“I don’t think I’m going to win any coping trophies anytime soon,” I said.
I told her about feeling like I was on an alien planet. I told her about not feeling like myself. I told her about being so terrified of not recognizing people—and then running into Parker. I told her that I wanted to be the kind of person who could think of prosopagnosia as a superpower—but I just didn’t know how to get there.
“Well,” she said, “getting there is the fun part.”
From anyone else, that would’ve been insulting.
I told her about trying to paint Sue’s portrait, and what a total disaster it had been, and how the thought that I’d worked so hard for so long only to finally get my big break and then totally blow it was keeping me up at night.
“Why do you want to win the competition so badly?” Dr. Nicole asked.
“Because it’s ten thousand dollars—and I’m broke.”
She nodded, like, Fair enough. “Any other reasons?”
“Because it could change my life,” I said.
Dr. Nicole waited, like she knew there’d be more.
“Because I could use some encouragement,” I said. “Because I’m ready to get something right. Because I’m just so tired of failing.”
That felt like a pretty big confession, right there.
But Dr. Nicole just waited, like there was more.
“I guess I should mention,” I said then, “that my mother was also a portrait artist. And she also placed in this same competition thirteen years ago. But she, um…” I took a sip of tea. “She died suddenly the week before the show.”
Dr. Nicole sat back in her chair.
Now, at last, I’d said something real.
“We should probably talk about that.”
I wrinkled my nose and shook my head.
Dr. Nicole gave a little have-it-your-way shrug. “What’s your dream?” she asked then. “What do you want from your career?”
“My dream?” I asked. This felt like a trick question.
“What does the life you want look like?”
I shrugged. “I’d like to be successful.” It felt weird to say that out loud, in a way. Like I was being greedy. But what on earth had I been hustling for all these years if not to be successful? Did anyone ever try like hell for years to not be successful? “I’d like to make a living. A good living. Maybe some job stability. And to just wake up every day and paint. I don’t need to take over the world. I don’t need diamonds and yachts and furs. But I’d like to get my car back. Or—okay, maybe a better car. I don’t want to want too much. I think I could be satisfied with just, like, a functioning car and enough money to pay my bills.”
Dr. Nicole waited, like I wasn’t trying hard enough.
I went on. “But if you’re asking what I want? Deep down, what I long for? I want my paintings to sell like hotcakes. I want to be admired by my peers. I want to really, truly be okay, and not just pretending. I want to be kicking ass. I want to be thriving. I want to prove that I was awesome all along.”
“Prove that to whom?”
Whoa. This lady could use whom in conversation. And make it sound right. She was literally the coolest. But I didn’t know how to answer that question. “I don’t know. People.”
“Which people?”
But I just shrugged.
Dr. Nicole changed her approach. “What would you get if you were successful?”
“What would I get?”
Dr. Nicole nodded. “Emotionally.”
Ah. Emotionally. Suddenly I knew what she was asking. “You know,” I said, “I don’t really think that we need to do a whole lot of deep emotions in here. I’m really just here for the neuropsychology tips. You know? To snag a few coping techniques. I don’t need to, like, delve into my dark past or anything.”
She looked at me—and, again, I could feel this without seeing it—very kindly said, “You know it’s all the same, right?”
“What is?”
“Emotions. Coping tips. Your dark past.”
Ugh.
“You’re very in your head,” she said. “I’d like to see you dip into your heart.”
“I like it in my head.”
“But that’s not really where we live.”
“Are you trying to tell me I’m emotionally closed off?” I said. “Because I have lots of emotions. I’m great at emotions! I’m a huge fan of you, for example. I just fell madly in love with my brand-new veterinarian. I cry at life insurance commercials.”
“Real emotions, I mean.”
“Are you telling me that love isn’t real?”
But Dr. Nicole pulled rank on me then. Pausing a good while before saying, “Is that a question designed to get us closer to the truth or to steer us away?”
God, she was good.
“The thing is,” I said, “I don’t talk about it. My dark past. Not even with my dog.”
“We don’t need to talk about it,” she said. Then she added, “today.”
Then she shifted topics. “What are your strategies for interacting with people?”
“I’m just going to hide in my apartment until the edema goes down.”
“Why don’t you want to see people?”
“It stresses me out. I’m embarrassed.”
“Embarrassed that you can’t recognize them?”
“Yes.” Embarrassed I couldn’t recognize them. Embarrassed I couldn’t see them. Afraid of hurting their feelings or snubbing them by accident or seeming like a bitch. Humiliated to not be myself. Disappointed to no longer be a brain surgery poster child. Mortified, ultimately, to not be so not okay that I couldn’t even hide it.
“What if you just told people?”
That question didn’t even make any sense. “Told people what?”
“About what you’re dealing with right now. About what you’re going through.”
“What? Like, wear a T-shirt that says, ‘I can’t see you’?”
“That’s one option, I guess.”
“Never,” I said.
“Never?”
“I will never tell anyone about this face thing. Not voluntarily.”
Dr. Nicole leaned forward like that was the most interesting thing I’d said all day. “Why not?”
“Because that’s need-to-know information.”
“It might help you feel more comfortable.”
“The whole world doesn’t need to know that I’m malfunctioning,” I said, like that settled it. But Dr. Nicole didn’t seem satisfied. So I added, “I just want to be my normal self.”
“But you aren’t your normal self right now.” She mercifully did not add, And might never be again.
“I’m just going to take a fake-it-til-ya-make-it approach.” That’s what I’d been doing my whole life. “If I can’t be okay, I’ll seem okay.”
“Seeming okay and being okay are not the same thing.”
“Close enough.”
“In fact,” she said, leaning in a little, “they might cancel each other out.”
“Are you saying I should just walk around wailing and weeping?”
“I’m saying,” she said, “that it’s better to be real than fake.”
I could have argued with her. But I had a feeling I’d lose.
Dr. Nicole went on. “It might help people to know what’s going on with you. It might help them help you.”
“Have you met people?” I asked. “People don’t help other people.”
Dr. Nicole let that land for a second. Then she said, “I can think of a few teachers, firefighters, nurses, loving parents, and Good Samaritans who might disagree with you.”