Tim Lineaweaver was a twenty-seven year alcoholic, drug-addled young man with PTSD and a dismal hope for a meaningful future. Then he met a therapist named Elaine.
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I’m a therapist and have been for the past twenty years. When I was twenty-seven, alcoholic, drug-addled and ridden by the emotional vagaries of untreated PTSD, my father-in-law shoved a piece of paper at me with the names of three therapists on it. For no particular reason, I chose the middle name and that decision turned out to be one of the best of my life.
I first met Elaine back in the spring of 1984. In those days I would drink to the point of blacking-out unless I had cocaine, in which case I would stay up for days smoking freebase. Due to an abusive childhood I was self-loathing and broken at the core, a feral animal. My wife had thrown me out and I had not seen my beloved one-year old daughter in weeks. I was full of shame, fear and clueless about how to improve my lot. When I thought about my future I figured I’d just drink and drug myself to death like my father did and be done with it.
Elaine was a statuesque woman in her early thirties with long brown hair and loving brown eyes. She had about her an air of grace, caring and deep and abiding empathy that I have not encountered in anybody since. More than anything she never judged me, not when I divulged being sexually abused, not when I described the dishonesty and manipulations of my life as an addict and not when I discussed my abuse of others. Not ever.
As I slowly opened myself up to her, she intently focused on what I was saying as she scribbled notes in shorthand on her ever-present yellow legal pad. When I discussed the childhood abuse for the first time in little more than a shame-based whisper, she seemed to be sharing my pain; as if what had hurt me was hurting her too, she would respond to particularly painful bits with her sharp Cape Cod accent, “Ohhh Dahlin’.”
I came away from each session a bit less burdened, a bit more hopeful and more than anything else with a sense that if I kept coming to see her I could get better and maybe make a life for myself. At times I grew despondent as I faced the problems my addiction created but Elaine was resolute in her encouragement. Day by day I stayed sober and with Elaine’s unwavering support through divorce, financial ruin and long bouts of depression I went back to school, met a wonderful woman got married had kids.
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As a person who had been abused verbally and physically, I had the rigid orientation of a victim and a virulent self-hatred. This may be difficult for people who have not been abused to understand. For me starting at about age twelve, I began a pattern of medicating my negative feelings: drinking, smoking weed, LSD speed you name it, I used it. I also did a lot of sexual acting-out, and suicidal thinking was nearly constant. Elaine confronted this aspect of my constitution aggressively and through hard work I learned that despite the things that had befallen me I did not need to perpetuate or perceive myself as a victim anymore. I had as much worth as anyone else, not a penny less or a penny more.
When I returned to school I was laboring in dead-end restaurant jobs. It’s all I knew how to do. These jobs fit the party lifestyle well, but chafed at my recovery. Co-workers couldn’t grasp why someone would want to quit drinking, and the joints I worked in were rife with drugs and alcoholism and related dysfunction. I was a square peg and my co-workers weren’t shy about reminding me. I longed for more meaningful work, a healthier and happier workplace. I knew that education was the key to moving up.
As a kid, I was a lousy student in part because of emotional problems. To put it succinctly, I considered each assignment an opportunity to fuck up rather than to conquer and learn. I would flood with anxiety and put up a defensive wall, often just refusing to participate. Most of my teachers thought me incapable, obstreperous or both. My grades reflected their thoughts.
Here too, Elaine was invaluable as she saw value and potential in me that I could not see in myself. “Go to college, you’re more than smaht enough, you can do it!”
At thirty, I enrolled at the local community college. If Elaine believed in me then maybe it was time for me to start believing in myself. In the past, I was never a finisher. The idea of trying meant the probability of failing and so I would flood with anxiety and just quit or avoid trying in the first place. This time I was going to get my degree or die trying.
I transferred to a four-year college and got my bachelor’s degree despite having to work full time and take care of my daughter on weekends. The dumb anxious, difficult kid graduated summa cum laude. Every step of the way I carried Elaine’s encouraging words with me. “You CAN do it.” “Things WILL get better, stay with it!” Stay with school, stay with recovery, perseverance wins the day…and beyond.
After I graduated it was time to make an important decision. What to pursue for a career? Money was not the driving force in my decision; I just wanted to make enough to have some security, health insurance and the ability to support my family.
