You and your fucking power to stir my feelings.
Wednesday, 11.24.2010 - 3:51 pm.

JC caught me by surprise last night. I was looking into a bad case of trolling, with my dad as target, when the phone rings and my mom hands me the phone. Um, hi...I don't know if I'm doing the right thing, I don't know if it's ok or even ethical to call you...but I wanted to talk to you about my cousin.

JC, what are you doing? Why do you do this? Why every fucking time that I choose to turn my back on you, as I should, you contact me again?

JC's cousin is my patient. A severe case of abuse and neglect throughout his 15 years of life. He is a handful, to put it nicely, but if you look at his history, he was bound to either became that or be dead by now.

Anyway. Never once we spoke about each other's personal life. Well, yeah, he did. His personal life, his family life, it was relevant to the case and anyway, I assumed that's why he called: to provide me with more information.

Both of us wondered if this was ethical, psychologically speaking, and I guess I'll have to ask my mentor W. But I don't think we were out of line because we both know what's going on in the case. We agreed everything we talked was in the best interest of the child and I kept my commitment to confidentiality intact, other than general remarks about the kid that JC was already aware of. It was just a bit awkward because he is my friend (*cough*) but I needed to approach him as part of the family of my patient.

First five minutes of our conversation and he had already screwed me. I remembered why I liked him so much in the first place. The fucker has a heart of gold. Several times, however, he'd made a certain comment and I'd just mouth to myself "yeah, like you did to me" or "oh, I know how THAT feels".

I tried to get over myself because anyway, this wasn't about me or him. I could use some insight from the less dysfunctional member in the family. I've been seeing his cousin for seven months now and his defenses are a bitch; JC's mother's are the same or worse. JC's pretty much the only factor of protection in that house, because of his knowledge in psychology and because of his very own personality. He's overwhelmed by carrying the burden, of course, and I told him not to beat himself up over fixing those things. He may be a psychologist but above all, he's a family member, as caught up in the family dynamics as anybody else.

In retrospective, he didn't tell me a lot of useful things. Nothing I didn't know, at least in general terms. Except that he sees how his mom and his cousin make an effort to control themselves, how his cousin makes more eye contact now, and how his mother returns from our meetings trying to think things through. But to his credit, we discussed certain topics that are key to the psychological process.

Most of the conversation was about an episode he had with his cousin and how he handled it. I didn't get anything of clinical value out of that, other than the impression that JC will make a damn awesome adolescent therapist someday.

A few times he expressed he didn't know if he should call me because we had agreed we wouldn't be in touch until next year, but he wanted to help and so he thought of telling me these things. I was happy to hear from him and, as usual, I wasn't thinking well, so I told him he may contact me in the future if he considered he had more information that could help me. Which was wrong: I don't need his help.

80 minutes later, the conversation ended. Given that I had nothing significant to write down in JC's cousin's file, I decided to forget about it and I went to see Dawson's Creek because I'm a sucker. I saw the episode, teenage heartbreak, you know the drill. But then I returned to the subject. Oh, God, where do I begin?

Ok, how about this: he went against my wishes. I'd been doing great without him. I'd been doing great since I told him to stay out of my life and not contact me and I was ready to put him to rest, right next to Joseph. I like him, A LOT. At some point I thought that if I had to go through the hell Joseph put me through to find JC, then it was worth it. That's how much I valued him, that's how much I fell for him. He's an amazing person: smart, caring and hilarious. I did not need to be reminded that. And I did not need the reminder that such an "amazing" person used me and then rejected me to get back to somebody else.

I went to bed incredibly sad and I cried. I miss him. I wish he had given me a chance. Or...God, at least just not dump me to get back with his ex. Not Joseph all over again. I've been thinking about him this week. And fuck, I begin to feel this way and he shows up in my life again; even when I asked him not to. I couldn't sleep until 1 am thinking of him, but could be also the coffee I had at 6 o'clock kicking in (I went to a coffeehouse near my house, with a nice friend...I came and went walking, so great, except for the asshole driving the wrong way that almost hit me when I was crossing the street).

I also wondered why he even bothered to call me. I don't think he was trying to pressure me to see results or to monitor how I was doing. He's into clinical psychology and he knows how defensive his family is; and, dare I say it, he trusts my skills. So what would make you think I need help, JC? Do I seem incapable?

Seeing that his information was pretty much useless, my stupid side tried to answer why he called me: "he just needed an excuse to talk to you". Well, gee, I'm flattered! I'm sure I'm on his mind all the time. I'm sure that he was thinking of me when he asked his girlfriend to get back together earlier this year, and that in every picture FB showed me in which he is next to her, he secretly misses me. Good Lord.

There's no reason for him to talk to me. He never loved me, I was just a novelty, the ounce of risk his damned relationship with his girlfriend required to be brought back from the dead. He isn't my friend, either; he would have honored my request of not talking to me.

So I don't know why he called: to show off how good he is at handling his cousin, or because he was too naive to think that what he was telling me was useful (worse, I probably made him feel it was). I'm just disgusting for opening the door for him to let him in and even telling him he can come back when he has new information. I don't know why he called, what I know is that all this call accomplished was to fuck with my feelings.

Fuck you, JC. Fuck you for being all cute on me and then hurting me and making me a rebound and then insisting on being my friend and trying to "help" me. I get it, you're awesome, leave me alone already!

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