The Patient's Secret

by Loreth Anne White

It’s best not to resist the

change the “Death” tarot card brings. Resisting will make transition difficult. And painful. Instead one should let go, embrace the necessary change, see it as a fresh start. The Death card is a sign that you need to draw a line through the past in order to

move forward. It says: Release what no longer serves you. —Artist’s statement. Death...

As a therapist Lily knows

that trauma lives in one’s body and that the body keeps the score even if the mind has no narrative for what occurred. Even if the event is completely compartmentalized in the unconscious.

Her goal in life is to help others cope with mental adversity, to show that one does not have to be irreparably destroyed by horrific actions of the past. Her goal, hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, is to show, again and again, that a person can make a choice to change the narrative, to

overwrite the patterns of history. That a person does not have to be defined by the past. Or by genetics. People can change.

It’s her life calling. Her purpose. And everyone ...

As Carl Jung said, “People will do anything, no matter how absurd,

in order to avoid facing their own souls.”

nothing is more desirable than to be released from an affliction, it also holds true that nothing is more terrifying than to be divested of a crutch.

Normal is a construct. A story people tell themselves. It’s what everyone does—feigns some concept of normalcy. Stories people tell themselves are the only reality humans know. Tom is keenly aware of this. So is his therapist wife.

People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own souls.

People don’t live in nicely painted heritage homes in pretty neighborhoods. They don’t live in modern high-rise condos, or rustic cabins

in the woods, or homeless shelters under concrete bridges. People live in the six inches of real estate between their ears—in that three pounds of fat and protein that is the human brain. They live inside their heads. That’s where reality resides. That’s where every single human constructs an individual narrative of their life.

That’s where they tell themselves who they are, and what they can and can’t be. And no person’s reality can ever be the same as anyone else’s. The notion that there is one objective truth out there—that’s the biggest illusion of all....

and dark and primal. Everyone has them. And the more you watch someone, the more you begin to see how hard they are working to hi...

The human body is not terribly well designed to keep secrets. It creates incredible stress. It can be exhausting. It comes out as problematic behavior.

“We die as we live,” says Fareed,

reaching for a ruler. “Our mental and physical traumas, our pasts, daily habits, lusts, desires, fetishes, addictions—it’s all written into the body.”

“Our bodies keep score even if we don’t ourselves. Nothing left to hide once you’re up here on my table. Death is the great equalizer when it comes to alcohol, too. Whether cheap vodka or Dom Pérignon, it’s all ethanol. All toxic, and

the human body metabolizes it to exude the same sickly-sweet smell, privileged or poor.”

“We all need a mask in order to function. But wear the mask too long and we forget who really lives behind it. Right? We forget our authentic selves.”

Maybe that’s the problem—wearing a mask so long you are no longer aware you’re even wearing it.”

“Mother. Wife. I guess those are my main personas I present to the world.”

I have everything people say they want. Which means I also have everything to lose. And it’s like . . . I feel like this is this devil in me that is trying to lose it all. Because if I do lose it, if I am exposed, then I won’t have to try so hard to keep on my mask.”