School Counselors and Shrinks

With some 50% of all psychologists specializing in either the Clinical or Counseling divisions, it is no small wonder that before my eighteenth birthday I had already had intimate dealings with both. By the time I entered high school, my mother’s depression had snowballed into full-blown schizophrenia. It was then that I was introduced to the world of Clinical psychologists. They were now at work trying to figure out what was causing her mental illness. Was it related to her Thyroid operation? Was it related to the grapefruit-sized tumor removed from the base of her skull? Was it due to her husband’s constant verbal and emotional abuse? Was it heredity, seeing that both her mother and eldest son were mentally ill? Sadly, thirty years later, the cause of my mother’s illness remains a mystery. While I was attending high school, my mother was turned over to the wonderful world of psychiatry, complete with its barbaric shock-treatments and mind-numbing drugs.
For an adolescent like me, this was emotionally overwhelming. I began to hate my father, blaming him for my mom’s condition. I thus began rebelling against his authority, and then all authority. I started drinking alcohol, doing drugs, and fighting (not necessarily in that order). My grades reflected my attitude, and I started getting into serious trouble in school. It was then that I was introduced to a Counseling psychologist at my high school. It was in her office that my tears poured out, and it was there that I voiced my anguish and unloaded my burdens. The counselor’s advice now seems trite and elementary to me. To a dysfunctional, fifteen year old kid, however, her counsel struck a deep chord, and made a world of difference. I was convinced that I needed to keep separate the things going on at home and the things in my own life. I learned that my mother’s problems, my father’s problems, and my brother’s problems were not my problems. I had to go on and work toward my goals without letting my family issues impede my progress. My goal ever since has been to protect my own sanity. Years later, I sought the help of a different counseling psychologist to help me deal with the loss of my father. Those sessions were short-lived, however, because I never truly felt comfortable with that particular psychologist.