"Hello": The Healer

The Healer:

Growing up sheltered and controlled in every aspect starts to have effects on a child the moment they decide they were never meant to be caged. I learned this the hardest way possible: through firsthand experience.

My damage was more emotional than physical; by the age of fourteen, I was sure of several things. The clearest of them were: I had no future, and any kind of effort in life was useless. My vision of life after high school was nothing but darkness, and everything in the world seemed less important than a bag of dirt, or a smudge on a window. This way of life at home, of course, bled into my school life. I, who had never dreamed of missing a class before high school, started skipping out on classes left and right. One class a day turned to two, two turned to five, five turned into entire days. Nowadays I can't remember how often one would catch me actually attending a class. I had more or less dropped out of high school, only the school didn't know about it and couldn't make it official.

Then came the day I was caught, and I received a letter that I was to appear at court, real-life gavel-to-block court minus a nosy audience. Truancy was my charge, and I was given a probation officer and ordered to go to therapy.

Oh, therapy. How delightful I was those first few months.

My first therapist was part of a four-week program meant for troubled juveniles like myself; she had strange teeth, long blonde hair, a beautiful personality, and no luck with getting me to open up. I remember our first-ever encounter: she said "Hello," and I said nothing. Absolutely nothing. Still, to this day I cannot say I wasn't a little emotional when we parted. No one had ever cared so much about my feelings before. Her effort didn't go unnoticed.

Even after our sessions were done, I was required to see a professional by the court. As much as I dreaded the idea of talking to a complete stranger who, as I said often during that time in my life, "was paid to care," I also feared the thought of the judge following through on the alternative option and having me taken from my home. So I carried on with the search for a therapist despite my reluctance.

Nearly a month or so after, I entered the office of my second therapist—we'll call her Ziva, because my first thought of her was how much she looked like Ziva David from NCIS. Ziva didn't greet me with the smile of an overenthusiastic kindergarten teacher like the last one, nor was she business-like and stone-cold like I secretly feared. She picked up on my personality quickly, and treated me with the caution one would have when approaching a wounded animal. And, in hindsight, I was a wounded animal: I only snapped to defend myself, because I felt everything was determined to hurt me.

Ziva took her seat across from me. She was calm, and she spoke with confidence that simple little word: "Hello."

I was not ready to let Ziva into my life, and I wouldn't be for quite a long time. At the same time, however, I had already decided Ziva needed to be here, that she would be my ticket out of this mess I was forced to call my life—I didn't realize this decision was made until about seven years later, during a discussion with the therapist Ziva, who I still go to see once every week or two. How did she stay so long? How did she crack through my surface and get me to speak? Well, that was my fault. I gave her the permission with my soft-spoken, simple little reply: "Hello." And, because I did that, she was able to guide me out of my unrecognized rage and rebellion and nudge me toward a never-before-seen future that slowly took shape as we moved along.

Out of all the people in my life, Ziva was the one responsible for the biggest changes in me.