Dr. Lawrence is sitting in her black leather chair as I enter her office. Her notepad in hand, it appears that she's very ready to start this session. I'm not, not at all. She wants me to talk to her about my past. Even though it's one of the reasons why I even started going to therapy in the first place, I'm still not wanting to dive deeply into it. My experiences have always just been my own; there has been very little that has been shared with other people. So to have a stranger listen to my experiences and begin to dissect them is kind of a scary concept for me. But I know it has to be done.
"Good morning, Amelia, lovely to see you again," she greets me warmly as I place my backpack on the floor beside me and put my phone on silent mode.
"You too," I reply. She starts to write stuff down already, oh god, have I already said something wrong?
"So where were we last time," she mutters to herself as she flicks through a couple of pages of notes. "Ah, we were going to talk a little bit about your childhood, is that right?" She directs her attention back up to me. I mean, she has the notes; surely she remembers?
"Yeah, that's right," I nod and place my hands on my lap.
"So let's just jump right in. What were your early years like?" Her pen is poised and ready in her hand.
"Well, they were okay at first; it was just my mum and my dad and me. We didn't have a lot of money, so that was always a struggle, but we made it through. Eventually, my dad lost his job when I was 5, and my mum was a stay-at-home mum, so we had to live out of our car for a while." I begin to speak quite timidly. I remember telling this story to Rhode, well to everyone at the table during the first charity dinner he took me to. It seems like a million years ago now.
"And how long did that last?"