To Reese

By Amanda Esther Sedaka

When I was eight I caught my mom crying in the kitchen. Crying is probably an understatement, the woman was bawling. My dad kept shushing her, telling her that everything would be okay and not to wake the kids. As I was about to go in and use all my youngest child charm, she said, “I just don’t think he’s normal.”

I froze. I knew she was talking about me. For one, I was the only boy. If she was talking about my sister she’d say she’s not normal. And, even if she did say that, it wouldn’t be true. Because my sister was so normal. Cool even. There’d never been a doubt of her normalness. Before that, I never thought of myself as abnormal. I didn’t think it was strange that I counted my steps or panicked over things that would never be. I was content with the way I was. Used to it. But now the way that I was was making my mother cry.

“Lower your voice,” my dad whispered. “Please lower your voice.”

“Did you see him this morning? Why wouldn’t he stop crying?”

I wouldn’t stop crying because I was worried if I went to school I’d pick up my pencil and stab my seat partner. It wasn’t because I had anything against Jacob, I liked him in fact. I didn’t know why I was so worried about it actually. I didn’t want to stab him with my pencil. I think it was the idea that I could.

“Greg is an anxious kid,” my dad said. “He’s going to grow out of it.”

“This isn’t just anxiety. Something is wrong with him.”

I went back to my room at that point. A stronger person would’ve stayed. A braver one. I was neither of those. I would learn what my mom meant soon enough. Years of therapy would teach me exactly what was wrong with me.

My dad was right that I was an anxious kid. He wasn’t right about me growing out of it though. In fact, I think I grew into it.

It took my therapist one session, one hour to determine that I had OCD. This I also grew into.

When people first hear about OCD, they often think of being notoriously clean. They imagine someone washing their hands, making sure their room is spotless. Don’t get me wrong, this is a form of OCD. There are people out there who are obsessed with cleanliness. People who wash their hands till they bleed, clean until they cry. I, however, was not one of those people. For me, as you’ve probably come to know, it was the thoughts that were obsessive. It was like this little voice in my head, who sounded exactly like me, knew something I didn’t. The little voice knew that if I didn’t tap my right foot three times on the ground before getting on a plane it would crash. The little voice knew that if I went to school, it was possible that I could do something really really bad. Anyone could. Anything could happen. And only this little voice was wise enough to warn me. To protect me. I now know this isn’t true. That the little voice was OCD. I’m telling you all this because I want you to know what it was like for me, to grow up with this little voice. I want you to know how I got it to stop, or at least keep its voice down. I want you to know who helped me shut it up.

My first therapy session was relatively tame. It was about two weeks after I overheard my parents in the kitchen that night. They told me I was going to make a new friend. At first I was excited. I didn’t have many friends so a new one wouldn’t hurt. I hoped this new friend would like legos as much as I did. Maybe he’d also have a collection of Pokemon cards.

He didn’t talk about legos. He didn’t have Pokemon cards either. He was also 60 years old and wearing the ugliest tie I to this day have ever seen. I think it was supposed to be fun for kids, something colorful that would make them feel safe around this strange old man. I did not feel that way.

The tie was green with one giant clown on the front staring into your soul. It had this grin on its face as wide as the tie itself. Isn’t fear of clowns a common phobia? What if that’s what I was in therapy for? Even at eight I felt it was important to address this.

“You know, some kids don’t like clowns,” I said.

“Do you not like clowns?”

“No, I mean really don’t like clowns.”

“Do you really not like clowns?”

Me and Dr. Reese had this back and forth for pretty much the remainder of that first session. For years I didn’t know how he was able to diagnose me with OCD after it. I started seeing Dr. Reese once a week after that, sometimes twice if things got really bad.

That car ride home was awkwardly silent. There were very few times that both my mom and dad drove me or picked me up from anywhere together. The last time I remembered them doing that was when my grandpa died about a year earlier. I probably should’ve cared more but he yelled at me once when I spilled my drink so this felt like poetic justice.