When I looked back over my life it was clear that Elaine was one of the most positively influential people in my life. Furthermore, addictions and trauma had decimated my family growing up. Wouldn’t it be meaningful to work in the mental health field? I could make some money and help people recover, just like Elaine. It would be an opportunity to make a tangible difference in people’s lives.
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I worked my way through graduate school, earning a master’s in counseling and psychology and I became a therapist. Over the past twenty years I’ve done different things: counseled patients in a detox, worked with addicted adolescents and adults, directed a grant that measured depression in patients in a medical setting, Throughout it all I have maintained a caseload of patients dealing with a host of issues; depression, addictions, anxiety and trauma. You name it, I have probably seen it.
People ask me what is it like to be a therapist. Often they have a pre-conceived notion of what therapists actually do. When I watch media portrayals of therapists I am usually galled. The typical image is some touchy-feely asshole with a hopeless personal life of his own, maybe he’s sleeping with his client or casually committing some other ethical breach the likes of which would get him sued for malpractice.
Maybe this view is self-inflicted as some of us toss around psychobabble about “closure” getting our “inner child-needs” met and tossing around our opinions of what we think is “appropriate” casually. For me, therapy at its best is a practical endeavor that digs into a person’s thought patterns, habits and attitudes and then advocates tirelessly for positive change using common-sense solutions. Often my clients have a wide-range of complicated problems; I push myself to encourage them, console them and bear witness to their suffering.
I typically see between 25-35 people a week, as reimbursements have declined requiring an ever-growing caseload. Each of these people has unique and complex problems, is feeling some degree of emotional pain, and there is frequently a soul-wrenching story of trauma attached. I had one client whose depression was so deep I could hear her crying in the waiting room prior to the start of each session.
No matter what a client is dealing with, the responsibility is my shoulders to help him sort it out. Hearing about the sadness, violence and various forms of abuse client after client day after day can be akin to being a balloon, each trauma narrative pumping more air in. The capacity for human-to-human cruelty sometimes sickens me.
Periodically, I get overwhelmed and the struggle is to contain my emotions enough to still be effective for my patient. For me personally, I can be sturdy for long periods of time but the constant beat of my client’s suffering can scrape and at my own emotional scars causing episodes of depression and anxiety that I have to work hard to contain.
At the same time there is often an intimacy that develops as my clients allow me into the very private corners of their lives. Some client’s resiliency is nothing short of inspiring. I rejoice their successes and it’s hard not to take the setbacks as my own. What could I have done differently?
More than anything else, as Elaine proved to me, it is the relationship between therapist and client that makes the all difference. If my clients trust me, feel I have their best interests at heart and if I withhold my judgment, they get better. How I regard them and how they feel about me is a lot more important than the techniques I employ.
Despite my fruitful experiences both as a patient and a client, I am worried about my profession for clients and health care practitioners alike. In this era of bottom line corporate healthcare, both the number of sessions available to the patient and reimbursements have diminished. I am making less per hour each year while healthcare executives take exorbitant salaries and golden parachutes. It is dispiriting and one wonders where it’s all going to end up.
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With each mass shooting or celebrity overdose, there is a brief discussion about the importance of mental health and addictions treatment, and then we go right back to what we were doing before: underfunding treatment and stigmatizing those who struggle with addictions and mental health issues. At what point do we recognize that treatment is essential to the nation’s overall health? Can the people who work in the system make a decent living under sane conditions or will we keep making less and less and be forced to see more clients each week to make up the difference?
Elaine lost a courageous battle with breast cancer several years ago. We stayed in touch throughout. The disease ravaged her body but she maintained her grace and caring for others right to the end.
The word “hero” is bandied about a lot these days, sometimes deservedly so, oft times decidedly not. Perhaps this is something we should each define for ourselves.
I know certainly that I carry Elaine with me every day of my life and she still helps me forward. Because of her I have a sense of deep gratitude for every day of my life. Because of her I know that people can recover from addictions and mental illness and go on to lead useful lives. Because of her I am a therapist trying to help others. She will always be MY hero.
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photo by erix / flickr
Tim this was such a beautiful peace. It really touched something inside me and there are parts of me that resonate with parts of you that you shared here. Thank you for sharing your story and the affect Elaine had on you.
Erin; Thanks for reading and your response. Elaine was for me a perfect fit and proof that
good therapy can make a huge difference in recovering. Sounds like you have had a similar experience along the way!