the shrink option

There are several ways people deal with personal crises. My friend Genghis Plan resolves them grimly and determinedly, as if dilemmas were mere entire civilisations which needed conquering. On the other hand, Heidelberg and Vanderbilt, former officemates, regard narcotics as their primary option. On yet another hand–which makes that three hands, in which case I’m a mutant–I know yet other people who rely on other people, mainly shrinks, to solve problems for them.

I have been thinking about the shrink option for quite a while now. For someone who had always tried to keep to himself his greatest doubts, this is quite a development, and perhaps this only shows how hopeless urgent my situation is–which is correct in ways more than one, because there is so much at stake, at least for the next ten, fifteen years.

Movies tell us that stories involving shrinks spell danger. In Prime (2005), Meryl Streep is ruinously meddlesome. In Gothika (2004), the doctors are either incompetent or mad. In Silence of the Lambs (1990), Anthony Hopkins is a cannibalistic psychopath. In the German classic Das Kabinett des Doktor Caligari (1919), patients are hypnotised to carry out a few murders here and there.

Luckily, my life lacks the cinematic plot necessary for such stories. This is why I have given the shrink option a lot of thought lately. How do I find one? How much do they charge? How long is each session? Do I want to see a shrink because I genuinely want to be told what to do? Or do I seek professional advice just so I could easily reject it? Will it bother me if the shrink is… attractive?

Too many things to consider. So little time left. Honestly, I think it is highly probable that I will end up doing nothing about this pickle that I’m in. I am lazy. All I do is fantasise think. It wouldn’t be the first time I thought and wrote and thought until it is too late. It is what my shrink in the future would possibly call a chronic–and incurable–“disorder.”