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patients to
enter and exit, so we could all avoid seeing each other. It’s not an unheard of
practice, but I’ve never seen another therapist, before or since, who actually
used this method of maintaining client confidentiality. It offers privacy, but
perhaps there’s more to it. Maybe it’s appropriate for a doctor who sees human
nature as a cause for shame. Once I entered his private office, I found myself
surrounded by pictures of his wife and children.
I told him why I’d come.
“This is an illness,” he stated flatly. “I won’t
be able to support you in getting comfortable with it. If you want to deal with
issues related to relationships, such as with your parents, that’s fine.” But
the one thing I wanted to talk about was verboten.
“This is my bias. I think it’s abnormal. It’s a
sickness,” he reiterated.
I began regurgitating all I’d read in Richard
Isay’s book. I didn’t come up for air for five minutes, at least.
The doctor wasn’t impressed. He wasn’t any more
impressed during the rest of our eleven remaining brief therapy sessions
either.
You might ask, why did I bother? What made me
remain and argue until I was blue, for three months? Why didn’t I just say Fuck
you and good-bye? A curious thing happened. After twelve appointments, all
spent debating this virtual brick wall, I realized that in attempting to teach him,
I was the one actually being instructed. Thanks to those intense hours of standing
up for my convictions, I found I finally believed, not only in what I was
saying, but in myself.
Though I had finally come out to myself, it
would be months until I would say the words outside of therapy. First, I told
Lorne. We were in the car. (Inside the car again... I must like a captive
audience.) I understood why he was so stunned. He had gone through so much on
his own, and I could have been there with him. But how could I, when I didn’t
accept that I was gay? When I looked at Lorne, and considered the five years
that he’d been dealing openly with his sexuality, I couldn’t imagine what I’d
been thinking all that time, how I could have existed on the cusp of awareness,
but remained in such deep denial.
SHELDON I don’t believe I was in
denial over Andrew’s sexuality once he’d told me directly. Yet I still harbored
a lot of guilt feelings. After I had a few days to think about it, and I looked
back on our parenting, I didn’t feel either Roslyn or I were “responsible” for
Andrew being gay, but this had come as such a surprise, it was going to take
time for me to adjust.
This was also harder for me than Roslyn because
she and I came into this situation with very different professional
backgrounds. The different positions that Roslyn has worked in over the years
have always related to people and their behavioral patterns. First, she was a
teacher, so she was always dealing with children and their disparate
personalities, and then she continued on in the social field, eventually
getting her Master’s degree in Social Work. All along, she’s been examining
people’s psyches, their emotions, their motivations, their interpersonal
relationships. It’s a world made up largely of gray area, and she spends her
day navigating the space between what’s on the surface, and what’s lying
underneath.
In my world, I deal with something far more
concrete, and while my job involves some interpretation, it’s of a very
different kind. I’m a notary, which is something altogether different in
Canada, where we live, from the guy in the U.S. who signs your personal documents
at the bank for a few dollars. In Quebec, the term notary translates to
the equivalent of a real estate lawyer in the States. When I transfer a
property, while it’s not exactly a matter of science, it still has to be
precise. It’s not as if you’re dealing with issues that are open to widely
differing interpretations, at least, not if you do your job right. You’re
dealing with legal
enter and exit, so we could all avoid seeing each other. It’s not an unheard of
practice, but I’ve never seen another therapist, before or since, who actually
used this method of maintaining client confidentiality. It offers privacy, but
perhaps there’s more to it. Maybe it’s appropriate for a doctor who sees human
nature as a cause for shame. Once I entered his private office, I found myself
surrounded by pictures of his wife and children.
I told him why I’d come.
“This is an illness,” he stated flatly. “I won’t
be able to support you in getting comfortable with it. If you want to deal with
issues related to relationships, such as with your parents, that’s fine.” But
the one thing I wanted to talk about was verboten.
“This is my bias. I think it’s abnormal. It’s a
sickness,” he reiterated.
I began regurgitating all I’d read in Richard
Isay’s book. I didn’t come up for air for five minutes, at least.
The doctor wasn’t impressed. He wasn’t any more
impressed during the rest of our eleven remaining brief therapy sessions
either.
You might ask, why did I bother? What made me
remain and argue until I was blue, for three months? Why didn’t I just say Fuck
you and good-bye? A curious thing happened. After twelve appointments, all
spent debating this virtual brick wall, I realized that in attempting to teach him,
I was the one actually being instructed. Thanks to those intense hours of standing
up for my convictions, I found I finally believed, not only in what I was
saying, but in myself.
Though I had finally come out to myself, it
would be months until I would say the words outside of therapy. First, I told
Lorne. We were in the car. (Inside the car again... I must like a captive
audience.) I understood why he was so stunned. He had gone through so much on
his own, and I could have been there with him. But how could I, when I didn’t
accept that I was gay? When I looked at Lorne, and considered the five years
that he’d been dealing openly with his sexuality, I couldn’t imagine what I’d
been thinking all that time, how I could have existed on the cusp of awareness,
but remained in such deep denial.
SHELDON I don’t believe I was in
denial over Andrew’s sexuality once he’d told me directly. Yet I still harbored
a lot of guilt feelings. After I had a few days to think about it, and I looked
back on our parenting, I didn’t feel either Roslyn or I were “responsible” for
Andrew being gay, but this had come as such a surprise, it was going to take
time for me to adjust.
This was also harder for me than Roslyn because
she and I came into this situation with very different professional
backgrounds. The different positions that Roslyn has worked in over the years
have always related to people and their behavioral patterns. First, she was a
teacher, so she was always dealing with children and their disparate
personalities, and then she continued on in the social field, eventually
getting her Master’s degree in Social Work. All along, she’s been examining
people’s psyches, their emotions, their motivations, their interpersonal
relationships. It’s a world made up largely of gray area, and she spends her
day navigating the space between what’s on the surface, and what’s lying
underneath.
In my world, I deal with something far more
concrete, and while my job involves some interpretation, it’s of a very
different kind. I’m a notary, which is something altogether different in
Canada, where we live, from the guy in the U.S. who signs your personal documents
at the bank for a few dollars. In Quebec, the term notary translates to
the equivalent of a real estate lawyer in the States. When I transfer a
property, while it’s not exactly a matter of science, it still has to be
precise. It’s not as if you’re dealing with issues that are open to widely
differing interpretations, at least, not if you do your job right. You’re
dealing with legal
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