tɦɛ iɳquiรitѳʀ (freemarched) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2017-03-08 19:50:00 |
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Nico wasn’t sure exactly was supposed to go on in therapy but his dad thought it would help him and Nico had to admit it probably will. It couldn’t hurt him any to talk to someone about the dreams and the other stuff going on. Who knew maybe the therapist would be able to help him with the questions that had been plaguing him. Because they weren’t going away by him ignoring them. And he didn’t know how to bring it up to his friends or family. He sighed as he sat down in a chair after checking in with the receptionist, pulling out his phone to send a quick text to let his dad know he’d gotten to the office okay and started filling out the forms. *** There was an art to therapy, you had to have the skills for it - and given how Max dreamed of leading an Inquisition and navigating tricky political playing fields, acting as a confidante to his companions and helping them with everything from settling family quarrels to kicking a drug addiction, he thought his career choice in this life made so much more sense. He really did like helping others, since he knew how difficult life could be sometimes. It wasn’t always laughs and cheer. For his newest client, he’d use the initial meeting to ask the right questions to get on a good path - that art of therapy was all about asking the right questions anyway. The waiting room was warm, calming, and meant to be means of an effective transition from the outside to the actual office. From which Max stepped out of, glancing at Nico with a smile - Max knew of him, though had previously been more acquainted with his father and sister, since Hades and Hazel had gone underground to retrieve the lyrium necessary for Max’s prosthetic limb. Not something a normal human could really do, handle raw lyrium. “Ready?” he asked. “If so, come on back.” Even if he was the only client in the waiting room right now, you still didn’t use names when calling someone back. Bad etiquette. *** Nico looked up when he heard someone speaking to him and gave the therapist a sort of hesitant smile. “Yeah. I’m ready.” Or as ready as he was going to be. He stood up from his chair, silencing his phone as he slipped it back into his pocket. He took a deep breath as he stepped into the office. “I’m not sure what I’m supposed to call you,” he admitted, looking around the office before taking a seat in what looked like a comfortable chair. “I’ve never been to something like this before so I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. And I just realized I’m nervous rambling,” he said, reaching with one hand to shove hair out of his face. *** More warm colors, soft chairs, clean and inviting - a shabby office didn’t make the best statement about the therapist, and Max had been very deliberate with his choices when it came to decorating the space where he spent a good chunk of his day. There were many books on the shelves, his diplomas mounted on the walls, some personal knickknacks and photos here and there. Nico picked a chair, and Trevelyan sat in one too, facing the client. “Just call me Max,” he assured. “‘Inquisitor’ would be awkward. And it’s fine, therapy is a new experience for many people. It takes courage to show up here. I’ll kind of guide you through things - basically, I’ll just be outlining my expectations for therapy, you outline yours, and I’ll ask you questions. If at any point you need to stop me to steer the conversation where you think it should go, please go on and do that. As for my expectations, I like to get them clear first off - punctuality and saying whatever is on your mind, no matter how silly it may seem. That’s really I ask, but first question for you - what brings you here today?” *** Nico was starting to get why his dad had thought he’d be able to talk to Max about things - the guy clearly had a gift for making people relax and feel more comfortable with him. “My dad made the appointment for me. He thought it would be good for me to talk to somebody and he’s right - I’m just not ready to talk to him about some of it. And when he mentioned you were familiar with all the things that happened here it seemed like a good idea. The Dreams...just started for me but I’ve had friends dealing with them for months. And my family so I was kind of expecting them.” He took a deep breath. “That’s not what brought me here today. Not exclusively. Or primarily.” He bit down his lip. “I’ve just got a lot of questions in my head that I’m trying to figure out. And I kind of wrecked my car because of all of them. I tore the bottom of the engine out driving over a curb. There’s been a lot going on the last few months. I don’t think there’s really one answer to what brought me here today.” He said honestly. *** “I do understand how memories returning to us by way of our dreams can affect daily life here,” Max nodded. “Honestly, I would encourage therapy for most on the network in that case - one life is difficult enough, but remembering another and figuring out what to do with that? It’s a lot.” Not to mention also the