ME:
“How did Mo respond?”
RAY:
“Oh, I didn’t actually say that last part out loud, about him writing me off. Or, I don’t think I did. I mean, if I said it, I don’t remember what he…”
Ray’s sudden forgetfulness seemed strange enough to merit further exploration.
Yet I was determined not to brake at all if possible.
In light of my efforts last time to discern the proper role of measured efficiency, I had arrived at a fairly familiar conclusive imperative: to make no attempts at controlling the conversation at all, while likewise always remaining ready to delve immediately into whichever sets of seemingly impossible surplus details I find myself and my Method faced with.
In Ray’s case, efficiency means avoiding opportunities to sink from his first, natural, instinctual responses down into safety nets of too much tangential deflection.
Essentially, I had been brought once more to the single lesson I seem forced, time and time again, to have to learn on ever deeper levels: that my Method yields truth in unearthing connections impossible for me to predict or initiate.
As degrees of skepticism and negativity are invalidated by the reality of successful case upon case, I find myself increasingly adept at releasing all frantic designs for any specific session outcomes or timeframes.
It is indeed freeing to consider that Ray’s Sticking or Breaking Point could come from practically anywhere.
ME:
“In what ways did you feel Mo might have written you off?”
RAY:
“He didn’t. That’s what I—”
ME:
“Or Darren then.
“Any of them.”
RAY:
“Well, I think I know how I . . . how I must have come across. Actually, it’s kind of like this dream I have a lot.
“No, you don’t have to write this part down.
“I’m just . . . just trying to think of a way to… Okay, so in the dream, there are all these demons, right? Thousands of them. They look like shadows, or insects, or just vicious . . . like, dark, ugly things. But for some reason they’re never really that scary when I see them, even though I know they should be. And it always goes the same way. I feel the demons floating in and through my body all at once, overtaking me. It’s easy for them. I’m like their floppy doll or something when it happens. But, actually, it feels kind of . . . good . . . like being caught and pulled around and, y’know, thrown down by waves at the beach. It’s like it’s supposed to… I mean, I have no control. But I’m never afraid when it happens. I kind of think that’s how Mo and Darren, and all the rest, see me . . . as someone loose and easily overtaken by things.”
I was immensely encouraged to hear Ray’s explanation of his demon dream.
Why?
Backing up a little, I have found that my first reaction now whenever Ray shares new pieces of his Outlier visions is a mix of apprehension and distaste.
I am angered by the notion of one such as him wasting my most valuable resource: time.
Yet then whenever I read back through my notes on previous sessions, I unlock ever deeper layers of his real perspective and feelings.
Notice in this instance how Ray bypassed the need for more reflection later by mapping his own dream to its interpretation—that it relates to how he believes he is perceived by others as being “loose and easily overtaken.”
ME:
“People see you as overtaken by what?
“Not really demons, right?”
RAY:
“I think that’s how everyone sees me . . . like I’m just overtaken by lies and crazy.”
My hand twitched and flew across the open page of my notebook, scribbling feverishly.
I had to force myself to slow my jottings down only to keep from being overly obvious.
Ray had just provided me with actual answers to a sequence of direct questions about his real experience; I consider that a breakthrough in itself as well as confirmation of three key aspects of progress: I have earned Ray’s trust, we are moving in a good direction, and he is beginning to feel our headway for himself.
ME:
“So, what would you say to Mo if you could tell him anything?
“Imagine it’s Mo sitting across from you instead of me.
“But take your time.
“Just try to speak as freely as you can, whenever you’re ready.”
RAY (speaking to Mo):
“Well, don’t you think it would make someone look crazy if they had to lie all the time? I mean, yes, I’m in this . . . weakened state. It’s true. And that’s what you’re responding to . . . I think. Um… But there’s . . . there’s more to it. There’s a reason. It’s not your fault, and it’s okay you don’t see. I just have to… I wish I could…”
I leapt in my notes—more covertly this time—to target Ray’s most crucial implication, writing:
Ray believes he always has to lie.
Perhaps the most strikingly obvious explanation is that, having never quite seen eye to eye with his peers growing up in the church, Ray came to equate honest expression of his thoughts with rejection—with being written off.
