The Visible Man (3 page)

NOTES:

If Y____ is dealing with addiction, it seems unlikely that he was intoxicated during our session. His speech and thought patterns seemed unremarkable (although possible use of cocaine is not outside the realm of possibility, as his speech was sometimes rushed). More troubling is his paranoid obsession over the most minor details within his own life, almost to the point of caricature; he has wildly exaggerated the import of his own existence. Keeps using phrases like, “It’s different for me. Everything is different for me.” Y____ is emotionally overinvested in some undefined, unspoken idea (regarding his own sense of self), and
this investment overwhelms all other components of his psyche. A grandiose or somatic disorder seems possible, although more info will be needed before making any strict diagnosis. This will take time. That said, my overall concern is mild. Patient does not appear to be in danger.

Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld

FROM: [email protected]
SENT: Friday, March 14, 2008, 2:02 PM
TO: [email protected]
SUBJECT: Y____ / Friday (2)

No progress with Y____. Initial conversation was pleasant (he mentioned how listening to songs by the ex-Beatle George Harrison had put him in “an effervescent mood”), but real dialogue collapsed soon after. Once again, I tried to direct our conversation toward his motive for seeking therapy. This quickly became a thirty-minute “intellectual cul de sac” (his words). He said he wanted to “see what other people see” but would not elaborate on what this meant. In response to my conventional follow-up (“What do you suspect other people see?”), he laughed and called my elocutionary technique “amateurish,” claiming I should “try harder.” At this point I informed him that he could seek help elsewhere if that was what he wanted. He then apologized, although not sincerely—he said he was sorry his words had insulted me but refused to apologize for what he actually said. Sensing this interaction was only exasperating our relationship, I returned to the topic of the Harrison album he had mentioned at the start of the session, mostly to get him talking in a nonconfrontational manner. He expressed preoccupation with one song, a track he identified as “Be Here Now.” When asked what he liked about the song, Y____ suggested that the song’s lyrics illustrated Harrison’s guilt about becoming wealthy and the singer’s “self-conscious hypocrisy” for choosing to advocate principles of Eastern spirituality while living as a conventional celebrity. He was smug about this analysis. “If he really believed what he sang,” said Y____, “he would not have needed to write and record the song at all. It’s totally fake. He wrote the song as a means of admitting he can’t be the person he pretends.” This alleged contradiction amused him. Being unfamiliar with the song, I did not comment. Session ended soon after, closing with another friendly (and most likely meaningless) exchange of pleasantries.

NOTES:

I have purchased “Be Here Now” via the computer application iTunes, initially confusing it with another track of the same name. Though I’ve listened to the song only twice, the textual interpretation by Y____ strikes me as unusually cynical. He seems to misread the song on purpose. At risk of placing too much emphasis on one tangential aspect of our second encounter, I now have fewer fears about addiction and more concerns about clinical depression and/or a specific break from reality—it seems very possible that Y____ is a highly functioning depressive. Have decided to take a more aggressive stance with Y____ next week.

Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld

FROM: [email protected]
SENT: Friday, March 21, 2008, 10:44 AM
TO: [email protected]
SUBJECT: Y____ / Friday (3)