situations where ‘gifts’ from the other universe appeared, or even injuries - case in point, his arm. He wore his normal prosthetic today, and usually did while in the office - the lyrium arm was more for training, or even battle. But if that’s not what Nico wanted to focus on, then Trevelyan would get to the bottom of what really did bring him to the office today. “Well, let’s start with those questions. With what’s been on your mind. What are they? Even if you think at first there might not be an answer, even just the asking is important.” *** “They started when my mom left. I finished up my first year of college, got home and found out from my dad that she’d packed up and moved back to Italy, they were getting divorced but they had decided not to say anything to me or my older sister because they didn’t want to distract us at finals or something. That’s not the problem. They hadn’t been happy for a while but - her just packing up was where it all started with the questions for me I guess. Because how can a parent do that to their kids? And when I went to see her in Italy for Thanksgiving break she couldn’t give me a reason. She didn’t even try to give me one when I asked.” He said, taking a deep breath before continuing. “But the ones that are really bugging me, caused me to tear the bottom out of my car’s engine last month, have to do with stuff that happened to my dad thanks to the dreams. He’s in a second set I guess and something happened to him in them and he ended up in the hospital in a coma and got woken up by true love’s kiss. From his girlfriend. Who I like. She’s great. And she makes him happy and I want that for my dad. For both my parents. They weren’t happy together if they can find someone now who can make them happy? That’s great. I’m happy for them. But if she’s his true love - what’s that mean for me and my older sister? That we shouldn’t have been born because our parents were never meant to be together? And a part of me knows that’s ridiculous because Dad loves us but I can’t shake that thought.” He said the words spilling out of him in a rush once he started talking. The real reason he didn’t want to talk to his dad - he didn’t want to take the chance of hurting him or it coming out all wrong. *** Max listened, of course. He wouldn’t explicitly say what he thought, or give advice though - a therapist’s job was not really to give advice; he didn’t do it all that often. It was more about inquiring and engaging, creating a safe space for the client to work through those issues. “That’s good, Nico, just say what’s on your mind,” he encouraged. “It’s good to express your feelings about, say, your mother’s actions. And when we’re adults, sometimes it’s difficult to carve out a space to actually feel all this and ask those questions, rather than just stuffing it all under the rug - but that’s why you’re here.” “Firstly, it’s important to think about what kind of parent you want in your mother - like, for example, you want a mother who allows you to be angry about her leaving, and puts you first. Now, what you want may not be what you’d get, but figuring out what you would like in a parent and then communicating that can help close the gap between you and your mother,” Trevelyan continued. “As for your father, I’ll just ask you: Do you think a person can have more than one true love in their life? That it can come in different forms, not just romantic love?” *** “She and I were always closer than I was with my dad until she left. Now I think I’m actually closer with him.” Nico said, taking Max’s advice to just say what was on his mind. “I guess I have time to figure out how to tell her what I want from our relationship now. I won’t be going to see her for a few months.” And when he did talk to her he should probably tell her about what happened to his car. “I’m not sure what I think about that. It’s not something I’ve ever really thought about. I never really thought much about true love before Dad’s coma.” He thought for a minute. “You mean like the love a parent feels for their kids? Or the way you love your best friend?” He asked. He didn’t have kids, that was one thing he never worried about, but he knew that the love he felt for Sans was a hell of a lot different than the love he felt for his boyfriend. *** “Exactly,” Max nodded. “The love a parent feels for their child is just a different type than romantic love - but it’s no less true. The love you have for your father, or your mother - you may be having problems with her now, but problems can be worked through - is no less true as well, even the love for your best friend. Love comes in all forms. If it was you who kissed your father to wake him up - “ Cheek kiss, or forehead kiss, he wasn’t implying that Nico would plant one his dad obviously, “...it would have worked just as well.” But the way the dominoes fell it was his dad’s partner, and at that point Max also took the opportunity to suggest, “Maybe try and also think of it less as ‘well, that must mean my father never loved my mother’ but more like...he’s someone who is lucky enough to have love in his life, of all forms, with different people. And without that love, you