lie no. 21 | 06.02.19

It’d be a lot easier to describe a specific moment last fall when I looked at myself in a mirror and no longer recognized the reflection staring back at me. 

But it doesn’t work like that. 

Mirrors reflect appearances—nothing deeper, where the answers I sought swirled—and I didn’t look any different.

Who behaves like this? I asked myself (and asked and asked and asked). This isn’t me. If it is, it definitely isn’t who I want to be. All of which begged a question I never thought to ask—who the hell am I?

Last October, I most certainly was not seeking answers to anything even remotely as philosophical as this—at least not consciously.

“Has a google search ever returned zero results for you?” I wrote in Lie No. 8. “It’s unnerving, right?”

I love how well that metaphor’s aged in the last eight months. The sentiment still stands, even if I didn’t understand the substance of what it was I was searching for at the time.

Re-reading my writings from last fall is a lot like playing a game of “Hot or Cold,” especially now with hindsight on my team.

Toward the end of October, I wrote about expectations (getting colder!)—except I didn’t, not really.

“I expect stories to make sense + tend to obsess over the ones that don’t,” I wrote, closing out Lie No. 11. “I want everything to come together at some point. It doesn’t even have to tie together perfectly or positively! It just has to tie together. It has to.”

I longed for meaning (getting warmer!)—my desperation palpable. I just hid it in a piece about expectations.

Now I see whenever I started getting warmer last fall, or closer to understanding what I was truly searching for, I’d back away and let my writing seek shelter in shallower subjects.

At the time, without the help of hindsight, it felt more like a high-stakes game of strip poker gone too far.

I only noticed just how far once I’d stripped off so much of my identity—shedding piece by piece, layer by layer—there was next to nothing left to protect me.

I blamed myself for getting into this mess, convinced I’d overplayed my hand when I quit my job the year before.

I hadn’t fully appreciated just how much of my identity I’d attached to my career—at least not until I went and kicked that crutch, and everything else it’d been holding up for me, right out from under myself.

I hadn’t yet learned about the mirror theory in psychology, this idea that we see reflections of ourselves through reactions and interactions with others and the world around us.

I’d later learn I actually was looking in the mirror at the time, not recognizing its reflection. The worst part is these mirrors were literally every where I looked and I really did not like what I saw. It made leaving the house hard. It made socializing damn near impossible. It made isolation easy.

When I worked for big media brands people always asked about my work—they just never listened to the answer. When I went out on my own, I started noticing no one even bothered to ask, which somehow hurt more.

It felt like all anyone ever wanted to talk to me about anymore was what I was wearing and where I was traveling.

Of course, none of this was new. I’d always prided myself on these things in the past, identifying with them, even.

All roads led back to that omnipresent question I couldn’t seem to duck or spin my way out of: If I wasn’t the career-driven, best-dressed globetrotter everyone—including my therapist—but me seemed to think I was, who was I?

The rest spiraled from there. Nothing seemed familiar anymore—not my marriage, not my family, not my friendships, not my success metrics, not my relationship to money, not my home, not my life, none of it—and it scared the ever-loving shit out of me.

So, when I walked back into my therapist’s office, three months after he’d suggested I take up meditation at our last appointment, I was ready to suggest he take up another career. 

When he opened the door to call me into his office from the waiting area it wasn’t my swollen eyes or tears streaming down my face he saw first. He didn’t seem to see me at all.

“I hardly recognized you,” he said, almost laughing at himself, once he’d spotted me among the five empty chairs sharing the space with me. “You’re usually so put together, dressed so colorfully. Come on back, Rebecca.”

He’d turned back into his office mid-sentence, so it wasn’t until my jeans, oversized sweater and sneakers reached his door that he saw my face.

“What’s wrong?!” he asked, his tune changing from jovial to alarm as he turned to help me with the door I was sure could crush me and into a chair I didn’t believe could hold me.

“I got in late last night from L.A., I’m just exhausted,” I said, mumbling something about allergies I didn’t have between breaths I couldn’t catch, lying through my teeth and tears. “That’s all.”

