Dr. S. and I tried to overcome this conflict. To me, she knew that her dependence included obligation and control, so I didn’t want her near me or myself. I disagreed, but how do you rescue the desire to be held from the fear of being crushed, the desire for love from the desire to please? How can we find a way out of which there is no way out? I experienced my impending departure as a fact in my own body, and the effort to further explain it filled me with saturating boredom. Dr. S was not a boring person, nor did I find him boring. So that boredom aroused mutual suspicion. Yet, like a child who refuses all dolls, play, and excursions, I felt loyal to my weariness, stubborn to the unfortunate dignity of indifference.
Doctor S was wise to pressure me to stay, but did not fulfill my fantasy of a final restorative session. She wanted her to congratulate me on my departure. Instead, she wistfully talked about all the work we would do if we came back, as if the work we had already done wasn’t enough. As she left her office, her tears obscured her vision, making the clouds above Central Park look like her face against the fabric. I was afraid I would disappoint her Dr. S, and it did. But her disappointment I felt in her was different from the disappointment I chronically tried to avoid in others. Together we have created a situation in which we can uphold and abandon our own desires, even primitive ones, with impunity.
It must be strange for analysts to have so little control over their patients. After years of kindness, we may walk out the door without looking back. But it is precisely this conscious relinquishment of control that makes the analyst different from the rest of our lives and can be potentially transformative. As soon as I left, the space in which the session was taking place came to life. I fell in love and became a writer. Meanwhile, I waited for the punishment that never came, the silence letting the guilt and shame of failure dissipate. I could finally feel the excitement of independence that didn’t have to be justified by victory. Breaking up with Dr. S allowed me to imagine going back. We were humbled and encouraged by each other’s ability to endure the separation. for breathing.
I only left for a little over a year, and when I returned to see Mr. S, I saw him once a week. It’s been 6 years and our relationship is now the most believable and mysterious of my life. I recently told her that I don’t know what analytics is for or how or to what extent it has improved me. “You still have mixed feelings about it, don’t you?” said Dr. S. But I don’t think that is true at all. I am not vague about my time with her. I want to be there and in her temporary circle of attention. I am reluctant to articulate that purpose, especially in public. Because analysis becomes a refuge from the pervasive demands to use time productively or to present one’s life as a story of progress for an investigative commission, a potential partner, or an investigative commission. Because there is magazine. In analysis, uncertainty and lack of appropriate language are forgiven. I haven’t decided how long this will last. I can practice living without a particular purpose in mind. I have learned that this is not the same as living without desires.
Lately, I’ve been reading Puerto Rican feminist Luisa Capetillo, especially her 1911 manifesto on free love, and I’m repeating this line like a mantra:Queller Es Poder.In my translation, it translates as “What you want is what you do.” But I keep thinking about another possibility. “Wanting is power,” or to put it more modestly, “Wishing is being able.” Desire is the minimum requirement for true transformation. But desire cannot be demanded of us by others, or by the voices of others that we internalize to discipline our minds. We all have to find ways to get the help we need. The choices we make about how to get it matter more than how close we are to the power of that choice.