would have lost your father. All of you saved his life - his girlfriend was just the one who happened to be there for the actual kiss. Does that make sense?” *** “It does make a lot of sense. I’ll give it a try thinking about it that way. Not saying I’ll quit being careful while driving dad’s car but maybe it’ll help me sleep better. If my dreams go the way of my friend - I probably won’t be getting much sleep here pretty soon.” Nico said. Percy hadn’t said a lot about what went on in his dreams but he knew they were a lot rougher than visiting Croatia before WWII. “Do we have time to talk about the dream I had? Or does that need to wait for next time?” *** “We have time, don’t worry,” Max motioned for Nico to keep talking. He knew that experiencing those dreams was traumatic - it varied, across people, but he always wanted to encourage those who did dream to seek therapy. Especially since he understood what it was like, to have that window to a whole other parallel universe. Freud would have a field day with this sort of thing. Though many psychologists and philosophers theorized that dreams actually were a link to other, alternate worlds. “Tell me what happened in your dream.” *** “It was pretty boring compared to some that I’ve heard people talking about having.” His dad and sister came immediately to mind. And then there was the fact that one of his friends was dreaming about him and his older sister. “It was before World War II if I judged right by the clothes. Madre and I were in Croatia touring Diocletian’s Palace. I think she was telling me about our family but it wasn’t very clear in the dream what we were talking about. I was 6 or 7 maybe?” He stopped and took a breath, thinking about it. “At first I thought it was an actual memory because of how clear the dream was but my Dad says we were never there. And it’s still clear in my head. And I got the impression in the dream that she had taken me there because it was important for our family. For my dad’s family but I didn’t know why. And I still have no clue how I knew waking up we’d been at those ruins because no one ever said the name of the place in my dream. It was just really weird all around.” *** “The dreams, whenever they begin, tend to start off one way and end in another,” Max replied. Not like he personally never expected to see himself, a mage locked away in a Circle tower, to one day become a leader, a figurehead, a symbol of hope and power, just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. But things had a way of snowballing. They were like stories. Very true to another life, very this is actually you type of stories, but they had a beginning, middle, and an end. At least from what he’d experienced, and based on the experiences of others as well. “The answers will come. More memories will slot in, details will fill in also, that complete the missing pieces. What’s most important is that you have a support system during that whole process,” he said. *** “One of my friends is actually dreaming about the same things I will be I guess. He told me I'd been in his dreams but his are all taking place a lot more recently than mine but from what he told me...I'm still a kid in his so I have no clue how that's possible. I can talk with him about them I know. And my dad - pretty sure there's nothing I can say that will shock him about the dreams. And my boyfriend - he's already shown he's not going anywhere. No matter how difficult I can be at times. So I've got a good support system I think. It's just weird because I want to know how I can still be a kid when there's over 50 years between where I am in mine and my friend.” *** Max was glad that Nico had a good support system in place - friends, family. People he could rely on. That made experiencing the dreams a little easier. “I’m sure the answer will reveal itself. They can’t all be upfront, right at the beginning, since the flow of a story rarely goes that way,” Trevelyan responded, with a bit of a grin. “And in the meantime, you know you’re always welcome to reach out to me as well - we’ll have our regular sessions, but you know I’m also on the network. So don’t be shy about getting in touch.” *** “Life never does make things easy on us does it?” Nico asked a small almost sarcastic smile on his face. “I should just count myself lucky that my boyfriend doesn't seem to have been sucked up in all this. Yet anyway.” “I appreciate that Max. And I'll remember that. I'm glad I listened to my dad about this. About coming to talk to you. It helped just saying some of it out loud.” *** Honestly, he was pleased to hear that - coming to therapy was never an easy thing, it took courage, and Max was always proud of his clients. Ones who wanted to make a change in their life, positive changes. It was easy to bury your head in the sand, and let these problems fester, but much more difficult to face them. “Saying it out loud does tend to help. It’s a different perspective too,” he noted, and he also meant what he said about being accessible - he didn’t mind going above and beyond, especially for his dreamer clients. Their lives? Well, they were obviously quite trying as it was. |