My mom lasted five whole minutes without asking me what was discussed in therapy. I think she was worried that I talked about her. That was a stupid fear for her to have. My mom was my best friend. The idea of saying something bad about that woman, especially for eight year old me, was unheard of. Still, with a shaky voice, she asked “So what did you guys talk about?”

“Clowns.”

“Are you afraid of clowns?” She asked optimistically. I think this seemed like an easy fix to her. If I was scared of clowns that’s a relatively simple thing to avoid. Being scared of everything is much more difficult.

“No.” That was the end of our conversation.

As the years went on, things got both better and worse.

I got first place in the science fair!

I convinced myself my dog would die if I didn’t run up and down the stairs 20 times.

I got a Wii for Christmas!

I refused to get out of bed for a week straight because if my foot touched the ground something terrible would happen to my grandpa (the living one that I liked).

I got my braces off!

Kid’s started making fun of the way I’d panic if I counted my steps wrong.

These were some of the common ups and downs I had during my formative years. I’d like to say that they didn’t affect me. I’d like to say that I was okay with the way I was, that it didn’t haunt me to feel so different from the other kids. I’d like to lie to you. But I can’t and I won’t. I promised that if I wrote this all out the one thing I would do is tell the truth, no matter how hard that may be to do. I promised to let you see all sides of me, even the ugly ones.

When I was younger, many of the things I did could be considered ‘cute.’ He counts his steps as he walks? Adorable. He taps his feet until they feel even? Awwwww. It also helped that I was an adorable kid. I had the big blue eyes, the curly locks, the big goofy grin. I could’ve made an ad for dirt sell. But by the time I got older, it all became a lot less cute.

I told Dr. Reese this thought once, explaining that my best years were behind me.

“All I’m saying is that when I was little things were so much easier.”

“How were they easier?”

“They just were.”

“But how?”

Dr. Reese always did this. It didn’t matter so much what I was feeling but rather why. It was probably what made him a good therapist but also really annoying sometimes.

“It’s just like, I don’t know. When I was younger all of my problems were on the surface. My fears felt real but they were all imaginary.”

“And now?”

Now? Now I was 14 and it felt like real life just started. I advise you against ever turning 14, it’s a truly tragic age. College was only four years away and homework was suffocating me. Kids started drinking alcohol and kissing each other. Things were getting messy. Life was getting messy. And god did I hate messy.

“Now I’m in real life.”

One of my favorite things about Dr. Reese is that he got it. When I said this vague statement, he nodded knowingly. He stopped writing notes, put his pad of paper down, and looked up at me.

“It’s a bitch.”

Dr. Reese was good at bringing me back to earth. When I’d spiral, he’d find a way to make me breathe again. This made me breathe because it made me laugh. This was the first time I’d ever heard Dr. Reese curse. It wasn’t the last, not by a longshot, but as the first there was a certain shock to it. I’d never had an adult talk this candidly to me before. It felt nice.

Oh, and he was right, by the way. Life was a total bitch.

It was a few months after that when I told Dr. Reese I was suicidal for the first time. I said it very matter of factly, right when I walked in.

“I think I want to kill myself.”

In saying this, I was ready to try on my new straightjacket. I’d seen the movies, I knew how this stuff worked. You tell your shrink you want to kill yourself and they lock you up in the nearest mental facility. Instead, he said, “Can you elaborate on that?”

“I’ve been thinking about it a lot. Everywhere I go I just think about all the ways I could kill myself there. I’ll be in a restaurant and see a chandelier and think ‘hm, I bet I could hang myself from there.’ Or I’ll be at school and go ‘if I grabbed the scissors from my teachers desk I could stab myself.’ Everywhere I go I can’t stop thinking about it.”

“I see,” He said and leaned back into his chair.

The rest of the session continued with me telling him all the possible ways I could kill myself. Whether it be drowning, jumping, pills, you name it. I was just spitballing all the different things I could do. At the end of the session, after I’d listed all the possible ways I could die, he asked me why I was telling him. This part had me stumped.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“What does it mean that you’re telling me all of this? Why aren’t you simply just doing it if you want to die so badly?”

