Chapter Text
Doctor Thompson had been a therapist long enough to know that her first impressions of a new client were often misguided. She also knew that it was impossible to avoid forming initial impressions; they were a natural part of human nature after all, and she had long since realised the futility of battling against her human instincts.
Her first impressions of Mr Azira Phale had been formed on the basis of his name. She had anticipated a man with an edge to him, something dark or mysterious to warrant the peculiar name. She had assumed it was a chosen name, and expected to encounter a brooding man, wearing all black- the kind of client who would wear dark glasses to their sessions to avoid eye contact. Instead, as Azira entered for his 9AM session, she was greeted by a wide-eyed, bespoke-suited, kindly looking man.
"Good morning!" he greeted her, beaming. "Thank you so much for squeezing me in at such short notice."
It had been short notice. She'd been surprised to find herself accepting the appointment yesterday- forty years of work and a well-respected practice meant that she rarely had slots available at short notice, but by strange coincidence, she had found a slot open in her calendar at just the time Azira had requested a first session and had accepted almost instinctually without thinking too hard about it.
"I'm glad to meet you" she heard herself say. She gave her regular 'first session' spiel, mostly outlining the confidentiality agreement and professional boundaries he had agreed to in the paperwork she'd had him sign over email, and explaining that they would spend their first session discussing what he was hoping to achieve from therapy so they could both decide whether they could work together to do this. Azira smiled and nodded as she spoke, looking as if he had recently attended a seminar on "active listening" and was determined to show off his newfound skills. She added the phrase "people-pleaser?" to her rapidly-changing first impression of her new client.
"Could you start by outlining what made you decide to come to therapy?" she asked.
"Certainly!" he replied emphatically, and then came a pause as he seemed to realise that this was harder than it might seem. "I suppose... I've started a new job recently. Or rather, I've returned to an old job and been promoted. And I'm starting to wonder whether it was... the extent to which it was... the right decision."
She nodded, and waited for him to go on, sensing that if she let the silence sit for a moment he would continue.
"I suppose I'm unsure whether I fully, that is to say whether I- believe in what my, ah, company stands for anymore. I thought perhaps I could make it better, but I'm starting to doubt whether anyone can. And I've found myself sort of... crying quite a lot, when I haven't intended to."
She let the silence hang in the air for another beat, until he looked at her, almost pleadingly, and she understood that he needed her to say something.
"It sounds like your work seems at conflict with your values, despite your hope that you could make a positive difference . That must be a source of conflict, and I'd imagine it's painful," she said, to reaffirm his feelings more than anything else. "Crying is a normal, healthy response to stress or pain. Can you tell me about some examples of times you've found yourself crying recently? Does anything in particular trigger the crying?"
He swallowed. "Last week, I cried while putting on my suit. And then again when I walked past my old... place of work- a bookshop. And again when my employer spoke to me sharply. And most nights when I get into bed. And yesterday morning-" his eyes welled up again now- "I cried at nothing at all, I just felt tears coming and I couldn't... stop- oh, I'm sorry!"
He reached for a tissue from the box on her desk and dabbed his eyes. Doctor Thompson considered the likelihood of his being ashamed of these tears. On the one hand, he was a middle-aged man, only ten or so years younger than her, and Gen-X expectations of masculinity were a prison. On the other hand, he seemed readily vulnerable, not guarded or defensive in the way that many of her male clients were, and his blonde hair and fine suit did not scream "trapped by patriarchal expectations".
She decided to probe a little. "You do not need to apologise for crying here. I guess I'm curious about your old job. Can you tell me what that was like, working in a bookshop?"
Azira sniffled violently. "It was wonderful. It was calm and... I had a marvellous collection and there was...". He trailed off. "Of course, even then, I was under some pressure from my... current employers. I've always been on their, ah, radar."
The words "cult?" and "mafia?" nudged Doctor Thompson's mind, and she added them to her web of first impressions for consideration later on.
"And what made you decide to return to your old job?" she asked gently.
"I think a part of me always felt- running the bookshop- that I was doing something wrong? That I should have stayed with... my employer" he offered after a pause.
"Did you feel guilt?"
"Yes. And shame. And I wanted to be absolved."
Religious language teetered the cult/mafia swing in the direction of cult, and Doctor Thompson wondered whether he had chosen to speak to her based on her experience at helping clients overcome religious trauma. This did not necessarily conflict with the other assumption she had made upon meeting him, her other specialism that may have led him to seek her out.
Instead of saying any of this, she offered him a sad smile. "Feeling guilty all of the time can be exhausting." she said. "Did returning to your... employer... feel like it would make everything easier?"
"Yes." he croaked.
"And it didn't work?"
"No" he said and his face crumpled as he began to cry again. "It made everything more complicated, and I feel even more ashamed of myself, and I don't even have- I lost my- I lost my friend!"
She let him cry it out this time, his arms wrapped around his own shoulders in an attempt to self-soothe.
