This is a true story.

T has recently moved her practice into a large building of office suites. She is on the second floor and there are two ways to get to her office. You can take the outdoor staircase that brings you right to the door of her waiting room, or you can enter a lobby on the first floor, take an elevator, and walk down a short hallway to her door.

Whenever I travel by elevator, I am plagued by a sense of impending death for the duration of the trip, so I generally prefer to take stairs when that is an option. However, the last time I showed up for my session it was raining. As the stairway is not covered and especially because it was a chilly day, I opted for the elevator.

Soon after being settled in the waiting room, I was surprised to hear someone trudging up the stairs outside. I was sitting right by the window so could hear them clearly--- stomp, stomp, stomp. It amused me to consider that another client not only shared my slight aversion to elevators, but took it to the further extreme of taking stairs in inclement weather for the sake of avoiding one. I began to be curious as to what the appearance of this fellow phobic client might be, and was even enjoying a sense of anticipation as their steps proceeded towards the door, when in stepped, not another client, but my T-- slightly damp, but smiling and apparently unembarrassed. Somehow the thought that my T might suffer from claustrophobia was not very comforting, but I brushed it aside and in a few minutes we were settled in her office and my session was in full swing.

At the end of it, she asked if I had had any trouble with the door. (At my prior visit, there had been a problem with it automatically locking.) I said no, that everything had been fine. T then commented that she had been out to run a brief errand and was really hoping that the door would not be locked since it was raining. There was my opening. "Yes," I said casually, "I noticed that you came up the stairs in the rain."

Whereupon T burst out with-- "That elevator is so slow! It is the slowest elevator. It drives me crazy! I hate waiting for it, so I take the stairs instead. It is so slow."

I blinked. Surely this much animosity towards an elevator, even a slow one, was indicative of-- something? Displacement, compulsiveness, inability to relax? At any rate, it was not very zen. I couldn't even relate, because while I had noticed the elevator was slow, I had simply taken the opportunity to dawdle about the empty lobby and look at myself in the mirror while waiting for it to descend.

"That's. . . interesting." was all I said.

And I have been left wondering, what sort of a nut climbs an outdoor staircase in the rain and cold because they can't stand to wait for an elevator, and why do I feel I need therapy from this person?

Ha, I know what you mean about the whole zen thing and what T's are really like combined with 'well, if they have these attributes, are they really fit to work as a therapist'.

Something small in one of my sessions, some builders had started on something with a machine which was rather loud and me and T both looked out the window. She seemed a bit annoyed at it and closed the window. I chuckled lightly. But then the afterthoughts were 'I wonder if she is a really impatient person? I bet she gets irritated easily. What happens if I irritate her? What happens if she's a therapist to make her feel better by 'helping' others to give herself a false sense of wellbeing', blah blah blah.

Still goes round in my head sometimes. I might have to vent to her these thoughts because they keep swirling around.

This made me smile. Thanks for sharing the story.

My son's eye doctor's office elevator is so slow I can't stand it; my son and I use the *indoor* stairs, going up to the 4th floor I think I have decided, though, for me it is more about the number of people that accumulate in the lobby waiting to get on the elevator during its slowness.

FMN,

Yeah, the whole thing mostly just amused me, but it is a little scary to think my T might be a lunatic. lol.

Ninn,

Glad to make you smile!

Just think of it this way, HIC. Your T was so excited to see you that she just couldn't bear to wait on the elevator!

I like Kashley's way of looking at things. I'm pretty sure my T must have some quirks of his own. Silly stuff, mostly. He has to use blue pens. I like black. We actually (jokingly) argued about it.

I called him crazy, because he hadn't seen The Princess Bride. He said someone told him it was good years ago, he caught a few minutes in the middle on TV and shut it off, because it was boring. I gave him such a hard time about what a great movie it is that he is going to watch it now (eventually, if he ever gets time). He asked what happens if he doesn't like it. I told him he better lie or avoid the question, because he will no longer be a safe person in my mind if he does not like this movie, as he would obviously be completely nuts.

HIC

I thought all t's were crazy! Supposedly the psychiatrists are the craziest of them all!

Xoxo
Liese

Kashley,
Now there is a happy thought. I must make a note to remind myself of that the next time the "Ohmygosh she must hate me!" paranoia strikes.

Yaku,
"Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line!" Haha, I love that movie too. And as I am myself half Sicilian, I often have occasion to quote that particular line to my H.

Liese,
Well, before now I thought that might be a myth, but now that I have been confronted with concrete evidence I'm forced to reconsider.

Liese: Ha, I met a psychiatrist once who was..quite eccentric to say the least.

Ahh I thought you were more worried about the elevator incident than finding it humorous. Sorry!

Hahaha, HIC. I am only 1/8 Sicilian, but 1/8 is as much as I am of anything at all. The reason the conversation even came up is because T said "inconceivable" twice in one session. I tried to quote, "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means," and he just gave me a blank stare. I was sorely disappointed.

FMN,
Nah, not worried, although learning about this particular eccentricity of T's does seem to cast things in a somewhat ironic light. But my whole post was written, and meant to be read, sort of tongue in cheek. I understand if my sense of humor doesn't completely come across on a computer screen, though! Sorry about the confusion.

Yaku,
Haha, it would have been great to have been a fly on the all at that moment in your therapy. Although I know there is nothing more disappointing than being the one delivering a *perfect* movie quote only to have it fall flat due to someone else's criminal ignorance. You should go on strike until your T watches The Princess Bride.