a minute later a thin woman with long black hair exited the room followed by Gerard. He was wearing a pair of dark jeans and a white shirt with a black waistcoat that clung to his frame and was laughing appreciatively at something the woman had just said. She smiled at Gerard as she bid him goodbye, walking past Frank without looking at him, her heels clicking on the wooden floor as she left, the clicking nose petering away as she got further and further away. Gerard smiled fondly at the woman who had just left his room. His eyes then clicked onto Frank and his smile grew slightly wider. “Frank, hi. I hope you weren’t waiting there long?” he asked, sounding slightly guilty. Frank shook his head and smiled nervously at Gerard, saying nothing. Gerard accepted Frank’s silence and opened his office door wider, gesturing for Frank to enter. “Come on in then. Sit down where ever you want.”

The room was relatively bigger than the waiting room. It was also painted cream but it was bright and airy, with a window overlooking the New Jersey streets taking up the whole of one wall. A large mahogany desk sat in front of the large window with a well-worn arm chair placed behind it. Bookshelves filled with well-thumbed psychology textbooks littered the shelves and a few rugs were laid out on the wooden floor. A few chairs were placed in front of Gerard’s desk as well as two couches facing each other in the middle of the room. Overall the room was warm and welcoming, not at all like Frank expected. However the filing cabinet and the huge pile of case files on Gerard’s desk were enough to remind Frank that this was a psychiatrist’s office and not just someone’s study or home office.

Gerard took a seat at his desk and waited for Frank to take a seat in front of him before he began to group some papers together in an attempt to clear the desk. Frank noticed a few drawings in between the mound of papers and old coffee cups which struck his interest. The wastepaper basket next to Gerard’s desk was also filled with more papers, as well as what looked like food wrappers from Subway. From the crumbs on his desk, it was obvious Gerard had been having lunch before Frank had arrived. But why would he be having lunch with that woman? She was one of his patients, wasn’t she? Frank told himself that Gerard had just been running late, shaking his head and wondering why he even cared so much. “Sorry about the mess,” Gerard said apologetically. “I’ve have no time to myself to clean up lately. I’m just working, like all the time. It’s hard to get a break when you’re in this kind of a job. It’s pretty demanding. I love it though.” Gerard stopped shuffling papers and fixed Frank with a reassuring, truthful smile that only said one thing – ‘Even though my job is demanding, I wouldn’t change what I do for the world.’ Frank felt reassured by that.

Gerard grabbed a clipboard from his desk and ripped off the sheet that had previously occupied it. He shoved the paper into a nearby file before reaching into a draw in his desk and pulling out yet another sheet. He attached the sheet to the clipboard and poised a pen above it. “Okay,” he smiled at Frank. “Let’s start.”

“So Frank, firstly I just want to ask you a few questions.” Frank nodded but avoided looking into Gerard’s eyes, instead flicking his eyes from the ground to the door to the clipboard in Gerard’s hands. Gerard quickly noticed this, and tried to reassure Frank. “Don’t worry about the clipboard Frank,” Gerard reassured him lowering the board to look at him. “These are just some assessment questions to see how you’ve been doing since we last spoke. I won’t be using it for our usual sessions.” He laughed. “I know it makes people uncomfortable. It’d make me worry too if I saw someone I barely knew scribbling down everything I said. Don’t worry though; I’m sure I won’t have to write anything too bad.” He winked at Frank, a friendly gesture with the aim of making Frank feel more uncomfortable. Instead Frank almost choked because of the shock of it. Suddenly Gerard got serious. “Do you understand why you’re here today?” he asked, fixing Frank was a look that caused a shiver down his back. All Frank could do was swallow hard and nod .”Why?” Gerard persisted. Fucking hell, Frank thought. What is with all this guy’s questions? We already know why I’m here.