The ensuing staring contest lasted mere fractions of a second before I gave in. I couldn’t even hold my head up, let alone look the man in the eyes and maintain a poker face.

“I think I had a panic attack at LAX yesterday,” I told him, my hands cradling my face in my lap.

Airports are my happy place, my place of peace, my gateway to freedom—all of which he knows, asking about my travels at each appointment, where I’ve been and where I’m off to next.

I described the total loss of control I’d felt the day before, the fear, the panic, the confusion, the inability to catch my breath, the dizziness, the heaviness, the sheer terror I felt boarding that plane. Not until the wheels left the ground did I stop thinking I was going to die.

Once I could breathe again, I got my phone out and wrote Lie No. 11, hiding my search for my missing identity and sense of meaning behind the easier-to-swallow subject of expectations. Then, finally ready to fold, I typed up my notes for this appointment.

[Quick note here re: boundaries and redactions—I will never disclose nor publish anyone’s name or any other personally identifiable information without explicit permission. Don’t even ask me. At this point, everyone but family is off limits. Sorry, fam.]

I usually went to therapy with notes. There was never enough time to memorize the script ahead of all the performances, so this wasn’t unusual. The contents, on the other hand, were.

Instead of the usual list of accomplishments, achievements and aspirations I’d usually shown up with at appointments over the years—you know, that highlight reel—he got this.

“Ah, I see you’ve discovered feelings,” he said, nodding knowingly, when I finally came up for air and stopped reading from my list.

I didn’t know who to blame: him for failing me or myself for what suddenly felt like failing therapy.

So instead I blamed that meditation app I’d tried so hard to impress. Looking at my list, most of these words hadn’t even been in my vocabulary before I’d started learning to practice mindfulness. Mindfulmess, that’s what they should really call it.

“I think it’s helping you, this is progress,” he said. “These aren’t bad things on your list, these are all perfectly normal, human experiences. I understand it feels overwhelming right now.”

In one of the original Lies, I wrote that humility and hostility share a border for me. When I feel the former, even the tiniest semblance of it, I race across the border to the false comfort of the latter. So I shouldn’t have been surprised by what came out of my mouth next.

“There’s one thing I skipped over,” I said, embarrassed [read: about to say something ranging from catty to cruel]. “I’ve been writing about all the lies I’ve told my therapist, well, mostly you, over the years and posting them on Instagram. I thought this would all end with a ringing endorsement for therapy, but considering I’ve never felt more broken in my life, even after everything else, I’m not so sure.”

He sighed sympathetically, neither disappointed nor impressed by my shots fired.

“Rebecca, you’re not broken,” he said, coincidentally the exact words my husband said to me earlier that morning in our kitchen. “This is all good. You’re being honest, which is hard for anyone, and I know your affinity for the truth in the work you do likely makes this even more complicated for you. I bet a lot of people can relate to lying in therapy.”

For some reason he kept going.

“I imagine you don’t want any more suggestions from me right now,” he said, correctly reading the room. “But I strongly recommend you get a therapist.”

One day I’ll ask him to describe the look on my face in the moment he reminded me he’s a psychiatrist and I remembered there’s a difference.

Even my Lies were a lie.

I didn’t attempt my signature fake laugh or self-deprecating comment. I just got up and walked out. I’m not even sure I said anything as I left his office that day.

I could only manage to reverse my car out of one parking spot and back it straight into the empty one behind me. I cried so hard I worried I was going to hyperventilate or make myself sick. 

I did two things before I left the parking lot that day.

First, I scribbled out Lie No. 12, closing out the worst-best experiment of my life the only way I could at the time: with a lie. There’d been nothing wonderful about telling my therapist the truth. Maybe I was being hopeful at the time. Mostly I just needed it to be over.

Next, I booked a trip to Mexico City with a women-only travel company I didn’t know the first thing about and had only seen on Instagram. I paid in full and pulled out of my parking spot, so ready to drive on again.