For a little over three years, spanning from August of 2005 to August 2008, I spent one hour a week – sometimes Thursday afternoons, sometimes Tuesdays, and for a brief period on Wednesdays – sitting in an office with dim lighting and half-closed blinds trying to figure out what was wrong with me. When I started going to these sessions, I was in an awful place in my life in which my then live-in girlfriend had moved out (ostensibly in an effort to save the relationship), who then subsequently left the relationship for good a few weeks later. I had spent the better part of my previous 10 years nightly carrying out a love affair with alcohol, and whereas I had tempered these wicked ways a bit in the previous couple of years, my anger and frustration with myself would still boil over from time to time – whether drunk or sober. During those three years of weekly meetings I would come to realize that I was in, and had likely been in, a deep depression that extended back into my teen years.
The man that I talked to (and I mean “to”, like when a pitcher throws a ball to the catcher, because our sessions were 95% one-way) in those sessions was Stephen O’Hagan. I would come in most of the time thinking I had nothing to say, pretending that everything was okay, only to leave an hour later realizing my tongue was tired, and most times feeling much more levity than when I entered, all at the expense of tear-stained cheeks. Steve didn’t speak much, but when he did his words were well chosen and had the air of a Zen koan to them. He knew from training and experience that there was little that he could figure out for me, but he would try to clear the path so that I might have moments of discovery myself: self-help authors and cynical critics of psychoanalysis call these holy grails “breakthrough moments.”
I don’t know that I ever had a “breakthrough moment” during any of our sessions. It has taken the passage of time, the looking at where I was and where I am, to realize what happened during those weekly hours spent with Steve. When our sessions had to end in August of this year because of his declining health, I wasn’t sure what would happen with me. He told me, “at the end of therapy, and especially at the unnatural conclusion of therapy like this situation… many people will feel as if they are relapsing… this is natural and is linked to your desire to continue therapy, it is temporary, and should be expected.” I asked him what was next for him and he described a new approach to medication and treatment that his doctors were going to try, and that they had reason to hope it would be effective.
Steve died two weeks ago Friday. He was 63 years old. When I heard I felt as if I had lost a good friend; a good father-figure friend. It’s funny to feel that way to a man who I knew so little about. Toward the end of our sessions, he moved his office into his house and I saw photos of what I believed to be sons and daughters. I occasionally saw toys around that seemed to indicate a possible grandchild or two. There was a couple of plaques with Irish proverbs hanging on the wall. There was a friendly cat, and I believe one that was too scared for its friendliness to be discerned.
The most of what I know about Steve is what I read in the obituary in the paper. He was a lover of sailing and the sea, and indeed, he was a lover of Ireland and all things Irish. He was born in Queens, got his PhD in Florida and had three children and, indeed again, a grandchild.
I feel it’s selfish just to write about me and my limited knowledge of Steve here. It should be obvious at this point that I truly knew little about him on my own. I have to write this from a selfish point of view, however, as I feel that he knew better in many ways than anyone else ever has. That’s just the way therapy works. You go in , pay your fee, and talk, not to be judged, but to be led to a new level of understanding, self-sufficiency, self-worth, etc. etc. etc. – and you tell things that you feel you can’t and shouldn’t tell anyone else, and those are the things that, through telling and coming to understand, usually spring you forward.
I know that the depression I have largely overcome now could not have been overcome without therapy, and I doubt it would have been overcome as effectively or expeditiously if that therapy had not been with Steve. To know that he is gone from this world does not seem right, much less possible. I may have never seen him again, but my world was much more comfortable knowing he was a part of it. It will take getting used to him not being part of it, if indeed he is not – if indeed he is gone.
Recent Comments