His brain screamed at him to lie, trying to convince Frank to tell Gerard it was all one big misunderstanding; that his hands had slipped off the brakes. He didn’t want to die, not at all. Frank didn’t often listen to his brain. “I tried to kill myself,” he admitted. Now wasn’t the time to lie. He was trapped, everyone already knew what he did. Now was the time to admit what he had done, pretend to be remorseful, attempt to ‘get better’ and when everyone was finally off his back, he’d try again, and he would get it right this time. Gerard nodded. “Some people don’t like admitting they tried to end their lives. They’re embarrassed that they’ve failed, and so they either do two things, either deny it happened at all, or pretend that they’re totally over it. I’m glad you admitted it. You’re on the right track. We’ll talk about why you tried to do that soon, but right now I need to ask the rest of my questions. Now last week I asked you to start taking some pills. That doesn’t usually happen so quickly unless someone tries to kill them self like you did, then we have to intervene as quickly as possible to sort the person’s mood out long enough for us to treat them. I want to ask you some questions to see how the pills are affecting you and to determine if you’re going to have to take them in the long term. Is that okay?”

Frank nodded, bouncing his legs off the ground nervously. Gerard smiled. “Okay, great. So, how’ve you been sleeping Frank?” Frank resisted the urge to lie once again, forcing himself to tell the truth. “I’ve been sleeping a lot. I’m tired like all the time. Sometimes I even find it really hard to keep my eyes open.” Frank spoke quietly, his voice cracking slightly. Gerard nodded and ticked something off on the clipboard. “That’s a normal reaction. Hopefully it should subside in a few weeks. How about before you started taking the pills? Did you sleep a lot then?” Frank nodded. “Yeah; I’ve always had trouble sleeping. I’d either over sleep or just stay up all night. I’d be tired but I just couldn’t…just couldn’t sleep.” Gerard nodded again. “So has this left you with too much energy or not much at all?” Frank sighed and rubbed his hand over his face, stressed out. ‘Definitely not much at all,” he decided. “I don’t have much energy at all. Everything is pretty much exhausting for me, even the tiniest or most simple things and no matter how much sleep I get I’m still tired.”

“But surely you still have things you want to get up for, right? Things you’re interested in?” Gerard prompted, even though he knew what the answer would most likely be as it was for most kids he saw dealing with depression. He got the answer he expected. “No. Not really. I haven’t been doing much of anything lately, not even the things I used to enjoy. I haven’t been playing my guitar lately and it makes me feel so guilty. Sometimes I think I don’t even deserve to do the things I enjoy, so the rare times I do have energy to read or play guitar, I don’t. You know, to punish myself.” Gerard nodded, saddened by Frank’s words but needing to ask the rest of his questions, knowing that Frank might not be this open again. “Do you often feel like that Frank; guilty for no particular reason or angry at yourself for things that wouldn’t matter to most people?”

“Yeah,” Frank answered simply, jiggling his foot on the floor in an attempt to chase away the nerves. “I do.”

“And these feelings of guilt and anger, they would drive you to harm yourself, is that right?” Gerard asked, not even looking up from his clipboard. Frank flinched. He really didn’t want to talk about that. Really, really didn’t want to talk about it. He hated the way Gerard said it so flippantly, not even looking up from his sheet. Yeah it might not be a big deal to him anymore; yeah he might have heard it all a thousand times before; he was a psychiatrist after all. But to say the words as if it didn’t matter, as if it hadn’t singularly wrecked Frank’s entire life, and caused him more pain than he could ever imagine, more emotionally than physically, well that upset him. His leg began to bounce off the floor even harder and his heart beat sped up. He felt like he was gonna throw up. “I don’t want to talk about this.” He whispered. Gerard placed the clip board which was now filled with black scrawls and leant towards Frank who was cowering into himself and biting his lip viscously. “Frank, I don’t want to upset you, I really don’t but I need to ask these things to understand where you’re at and help you to the best of my ability.” Frank nodded but was still upset.

