The Silent Patient

by Alex Michaelides

Once you name something, it stops you seeing the whole of it, or why it matters.

we study psychology to heal ourselves. Whether we are prepared to admit this or not is another question.

The development of our personalities doesn’t take place in isolation, but in relationship with others—we are shaped and completed by unseen, unremembered forces; namely, our parents.

Somehow grasping at vanishing snowflakes is like grasping at happiness: an act of possession that instantly gives way to nothing.

I didn’t want to die. Not yet; not when I hadn’t lived.

Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive, and will come forth later, in uglier ways.

I couldn’t stop thinking about the homeless man. Apart from pity, there was another feeling, unnameable somehow—a kind of fear. I pictured him as a baby in his mother’s arms. Did she ever imagine her baby would end up crazy, dirty and stinking, huddled on the pavement, muttering obscenities?

The truth is we’re all scared. We’re terrified of each other. I’m terrified of myself—and of my mother in me. Is her madness in my blood?

But the truth is he’s a deeply romantic man—in his heart if not his speech. Actions speak louder than words, don’t they?

I lost myself. I don’t miss those druggy partyers who passed for friends

I’ll love him no matter what he does, or what happens—no matter how much he upsets me—no matter how untidy or messy he is—how thoughtless, how selfish. I’ll take him just as he is. Until death do us part.

Initially all I felt was a little light on my feet. Like sex, clearly more fuss was made over marijuana than it merited.

It was like being drenched in an enormous wave of well-being. I felt safe, relaxed, totally at ease, silly and unself-conscious. That was it. Before long I was smoking weed every day. It became my best friend, my inspiration, my solace. An endless ritual of rolling, licking, lighting. I would get stoned just from the rustling of rolling papers and the anticipation of the warm, intoxicating high.

It could be genetic; it could be chemical; it could be psychological. But marijuana was doing something much more than soothing me: crucially, it altered the way I experienced my emotions; it cradled me and held me safe like a well-loved child. In other words, it contained me.

babyhood is not a time of bliss; it’s one of terror. As babies we are trapped in a strange, alien world, unable to see properly, constantly surprised

We need our mother to soothe our distress and make sense of our experience. As she does so, we slowly learn how to manage our physical and emotional states on our own.

Whatever marijuana did for me was still working, Ruth argued—until the day it would outlive its usefulness, when I would probably relinquish it with ease. Ruth was right. When I met Kathy and fell in love, marijuana faded into the background. I was naturally high on love, with no need to artificially induce a good mood. It helped that Kathy didn’t smoke it. Stoners, in her opinion, were weak willed and lazy and lived in slow motion—you pricked them and six days later they’d say, “Ouch.” I

once I was secure and happy, the habit fell away from me quite naturally, like dry caked mud from a boot.

I brought the joint to my lips and inhaled. Just like that, I was back where I had started, as if there had been no break. My addiction had been patiently waiting for me all this time, like a faithful dog.

From then on, I would get high occasionally, whenever I found myself alone in the flat for a few hours,

Time caught up with itself with a jolt. Suddenly I was no longer stoned. I was horribly, painfully sober.

so sturdy, now collapsed in seconds—like a house of cards in a gust of wind.

“I don’t know how to tell you. I don’t know where to start.” “How about the beginning?”

“Choosing a lover is a lot like choosing a therapist. We need to ask ourselves, is this someone who will be honest with me, listen to criticism, admit making mistakes, and not promise the impossible?”

“About love. About how we often mistake love for fireworks—for drama and dysfunction. But real love is very quiet, very still. It’s boring, if seen from the perspective of high drama. Love is deep and calm—and constant. I imagine you do give Kathy love—in the true sense of the word. Whether or not she is capable of giving it back to you is another question.”

“I don’t know if persistent sexual and emotional betrayal with another human being is on the same level as getting stoned every now and then. I think it points to a very different kind of individual—someone who is able to lie repeatedly and lie well, who can betray their partner without feeling any remorse—”

I think her behavior suggests she is quite damaged—lacking in empathy and integrity and just plain kindness—all the qualities you brim with.”

“Trying to please someone unpredictable, someone emotionally unavailable, uncaring, unkind—trying to keep them happy, win their love—is this not an old story, Theo? A familiar story?”

one of the hardest things to admit is that we weren’t loved when we needed it most. It’s a terrible feeling, the pain of not being loved.”

it was about my father, and my childhood feelings of abandonment; my grief for everything I never had and, in my heart, still believed I never would have.

Use this as another confirmation of how unworthy you are—or break with the past. Free yourself from endlessly repeating it.”

“You’ve come too far and worked too hard to return to a life of dishonesty and denial and emotional abuse. You deserve someone who treats you better, much better—”

Remember, love that doesn’t include honesty doesn’t deserve to be called love.”

a leading psychiatrist in the field of sexual abuse once told me she had, in thirty years of extensive work with pedophiles, never met one who hadn’t himself been abused as a child.

“A baby cannot hate the mother, without the mother first hating the baby.”

Was my recollection to be trusted? I’d been stoned out of my mind, after all—had I misunderstood what I had read?

I have many complicated feelings around going home, and being at the house, with Lydia and Paul. So I avoid going back—and I end up feeling guilty, so I can’t win either way.

If I’ve been a distraction all these years, you might have said something sooner.” “I’m saying something now.”

All expensive items, but crammed together like this, they looked like junk. Taken as a representation of Barbie’s mind, it suggested a disordered inner world, to say the least. It made me think of chaos, clutter, greed—insatiable hunger. I wondered what her childhood had been like.

The aim of therapy is not to correct the past, but to enable the patient to confront his own history, and to grieve over it.

surprise is all very well, but it is a momentary pleasure; whereas suspense can go on indefinitely.

she has no recourse other than silence, because no one will believe her story. I think a lot of people—particularly women—can relate to that.

We need to not only understand what happened to us when we were children but also what happened to our parents when they were children. Only by understanding can we forgive others—and ourselves.

I don’t care how many letters you have after your name or how many books you have written; if you know nothing about compassion or humility, then you have nothing to teach me.