Therapy - Henry

[plntfood]

They've been at this for awhile now. More than a year, although there had been a period of several months where Mathias had repeatedly put off all of his sessions, so he's not sure it's fair to say they've been at it the whole time. Despite that, he's sort of embarrassed by how little progress he seems to have made

Comments

[eggman_henry]

Henry wasn't overly concerned with the rate of Mathias' progress. A couple years from now, if they were still in the same place he might revisit that assessment, but for now it wasn't really cause for alarm. Some people were able to improve rapidly, and with some it took more time. Hell, some never changed at all, like Barry Newman.

Mathias was no Barry Newman, though, treating his psych visits as a revisiting of his adventures in gastronomy with no real desire to improve. Mathias was there because he wanted to be there, and that in and of itself was cause for hope of improvement. How long that took, well, that remained to be seen.

Henry listened carefully to what Mathias was saying, to the words as well as the unsaid things beneath them. He wasn't there to judge, or even to tell Mathias what to do. Mathias was going to help himself, Henry was just there to help him find the way. "That's an interesting thought," he replied evenly, resting his chin in the heel of one hand. "I wonder, though - what do you think they would say? Heinrich, and the rest? Do you think they would say it was your fault?"

[plntfood]

At that, the corners of Mathias' mouth twitch up into a faint, dry smile. "Some of them would tell me not to be so ridiculous," he says, thinking of Stacy and of Jeff. Sometimes, knowing that they wouldn't have blamed him is the only thing that keeps him from completely losing himself in that guilt.

"But some of the others..." He trails off and shakes his head. "Henrich might not blame me, but he is my brother. He would... we both would have done anything for the other. But Eric..."

Looking up, he shrugs and smiles again. "Eric did blame me. Eric called me the villain. That was difficult to hear. My own thoughts voiced by someone else, someone who didn't like me very much."

[eggman_henry]

"Eric blamed you," Henry repeated. "Not only blamed you, but called you the villain. But you also say he didn't like you very much. Was that because of what happened, or was that a...pre-existing condition?"

[plntfood]

"Because of what happened, I think," Mathias says, rubbing his jaw, scratching lightly and absently at his beard. It's just something to do with his hand, something other than wringing them together.

"He thought I was having sex with Stacy behind his back," he admits. "We weren't. Stacy and I never... we never even kissed. Nothing like that. But Eric didn't trust her."

[eggman_henry]

"Sounds like it was more a problem between him and Stacy, and you got caught in the crossfire," observed Henry. "What do you think?"

[plntfood]

"I think that may be right, but it doesn't diminish the fact that I did bring them to that hill," Mathias answers. "I wanted to find my brother and I didn't want to go alone and I brought them all there. Five people."

[eggman_henry]

"I think it's safe to say, though, that you didn't expect anything like what you found," Henry pointed out. "And of course you wanted to find your brother, that's understandable. You were worried about him."

[plntfood]

"I am still responsible for them being there," he says quietly. "And why do I get to be here, but they have to be back there? Even Stacy, she's... she killed herself back on the hill. I get to be here, I get to live and be happy and they all die."

[eggman_henry]

Henry was silent a moment, pondering that statement. Guilt was a powerful thing, he knew, even when it was unfounded. He also knew that there was nothing he could do to talk Mathias out of feeling guilty.

"That is the question, isn't it?" he said. "Why you and not them? Is it a question worth making yourself miserable over? Is it a question that can even be answered?"

[plntfood]

Mathias doesn't know if it's a question worth making himself miserable over, but he does know it can never be answered. "No one will ever be able to tell me, I know," he admits. "I just... I wish I understood."

[eggman_henry]

"The amount of shit people don't understand would probably reach to the moon and back, man," Henry said with a wry smile and an air of someone who knew what he was talking about. God knew he'd experienced enough of the unexplainable in his own lifetime. "So how do you go about dealing with something you can't understand, and move on? That's what we need to figure out. What you need to figure out. What do you think?"

[plntfood]

Mathias sighs, because he doesn't know. He has no idea how he's supposed to forget this or deal with it and it's with that that he's still struggling. But that struggle is something he's trying to ignore.

"I just... I am tired of feeling guilty, but when I don't feel guilty, I feel as if I'm betraying them all somehow," he explains in a burst.

[eggman_henry]

"I see," Henry said with a nod. It was not the first time he'd had a patient tell him something like that. "How's that affecting your life? Needing to feel guilty all the time?"

[plntfood]

Mathias has never thought of it as needing to feel guilty and he has to stop for a moment and think about that word. Henry is right, though, he knows this.

"I... it makes moving on very difficult," he says finally. "It makes letting people in very difficult."

[eggman_henry]

It took a certain kind of patience, to be able to steer a patient in the direction they needed to go without actually pointing out the way, letting them get there themselves and in their own time. Henry, fortunately, had that patience in spades. It had taken them a while to get to this point, but every patient got to the next step at a different pace.

"So it makes moving on and letting people in very difficult," he echoed thoughtfully. "And I take it you don't want to continue on the same way."

[plntfood]

Mathias gives a soft laugh and shakes his head. "Although I have always been that way. Distant, I mean."

It doesn't work as well on the island, though. It's far more difficult to keep everyone at arm's length when there was such a small population. He could get lost in Munich, but that's not the case here.