He hadn’t realised how much therapy would scare him and as he sat looking at Gerard, his heart was hammering. He felt like a rabbit being persuaded by a pack of hunting dogs. Oblivious to this, Gerard continued asking his question, asking softy, “Would you mind showing me your arms Frank? I just want to assess the damage to see how badly you’ve been cutting.” He said it like it was nothing, as if it was an okay thing to ask. Clearly Gerard thought it was. Frank, obviously, did not. Frank looked like he was about to faint. His heart began to pound and his chest tightened. Suddenly the enormity of what he was doing hit him. He was sitting here telling his secrets to a total stranger who had the authority to lock him up or send him away. What the hell was he doing?? Frank’s stomach began to cramp and he stood up shakily. Oh god. Oh god. The pressure of Gerard’s questions combined with the first proper bit of food he had eaten within a day or two, got to Frank. He felt like his throat was going to close up as his head spun. “I’m gonna…Oh god, I think I’m gonna…” Frank held his hand up to his mouth and his eyes began to search desperately for an exit out of the room.

Noticing this, Gerard leapt up and dashed over to Frank. He placed his hand on the small of Frank’s back and guided him towards a door in the side of the room that Frank hadn’t noticed it before. Gerard opened to door to reveal a small bathroom and ushered Frank in. Frank slumped down in front of the toilet and held onto the sides of the seat to steady himself, his clammy hands slipping. He began to throw up the contents of his stomach, which really wasn’t much at all. Pathetically he retched and gagged into the toilet bowl whilst holding his stomach. When he was sure he could throw up no more, he rested his head against his arms and sighed in utter exhaustion. Gerard who had been watching him with a concerned look and biting his lip began to rub Frank’s back once again and cooed at him sympathetically. After a few minutes of Frank breathing heavily over the toilet bowl Gerard helped him stand shakily to him feet. He led him back into the main office whilst rubbing his hand up and down Frank’s back then brought him over to his chair. Gerard leant over his desk and spoke into the intercom. “Hey Alicia, can you bring some tea up, please? …Yeah, he’s not feeling too good. He threw up…Yeah, I know…Ok great, thanks.”

A minute or so later the receptionist entered the room with a streaming mug of tea and pressed the warm tea in Frank’s hands, smiling at him sympathetically. “Here you go honey.” Frank looked up in surprise, having been in a world of his own. “Oh, thank you.” He smiled weakly at the girl in front of him and gratefully took a sip of the tea. Gerard who was leaning up against his desk nodded in approval and smiled appreciatively at the receptionist, murmuring something to her before she left the room. “That should settle your stomach. I’m really sorry about this Frank. I didn’t mean to push you like that. I shouldn’t have done it.” Frank looked up at Gerard who looked horribly guilty and felt even worse for making him upset. “It’s fine, don’t worry about it. That’s never happened to me before; I guess I was just nervous.”

"I’d like to talk to you more about this but I don’t want to push you anymore,” Gerard said quietly. Frank noticed a hint of regret and guilt in his voice that he was desperately trying to keep out. “We should talk about this next week.” Frank glanced over at the clock wondering if he had really spent a whole hour puking his guts up. Gerard noticed this. “There’s still time left but I asked Alicia to call your mom; I didn’t want to push you anymore this week. She knows what happened, she’s worried.” Of course she is, thought Frank. She always is. Frank leant his head against the back of his chair and closed his eyes, wanting a minute to himself before he left. He needed to prepare himself for the abundance of questions that his mother would inevitably fling at him the moment he got in the car.

Frank’s mom soon arrived to pick Frank up, all flustered questions and worried looks at her son. She came and left within ten minutes, ushering Frank out with her and thanking her friend for taking care of him. Gerard went through the rest of the day immersing himself in his work, or at least trying to. Try as he might, the young doctor was unable to lose the image of the young tattooed boy he had seen that morning from his head. He wasn't sure he wanted to anyway.

Notes

Hope this is ok, I don't know. Don't forget to comment, rate and subscribe :)
Mayday Parade were amazing by the way, ahh.