Terrible session this morning. My fault entirely. Opened dialogue by giving Y____ a false ultimatum: I claimed that if he was unwilling to discuss why he was seeking therapy, I was unwilling to continue working with him. My intention was to challenge him, with the expectation that he would respect this challenge and respond. At first, the exchange felt natural. He chuckled. He asked what kinds of problems I normally dealt with, and I told him the most universal problems among my other patients were anxiety issues. He discounted this: “Anxiety is not a real problem. It’s only a modern problem.” I tried to get him to explain why he would believe that, and he started to explain his reasoning. But then he stopped mid-sentence and asked, “What do you look like?” I asked why that made a difference, particularly since he had wanted to keep our interaction over the phone. Y____: “It makes a difference to me.” I accused him of trying to change the subject. He said, “No,
this
is the subject [emphasis his]. Whatever I want to talk about is always the subject.” I told him my physical appearance was irrelevant. He disagreed. I asked how it was relevant. He said, “If you can’t understand immediately, you will never understand eventually. Why should I tell you something you’ll never understand? Why won’t you answer my question? At least I have the potential to understand the answer.” His tone was flat. I asked if this question was related to his previous reference to the Bracco character (from
The Sopranos
). He said, “Of course not. Get over it.” I told him I looked like a normal person. I mentioned I had red hair. Y____: “See, that first part is relevant. It is. If you look like a normal person, that’s interesting. But I don’t care what color your hair is.
That’s
irrelevant. Your hair color is irrelevant. You don’t understand what’s important and what isn’t.” I asked if
he thought he looked like a normal person. He said, “No, not at all. Not at all.” I asked what he believed a normal person looked like. At this point, he ended the call without comment. Total time of conversation: less than ten minutes.

NOTES:

Very strong suspicion that Y____ is housebound due to obesity. Physical deformity also seems possible—is he a burn victim? Tremendous failure on my behalf. Completely overlooked this (fairly obvious) scenario, particularly when viewed in orchestra with his joke about the boy and the clown from session #1. I am a terrible therapist today. Really down about this. Today I am a failure. Need to be smarter next week. WILL be smarter next week. Will be smarter.

Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld

ADDENDUM
¹

[The evening following this episode, I received two voice mails from Y
____
that were stored on the hard drive on my office computer (via the telephone service Vonage). I have transcribed the content of those messages here. It is my belief that Y
____
was reading from a script. Midway through the second call, he appears to deviate from the script—however, I now suspect he consciously included this deviation to create the illusion of spontaneity. His delivery of these messages was intermittently measured and animated. Soft sitar music is audible in the background. Total length of first message: 48 seconds. Total length of second message: 222 seconds
.]

CALL 1

“Good evening, Vicky. This is Y____ speaking. I want … I want to apologize for my juvenile behavior on the telephone today. I understand what your intentions were and I don’t know why I reacted the way I … reacted. I don’t want to jeopardize our relationship. I’ve enjoyed our sessions thus far. I think they’re going extremely well. I’ve tried working with at least four other therapists and none have gotten as far as we have. I like your approach. Honestly. I like your approach. You aren’t a control freak, or even in any control at all. You don’t mind taking a … less-than-dominant, semidominant role. I like that. It’s what I like about you most. That’s what I (
inaudible
). So I’m hoping we can just put this whole episode behind us. I will call again next Friday, and we’ll just go on from there. Okay? If you’re uninterested in continuing our work, we can discuss at that juncture. I assume (
inaudible phrase
). Thanks again. This was Y____.”

CALL 2

“Vicky. Y____ again. So … I realize you had mentioned—again, this was this morning, on the telephone—that you needed me to explain why I was seeking therapy, and that you can’t help me unless I explain my reasons. I don’t agree with that. I don’t think it’s essential in any way. But because
you
believe this, I’m willing to make a concession. If you can’t continue under any other circumstances, I will make this compromise. As I said, I appreciate your approach. But I need you to accept that you’ll never truly understand my reasoning regardless of what I tell you about myself. You will never completely understand what’s happened. Which might be difficult for you, as a professional. It might toy with your confidence. It’s just that … I spent my mid-twenties on the most radical edge of science. I know that sounds (
inaudible
), but it’s the only means through which I can explain my condition. In simplest terms, I worked with biological
(
inaudible
) light refraction, although that doesn’t really matter to anyone and certainly should
not
matter to you. In fact, I would recommend that you don’t even think about the technical aspects of my condition. What should matter—to you—is that my aptitude at science allowed me to do some negative, problematic things … actually, no. Let me rephrase that. I need to rephrase that. My aptitude at biological science allowed me to do things that
could be perceived
as problematic. The things I did, when viewed intellectually, are
not
problematic. I don’t see them as bad. I don’t think any intelligent person would. I view my actions as positive. But I know that “society,” or whatever term we want to use, might disagree. I realize that the average person would consider my actions criminal, and maybe even that’s optimistic. Now, that’s their problem, as far as I’m concerned. Their wrongness is unrelated to who I am. But because we were all raised in the same society, and because I’ve unwillingly adopted a lot of the weaknesses inherent to other people, I can’t help but feel the sensation of guilt that comes with my actions. Not guilt itself, because I know the things I did were good. But the
sensation
of guilt. That’s what I felt. And that can be just as detrimental. And that is what I need to talk to you about. I want to find a way to manage this sensation. I also need someone to objectively view my actions and validate what I already know, which is that I’ve done nothing wrong. Like I said—I already understand all of this intellectually. I just need to know it emotionally. So that is where we will pick up. Good night, Victoria. Again, this was Y____.”