"I'm sorry" he sniffed, when he was done. "I can't believe I was such a fool... I can't believe I went back. I've ruined everything! I'm still letting them control me after... thousands of years!"
She chose to assume that this was hyperbole, but related to the sentiment behind it. "I've worked with a lot of clients who repeatedly 'went back' to abusive families or partners, or highly controlling groups," she said gently. "Often society blames them for this, or sees them as weak."
"They're not weak" Azira said defensively, and she shot him a quick smile.
"You're right, they're not. It can be... appealing, given how uncertain so much of our lives are, to want to believe that someone else has the answers. And many people feel loyalty towards the groups or individuals who controlled them, so much so that it feels impossible to cut them off completely. When things are uncertain, maybe especially if you're dealing with the exhausting feelings of guilt and the complications of trying to live independently, lots of people find themselves returning to those that controlled them. Often it's where they feel most safe."
Azira was staring through her, not at her, eyes fixated on a spot above her shoulder and tears streaming down his face. She waited to see if he would respond. He didn't.
"We're coming to the end of our session" she said softly after a few minutes of silence. "Would you like to meet again at the same time next week?"
~
She met with Azira once a week for the following month. He continued to be exceedingly polite, to smile widely at her when he came in, and to thank her profusely at the end of each setting. There was, as there often is, an extent to which his people-pleasing instincts got in the way of therapy. After the first session, his initial vulnerability was clouded by an attempt to show her that she was helping- he would respond almost performatively to her words, as if desperate to make her feel that they were profound.
Earlier in her career, she may have been tempted to take this at face value and believe she really was making a huge difference, but, on week four when he exclaimed "Gosh! What a helpful way of thinking about it!" she stepped in.
"You know, I don't expect anything I say to make all the difference," she said neutrally. "And there's no expectation on you to start feeling better immediately. This process takes a lot of time, it doesn't always feel good, and it's likely to be what YOU say in these sessions that makes a difference to you, not what I say."
"Oh," he replied. "Ah."
"I've noticed... that we've been speaking a lot about your work at the moment, but we haven't returned to the topic of your past, or the reasons why you felt you had to go back to your current employer" she said, treading carefully. He'd certainly been sticking to "safer" topics- since their first session where he'd clearly had a lot of pent up emotion that he'd released without much control, he had stuck to talking in vague terms about his current employment, rarely showing emotion and never, she suspected, telling the whole truth.
"Do we have to?"
"Not until you're ready to. But yes, eventually, I think we do."
He nodded. "Where would we... start?"
"You mentioned something in our first session that I've been thinking about, something about losing a friend?"
"Not there." His voice was a whisper. She let the silence hang for a moment to see if he'd expand on that, and when he didn't she moved on.
"Okay, that's okay. What about before that? Can you tell me about your earliest involvement with your employer?"
Another silence. Then, a rueful smile. "I suppose I've always been involved with them. I never knew any different. For a long time, all I wanted was to fulfil their expectations of me."
The "employer" was certainly not just an employer then. Doctor Thompson considered saying so, but Azira always balked at any direct questions about the employer. There was clearly some trauma there, and she didn't want to push it before he was ready. "So, would you say that you were raised with these expectations? From birth?"
He smiled again. "Yes I suppose you could say so. And at the time they seemed entirely benevolent. I never questioned anything. I loved..." he trailed off, and stared determinedly at his hands.
"You were a child, and they were your whole world, your protection" she said gently. "It makes sense that they appeared benevolent. It makes sense if you never questioned anything. It makes sense-" and here, her voice caught, after all of these years, without her meaning for it to. "It makes sense if you loved them, and if a part of you still does"
"I do" he admitted in a whisper. "And they made me do awful things."
She waited, and after a moment he continued.
"I stood by when they hurt people," he said quietly. "I tried to help, where I could, but I let them hurt people. I did nothing to stop the flood, I let them torture Job- I would have let his children die if Crowley hadn't-" he cut himself off there, and Doctor Johnson looked at him closely. She was fairly certain he was making use of Biblical allegory, but even so...
"Azira, if you believe that anyone is at risk, or if there is anything the police should know-"
"No," he said, quickly but sincerely. "You don't need to worry about that."
She believed him, but was slightly uncertain as to why. "I've noticed you use a lot of religious allusion," she observed. "Does... the organisation... have religious roots?"
He huffed out a laugh, which sounded almost bitter. "Yes."
"And this added to the guilt and shame when you were independent from it?"
"Of course. It should be about love, of course, but the love from... those people often goes hand in hand with guilt and shame."
She knew that all too well of course, not only from her forty years as a therapist specialising in religious trauma but from her own Catholic upbringing.
"Where does that shame come from? A religious text? Church? Your family?"
"More complex than that, I'm afraid" he sighed. She nodded in understanding. "I mean, yes. All of the above. The Old Testament, certainly."
"Why don't we start there?"