26. The Only Therapist Who Called Me Back

A piece about my second-to-last new therapist and a podcast about the Doctor Waffle Documentary

Waffle pausing mid-stride to marvel.

Morning Beautiful human,

We had our first snow this week and as Tugboat frolicked, Waffle and I marveled. Snow is so beautiful to me. There is something about how water, the very thing we came from, also holds the power to take on so many different phases of itself. I like to think of that when I’m really in it – when I’m lost in a darker chapter of being. Water has seasons — all worthy and necessary for this world to exist in its beautiful state. Just like you and me.

I actually received a message the other week about my use of the word “beautiful” in my Friday morning greeting. The woman’s note was kind curious in every way and as I sit here basking in the beauty of freshly falling snow outside my window, I want to share the sentiment I shared with her —

Beauty, to me, is an inherent truth of humanity. For me, Beauty is the state of being purely oneself. It is not about what a human looks like or how they meet society’s current criteria for the “ideal body.” I wrote and talked about this concept a lot in college as I struggled with my eating disorder without finding the exact words I was searching for. Then, a few years ago, I read the brilliant work of Alok Vaid-Menon. Alok defines beauty as the state of being that is *most* true to one’s purest self. I adore that definition and it is the one I use. It is a definition without morality, capitalist infusions, or patriarchal structures. It is a definition of existence — a celebration of one’s innate humanity in all its colors and seasons. So yes, every morning when I say morning beautiful human, I mean it. For just like the freshly fallen snow, you — exactly as you are — are beautiful.

This week I have another piece in my Maura + Me series and a podcast with the director of the Doctor Waffle documentary, Dan Brauchli. In this episode, we discuss how the Doctor Waffle documentary project began and its many evolutions thereafter. In the episode, we also discuss the art of cultivating a safe space for others and their stories. We actually touch on this exact idea of beauty I just mentioned — the truth that when we show up as our full selves and love others as they do as well, connection, healing, and meaning prevail. And what is magic if not the combination of those three realities?

Recording with Dan brought me great joy and reminded me of how unexpected twists and turns and even chapters of my own heartbreak can lead me to the people and projects I hold most dear. The podcast is a paid offering so if you can afford the $6/month or $60/year to support me and my content, it would be deeply appreciated. AND – and I really mean AND – I am not here to add stress to your life, financial or otherwise. I am also certainly not here to add more barriers in this already gatekept world so if you can’t afford it, don’t think twice and drop a note with ‘subscribe’ in the subject line to hi@katespeer.com — absolutely no explanation needed.

All I want is to help build a world where people are actually safe being their whole selves and just by being here and listening to me as I invite you in, you are helping me do exactly that.

So with gratitude, big hugs and all the girl snugs, I take us back to the Maura + Me series — to the psych ward where I had just been told my life as I knew it was almost over.

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26. The Only Therapist Who Called Me Back

The care team meeting was an attempt to seal my fate — a way to let me down gently and make gradual peace with my future life in an in-patient residential center. But even with an understanding that this was how they saw my future, I refused to accept it. I clung to their statements as if they actually meant what they had said in the care team meeting about maintaining my freedom of independent living if I found a therapist who would take on my critical care on an outpatient basis. 

Making a list of local therapists, I called them one by one. Every day, for a week in the ward, I called every single local therapist on my list and left a new voice message each day. No one called me back that first week and none of the in-patient doctors were surprised. It was as if they almost expected the radio silence. 

Upon discharge, the attending doctor echoed his earlier statement about my future. But this time, he shared it in a far harsher way — 

“Kate, I know we don’t want to be here but I think it’s time to accept it — to acknowledge that this is the end of the road. The real end of the road.” 

Knowing his sign-off on my future care held undeniable weight, I channeled every fiber of my people-pleasing and placated him with a bowed head, soft smile and gentle response of up-talk, the practice of saying statements as questions, the way the doctors liked them to be said.

“Yes, maybe. Definitely maybe. But let me take just another week or two to process it?” 

He nodded appreciatively and with two hands on my shoulders, like I was a mere kindergartener, he agreed to two more weeks to process. 

I left the ward shortly thereafter and as soon as I made it into my parked truck, I let out my real response to his words as I screamed profanities galore.

“We?! You piece of fucking shit. There is no goddamn WE in any of this.

You have a life, you married, happy, stable prick!

You even have kids and a home!

You visited Venice last year and Japan the year before for crying out loud!

You fucking fucker!

There is no fucking WE and since you clearly have given up on me, I am going to prove that to you.

There is only me. Only me and what is apparently my goddamn last chance at freedom.

But watch out you fucking fucker. I am going to keep my freedom. I will have my freedom!”

I broke down thereafter — into a puddle of hysterics and only after hours of crying in my car with the realization that even though I needed help and admitting myself again was probably the safest course of action, there was no help left to be given at the hospital so I started my car and drove home to my apartment.

