No One Else Like You

(9) Midnight

"Hello, Mira", the woman, who was supposedly one of the best psychologist in the city was greeting me like she has known me for ages. I know this tactic. They start acting like they are your best friends so that you instantly feel comfortable and start blurting out everything. I have been in therapy before. SHE IS NOT WINNING.

After breakfast, I went to work. To my surprise what did I see? My mother at work along with Kartik. Apparently, now they think I am insane.

"So being a little upset about my divorce means I am depressed?" I was almost shouting. They are the ones who are nuts.

"I don't know why this divorce happened in the first place. You didn't tell me. Secondly, it was your choice and your behavior is like you are the one who got dumped," my mom said. "And now you are back to living with him. It must be putting a toll on your mental health."

"My behavior? What do you mean?" now I was getting annoyed. I was five minutes away from booking a plane ticket to another country and never coming back.

Kartik began, "You are drinking regularly. Yesterday you hardly got any work done. You are angry all the time. We just think you need to talk to someone and until then, you are not coming back."

"This is for your own good. Just a hour every week. Whats the big deal?" mum added.

"The big deal ... IS THAT I DON'T NEED THERAPY!" I raised my tone without any regret. What were they on about?

"Calm down, Mira," Kartik said. "Take two months off, work on yourself, relax and when you are feeling better. You can always come back."

So now, after being emotionally blackmailed and being given two months off from work, I was here. In Dr. Sonali Jain's office. She was a fifty something, nationally acclaimed psychologist and also a very close friend of Kartik's father. He told that if he finds out that I missed any of my sessions without any reasonable explanation then my off period from work will be extended.

"What brings you here?" she asked with a big toothy smile. What was she so happy about? Her smile was irritating itself.

"Not to be rude or anything but I think you already know," I said with an equally toothy smile. I was just trying to mock her but she ignored me.

"Your mother and your friend filled me up. I heard you have been therapy before?"

We were going to talk about the past? I thought she was supposed to help me move on not take me way back.

"Yes."

"Why was that?"

"I was a little depressed. But I only went there a couple of.."

"Why?" she said without letting me complete my sentence. "Why were you depressed?"

"I was being bullied in school and had a breakup with my boyfriend at the time, you know normal teenage stuff."

"Why did you go there a couple of times only? Your therapist concluded you were fine?"

"I didn't like her. She told me I was insecure because I told her about how I lost my father few years back. She ignored me completely over what I was telling her and concluded that all my problems were related to my father." It was honestly very annoying.

"Every problem has a root and usually they are implanted a long time back."

What the hell did she just say?

"What?" I looked at her confused. "If you are saying that I just divorced my husband because my father died when I was 10, then miss, you are the one in need of therapy. There were a lot of little things piled into one which made me take this hard decision. And the decision of separating was a difficult one to make, that's why I am a little off. We are so different, I can never be what he..."