The thing is, I didn’t. The idea of death terrified me to my core. As a little kid it used to keep me up at night, just thinking about that unknown. So why couldn’t I stop thinking about it now? I knew this probably meant that I didn’t really want to kill myself. At least that’s what I hoped it meant. If I was serious I’d just do it already. Bite the bullet in the most literal way possible. But instead, there I was, telling a 60 something year old man that if I angled a magnifying glass just right I could probably burn a hole through my heart. Telling him all these deep dark stupid fucking thoughts that I couldn’t seem to stop. I’m telling you, kid, when you reach a low, you know it.

Deep down, I knew that these thoughts were just another symptom. I knew he knew that too, as the professional and all. But man was I so sick of having them.

I was also so sick of people always telling me things would get better. That things would look up. What they never said was how long it would take. And let me tell you, it was taking really fucking long.

“I just want to stop thinking.”

“I know,” he said.

And with that, our time was up. I didn’t kill myself after that session. In fact, the session ended with me saying “See you next week” and I did. Week after week after week. We worked on the thoughts. We talked through them more.  I even started medication to help with them. They didn’t go away but over time I started to understand them better.

“I think I like a girl.”

This was a big deal for me. As someone who was perpetually in a panic, having crushes wasn’t something I had a ton of time for.

“Do tell more,” Dr. Reese said. I could tell I had him at the edge of his seat. In the eight years we’d known each other I had never once talked to him about a girl.

“She just transferred to my school. Her name is Bella. She’s from Kansas. Or Kentucky. Something with a K sound. She has these eyes. They’re like, piercing. They’re this deep brown that you can’t stop looking at.”

“Did you talk to this girl?”

“I did!”

This was also a big deal for me. I didn’t talk to a lot of people. I was scared of most. Especially girls. So when she asked me (yes, me!) where room 203 was, it was a big deal.

“Just turn left up that corner and it should be right there.”

“Thanks!” She said as she started walking towards the class.

And with that, I started walking to Algebra, in room 203.

“Do you have the same class?” she asked me after she noticed me creeping up behind her.

“Yes.”

“Wouldn’t it have been easier to just say something like ‘follow me?’”

“Probably.”

She then laughed. At something I said. And not in a mean way. Not in a making fun of me way. In this sweet goofy way. She pushed my arm a little and said, “next time let’s just walk together.”

After reciting this story to Dr. Reese, he said in this sing songy voice “you’re gonnaaa get marrieeeeddddd.”

I really hoped he was right.

We walked to class every day together that year. By February, I knew I wanted to ask her to prom. After panicking for weeks over whether or not to ask her, it was my sister that made me pull the trigger.

“I can’t hear you have this debate again, Greg,” Katie said after I discussed the pros and cons at the dinner table for the fourth night in a row. “Ask her. She wants to be asked. Make her a sign or something. Get some flowers. Just do it.”

“But what if she doesn’t like me?” I said.

“Why wouldn’t she like you? She’d be crazy!” My mom chimed in. My mom had the impression that anyone under the sun would be lucky to just merely be in my presence. I was her little angel. Yes, mentally ill angel, but angel nonetheless.

“Come with me,” Katie said as she got up from the dinner table. We went to her room.

This was the first time in probably two years that I’d stepped inside her cave. She was extremely private about her room and her stuff. Even my dad didn’t go inside. My mom did but strictly for laundry purposes.

Katie and I weren’t exactly what you’d call ‘close.’ Most of the time, our ‘talking’ was really just yelling. We ‘talked’ about how I overslept and made us both late to school. We ‘talked’ about how it was unfair that I got one more Christmas present then she did. We never talked like this though. And man was I excited to talk like this. It would take me many years to learn how much my relationship with my sister really meant to me. How much  I could truly depend on that bratty teenage girl. I hope that someday, you can talk like this to someone. I know someday you will.