Every day thereafter, I set out to be the help I so desperately needed. Each morning, I called the entire list of local therapists and left a thoughtful, gentle, and oh-so-kind voicemail. I was determined to prove my sanity, my worthiness, and my stability in a measured tone, and gentle persistence to at least one of them. Thereafter, I’d head to work. Every part of my being did not want to go but even with daily incontinence and continual hallucinations, I knew that I had to prove to my kind bosses that I was worthy of the job I hadn’t been to in weeks. Each afternoon after my two-hour shift, exhausted fully, I would collapse onto my floor and research more potential therapists. Expanding my radius for “local” each day, I called more and more doctors. My days were one of forced action – everything I did held one singular purpose – to preserve my freedom. 

No one responded that first week but after my therapy appointment the next Tuesday with a rapidly shrinking and sickly-looking Atlas, I left his office to discover a new voicemail. I had finally gotten the call. One therapist had called me back. She called me back! She was also very local, trained in serious mental illness and accepting patients.  This was my chance – MY CHANCE. I immediately called her back and amazingly, she answered. We set an appointment for the next day and with a click of the phone and one heck of a dork dance, I set out to practice my speech — my introduction in my mirror like I had done so many times before other big moments. It was time to secure my entire future and I was determined to make her say yes — to love me so damn much that she couldn’t do anything but take me on.

The next morning, wearing my best work dress and a dab of mascara —  terminally sick people don’t wear makeup right? — I went to the appointment. I was hell-bent to prove to this doctor that I was well enough to stay free and made it through most of the appointment with unusual composure and eloquence. Practicing my story in front of the mirror until two in the morning had definitely helped and without pressured speech, tears, or profanities, I explained how it started with ADHD and a learning disability — then morphed into depression and bipolar disorder. I spoke calmly of ECT, memory loss, OCD, and The OCDI. I even managed to get through an explanation of my summer at the OCDI where I had been repeatedly sexually assaulted. But then, as I spoke about my steep decline thereafter and my experiences of lost time until I found myself covered in my own blood and feces, the tears began to fall. Upon explaining more about my “lost time” and the hallucinations that chased me, my tears became sobs. Wiping streaks of mascara from my face, I apologized profusely and launched into a diatribe about how much better I really was — about how I had made a best friend Maura, was doing my best to love my parents, and had gotten a real true actual professional job — and that my tears and lack of composure, although real and something I was deeply sorry for — were more of a reflection of Atlas’ diagnosis than the overall state of my mental health. 

After running out of words, a dissonant silence hung between us as tears continued to stream down my face in shame at my outburst of emotion. I had done it. I had lost control. I had shown the depth of my pain and insanity and I was about to be told that I was going to spend my life in a locked ward.

As my internal monologue spewed self-loathing and contempt, the therapist began cocking her head in continued silence, as if contemplating a decision. After a few moments of this, she nodded assuredly and began to speak about her therapeutic strategy — how she required her patients to communicate transparently and consistently always. She went on to sternly emphasize that her working relationship with patients who lived in a state of critical health like my own involved a one-strike policy. If I missed a session without advanced notice or didn’t effectively communicate my safety, the relationship was terminated. She explained that this was the only way for her to do her job and stay human herself.

Tears still streaming down my face, I nodded emphatically. Then, as I began to process her words, to hear the meaning behind them, I nodded even more aggressively and after a few moments of quiet between us, I couldn’t contain myself —

“Wait. Wait! Does this mean you will take me on? As a — patient? As — your patient?”

For the first time all session, she leaned back in her chair and smiled. An entirely new type of silence lingered between us – one of safety and hope. After another nod, she said yes.

YES.  She said YES. For the first time since Atlas’ diagnosis, I breathed an actual breath — a full breath — a free breath. Her words — those words — held pure promise and with a deep sigh of true relief, I felt and believed that things would finally — finally — turn out alright. With tears of gratitude streaming down my cheeks, I thanked her profusely and we made an appointment for the following week.

I left her office in full daylight that afternoon with a beaming smile on my mascara-covered face and for a blissful few hours, I relished in the belief that I had a chance. Yes, that afternoon, for a few short hours before she left an infamous voicemail that haunts me to this day, I delighted in my life of freedom. Yes, that afternoon, I delighted in my chance to have a real, true, actual free life on earth.

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Dan Brauchli is an independent filmmaker based in the New York City Area. A soulful storyteller and talented artist, Dan first had the idea of capturing Waffle and Tugboat’s story in a documentary film three years ago after hearing me speak on a podcast. He pitched me on the idea over Zoom. We had never met in person. A few months later, a day after Tugboat arrived home as Waffle’s successor-in-training, Dan arrived at our home too to begin the project.

In this week’s episode, we discuss that adventure and our future plans for the project — why I dared allow a near-complete stranger into our entire lives, how Waffle taught me to trust Dan, why Dan was interested in the project in the first place, and all the silly, joyful and sometimes heartbreaking twists and turns that have brought us here today.

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That’s it from us this week. We love you and we wish you a weekend.

Kindly,

Kate, Tug and Waffy