FROM: [email protected]
SENT: Friday, March 28, 2008, 2:00 PM
TO: [email protected]
SUBJECT: Y____ / Friday (4)

Corner turned? Significant strides with Y____ this a.m.!

Opened session by thanking Y____ for his late-night phone messages from the previous Friday, noting that these calls—regardless of their content—suggest progress. Y____ expressed sheepish appreciation. I asked Y____ about the timing of his calls, as they were received very late in the evening; I asked if he had been having trouble sleeping. Y____ said he sometimes slept during the afternoon, but that this was a preference (and not a problem). “My work requires that I’m alert in the evening and early morning hours,” he said, and then playfully compared himself to a variety of nocturnal animals. His metaphors were apt, but I also noticed a degree of showmanship—he seemed to be referencing exotic animals in a self-aggrandizing style, simply to show me that he knew a lot about zoology. However, I did not press him on this (at risk of reversing our newfound level of mild intimacy).

About ten or fifteen minutes into the session, I addressed the three most compelling details from his second phone message:

[Reader’s note: Of all the exchanges I would eventually have with Y____, this is the one I most wish I’d recorded. Knowing what I know now, this was (almost certainly) the most detail-rich exchange we ever had, at least in terms of the scientific content. But—at the time—it just seemed like we were clearing extraneous details out of our path. During the most critical segment of the exchange, I’m ashamed to admit I barely listened (and instead mentally prepared for my next line of questioning). This being the case, Y____’s quotes in the following section are
not
verbatim—were I a
cub reporter for the
American-Statesman,
I wouldn’t use them in an A1 article. These were simply my present-tense attempts to paraphrase Y____’s jargon-heavy descriptions of how his situation began, which I have since slightly expanded. Though I suspect my memory is more accurate than not, I missed the minutiae that mattered most. It remains the greatest regret of my career.]

1. “The most radical edge of science”: This phrase struck me as unusual and pretentious. I asked why he chose those specific words. He proceeded to give an incomprehensible, extemporaneous speech on his field of study, something he referred to as “epidermal refraction theory.” Y____ noted that this work was conducted through funding from the military, but that he was a civilian (originally employed by Chaminade University in Hawaii). He prefaced his description by saying, “There is no way you will ever understand this,” and (again) claimed that the specifics of his research were not important. I pushed him to try. As it turns out, he was either correct or trying to confuse me on purpose. I have no idea what his research was trying to solve or create. The bottom line is as follows: Y____ was involved in something he referred to as the “cloaking initiative.” At one point he asked if I had ever watched
Star Trek
, but I have not. He used the term “negative refractive index” several times. Whenever I asked him to simplify his description, he would say things like, “Imagine looking at the front of a woman’s chest, but seeing only whatever was behind her back.” He made reference to a “sheer suit.” Though it’s impossible to tell if what Y____ was saying was (a) even partially true or (b) some type of fantasy life, I’m now secure in the assumption that Y____ does have (at the very least) a legitimate background in science. Obviously, that background does not dismiss his pseudologia fantastica
²
(and may paradoxically serve
to enhance it). I found myself generally unable to follow this stretch of dialogue. When I admitted this, he politely asked that I never ask him about this again, as it was a waste of both our time. I conditionally agreed. He needed to hear me say that.