We spent that night watching promposal videos. Katie didn’t let me sit on her bed but I was allowed to watch from her desk chair. In every video we watched she pointed out what the boy did right and what he did wrong. She told me I had to be confident. To stand up straight. Smile. Be brave.

She also helped me make the sign later that week. It was the kindest she had ever been to me. I think she wanted to see me get a happy ending. Or maybe she wanted to see me fail. Who knows. Regardless, her plan worked.

The first time I fully freaked out in front of Bella was our freshman year of college. Before that, I’d do everything in my power to keep her away from that side of me. The messy side. I’d make sure to count my steps quietly so she wouldn’t hear. If I was having an off day, I’d make sure it was away from her. Basically, I’d managed to keep my cool around her, at least until then.

It was after I failed my first college test. She facetimed me that night and immediately asked what was wrong. We had been dating for almost six months at that point. I think I had panic written all over my face.

“I-I-I” could not breathe.

“Hey, it’s okay. Just tell me what’s going on.”

“I failed.” I was full on crying at this point. I told Bella how I studied and studied and still I couldn’t succeed. I told her how this meant I’d likely fail out of college. That failure would likely lead to homelessness, which would likely lead to depression, which would then lead to death. Thank God I planned out all those ways I could kill myself.

She talked me through it. She told me it was going to be okay. That I wouldn’t fail out and become homeless and depressed and die. She told me that even if I did she’d be right by my side the whole time. I think that was the part that finally calmed me down.

After that, I became much more open with her about my mental health. I told her about when I was eight, twelve, fourteen and so on. She understood, related even. It turns out, she had secret parts of herself she hid away from me too, afraid they’d be too messy for her supposedly perfect boyfriend to deal with. For her, it was an eating disorder.

She told me about when she was eight, twelve, fourteen and so on too. She told me how she’d feed her food to her dog, make excuses at lunch as to why she wasn’t hungry, how she’d weigh herself every single day. She told me she too wasn’t perfect, that she too felt partly broken. I think, in a way, we put each other back together.

When I told Dr. Reese how shocked I was that Bella also had problems, he laughed. 

“Of course she does. Everyone does, including me.”

I leaned in a bit when he said this, curious as to where this was going. In all my years of working with Dr. Reese, not once did he ever talk about himself. In the beginning I used to ask. As a kid I’d say, Do you have kids, Dr. Reese? A wife? A family? I found it so bizarre that this man could know so much about me, things I didn’t even know about myself, and I didn’t even know if he was married. I wondered if Dr. Reese even had a life outside those four walls.

Dr. Reese continued, “Look, Greg. I need to talk to you about something, something serious.”

It was then that Dr. Reese told me he had cancer. That he probably wouldn’t be able to be my therapist for much longer. I took the news hard, almost as hard as I thought I would. As a kid, a fear I had developed was Dr. Reese dying. The idea used to keep me up at night, that this man, this person, who had come to know everything about me, could disappear any second. Growing up, this was the only intrusive thought I never told Dr. Reese about. It felt like a strange thing to say to someone. To say, I am kept up at night afraid of you dying. But now, it was no longer a fear, no longer an intrusive thought. Now it was a reality.

“You’re gonna be okay though, right? Like it’s treatable?”

“I don’t know,” Dr. Reese responded. “I’m gonna start treatment but I really don’t know.”

This answer wasn’t good enough for me. I’d never been good with unknowns and Dr. Reese knew this. For the first time, during this whole conversation, I was mad at him. I was mad at Dr. Reese for having cancer.

“Y-you can’t do this to me. You can’t-” I didn’t know how to finish the thought. You can’t die, I wanted to say. But even in this moment of distress, I knew I couldn’t say  that. I couldn’t control whether or not Dr. Reese got sick, whether or not this killed him. I had no control. This was the point where I started to panic.

“Please, Dr. Reese. Please get better. I can’t do this without you.”

“I’m gonna try,” Dr. Reese reassured me. “But you can. I promise that you can.” 

It didn’t take long after I graduated from college for me to ask Bella to marry me. My sister helped me plan out that proposal too.

“You need the right ring,” she said as we circled around the jewelry store. “Bella gives me round-cut vibes, don’t you think?”

The problem was, I didn’t know. And that terrified me. If I got the ring wrong, what else did that mean I’d get wrong? For the first time in many many years, I had an intrusive thought like the ones I used to have when I was little.

I started tapping different pieces of glass in the store. I needed to if I wanted her to say yes. I needed to do it 20 times.

I don’t remember how it happened, but my sister got me to leave the store. I talked to Dr. Reese about it. At this point in my life, I was no longer seeing him once a week but instead on an as needed basis. He took on less patients now and worked less hours. He was in his mid-70s now and somehow still fighting. For a while I couldn’t see him at all, when he was undergoing treatment. But he seemed to be doing better. He seemed to want to get back to work. When I told him about what happened in the jewelry store, he nodded.

“It’s normal for things to get worse leading up to such a life changing event. It’s okay to be scared. What’s happening is scary.”

He was right. The idea of marriage terrified me. If it was anyone but Bella I don’t think I would’ve ever been able to do it.

He told me to get her the round cut ring that my sister liked. He said the ring didn’t really matter. That I should just keep the receipt so that if she hated it we could switch it for one she loved. I had missed talking to Dr. Reese. At that moment, I was so grateful for him. Grateful that he kept fighting, that I met him in the first place. I wanted to tell him this without sounding sappy. I couldn’t figure out how.

“Thank you, Dr. Reese,” I said instead. “Really, thank you.”

He smiled at me. I think he knew that was my best.

She didn’t hate it, by the way. She absolutely loved it. She loved the little sign I made too, the one that looked like my promposal sign. She hugged me in the same way she did back then too.

Dr. Reese came to our wedding. I even saw him shed a tear. About a month later, he died. We hadn’t had a session for a couple of months at that point. He stopped having them after the cancer came back. He helped me find a new shrink when it reached that point. I didn’t like her as much at first. I didn’t trust somebody else with all my problems. Dr. Reese told me it was normal for the transition to be weird. He also told me that I would need her if things for him didn’t work out.

During our last session, I cried a lot. I finally said what I’d been holding in.

“I’m sorry,” I said between gasps. “I just don’t think I’m going to be okay without you.”

He laughed at this.

“You will. You have been for a while. I did a fabulous fucking job.”

At the end of the session, he gave me a hug, something he had never done in the 17 years I had known him. He was a good hugger. It made me sad that I hadn’t hugged him more.

Before I left, I had one more question to ask him.

“How did you know I had OCD?”

“What?”

“After our first session. All we talked about was clowns. How did you know I had OCD?”

“Because all we talked about was clowns. Like, a lot about clowns. Every time I’d try to change the subject, you kept on saying over and over again all the potential ways my tie could end my career. You were quite literally obsessed. Thanks to you I threw out that fucking tie.”

“I’d feel bad if that tie wasn’t so fucking ugly.”

Now we both laughed.

Bella and I have been married for four years now. Things with the new therapist got better, although I’ll always miss Dr. Reese. Things are still hard sometimes. I still think too much and panic over things that will never be. But I can handle it now. I can talk about it too. Eventually, Bella and I had a baby, a baby boy. A beautiful son, weighing in at six pounds and four ounces in the crib beside me right now as I write this.

 I don’t really know why I’m telling you all this. I guess it’s because I want you to know that it does actually get better, even if it does take a really fucking long time. I also want you to know there’s always people you can talk to, people who love you. I also wanted you to know where your name came from, Reese, and the wonderful man who helped me become one. You were only born a couple of hours ago and I cannot wait to be your dad. I cannot wait to have you in the next part of my story. I cannot wait for you to make your own. I cannot wait.

Amanda Sedaka attended Hamilton College with a major in Creative Writing. She is from southern California and is the Editor in Chief of her college’s satire paper, The Duel Observer.