I have already noted the great importance he places on admitting that which he does not and cannot know.
How frustrating would it be to highly value truth and honesty, yet see lies and duplicity as a necessary way of life?
Would an overwhelming and unbearable constant felt need to deceive, ingrained from an early age, not likely lead to imperceptible crossings and blurrings of the lines between true inner beliefs and false outer portrayals to the world?
In other words, could Ray have grown accustomed to deceiving himself, along with everyone else, without realizing?
Yet I must make abundantly clear that this is all still only conjecture on my part.
In the early days of my career, I would have pushed hard for the sake of my own reasoning to tie Ray’s stated inclination to deceive others back to any detected self-deception, making that particular bleed-over my piece of yarn to pull and unravel so as to quickly cultivate a tidy Sticking or Breaking Point.
Even now, I feel a giddy sense of warm delight all but erupting within as I ponder the perfect sense of completion such a forced connection could evoke—no doubt snapping Ray awake from his fantasies while simultaneously enabling him to see more (with greater clarity) of the truths those fantasies represent.
Yet regardless of the source and direction of Ray’s lies—whether lying only to others, or also to himself, and for whatever purpose—my goal is to keep homing in on traces of those repressed assessments of worth hidden beneath and behind each word picture he puts forth.
ME:
“It seems as though you find Mo’s opinion particularly relevant.
“Would you ever actually ask him if and why he might have considered writing you off?
“Do you think he would give a truthful answer?”
Suddenly, I watched Ray stumble again from his air of stoic distance back to the anxious, awkward personality, dropping instantly as before from spacey and calm to jumpy and perplexed.
His eyes once more darted from point to point around my office like distressed twin hummingbirds on alert.
RAY:
“Yes… I… I’d want to ask him.”
ME:
“You said Mo is responding to your weakened state.
“What did you mean by ‘weakened state’?
“Why are you in a weakened—?”
But Ray blurted out his unsteady answer even before I had finished the question.
RAY:
“Well, the danger is that… I mean, I might have . . . have lied and acted different in front of people so many times that I . . . that now I believe my own lies and . . . and y’know, I’m really . . . crazy. Is that… Oh my… Is that why I’m meeting with you? Am I really . . . crazy?!”
I fought to conceal my shock.
Ray had basically raced beyond the workings of my Method to touch on the very conclusion I had already been rolling around.
It was as if we had vaulted forward in time to just after his Sticking or Breaking Point, entirely circumventing the usual, gradual process leading up to one.
Yet due to my decades of extensive experience, combined with the severity of Ray’s mounting bewilderment, I knew to resist my first urge to compound his conclusion about self-deception with the soundness of my own reasoned suspicions.
I would instead respond in such a way as to diffuse Ray’s jittery panic, while still tipping him slightly further off balance, not allowing him to collapse back to anything that might aid in delusion or wishful thinking rather than the useful discomfort of unsullied self-awareness.
I love my Method.
I love my job.
ME:
“Let’s say that ‘crazy’ does not exist.
“But if there was a lie, what would it be?
“What do you have to lie to Mo and anyone else about?
“Why?”
Ray’s face went blank.
His eyes froze from their pinging and seemed to focus in on some point that began just behind my head.
I watched him re-enter whatever hypnosis he had momentarily slipped from, both shifts occurring within mere moments.
All signs of anxiety were gone; he had switched completely back.
I was looking again at the other Ray.
After a quick glance from left to right, he spoke.
RAY:
“What a bitter irony! I feel it . . . so strong! Why…? Why do I have to…? I mean, yeah, I see The Lie with Mo and me. It’s hidden there in the fog. But, I mean, that’s why… This one’s . . . different. It’s actually the same color as the fog, so it’s really hard to see.
“I guess, it’s like, maybe the most powerful lies aren’t from trying to, y’know . . . to lie to someone. Maybe they’re from really wanting, but . . . but fearing . . . the truth…? I think that’s why this Lie looks the same as the fog . . . because of fear. But that’s also why it’s so hard to…”
He sighed.
RAY:
“It’s no one’s fault. I . . . I only see The Lie because it’s shimmering with this, sort of, chaotic blend of . . . like, back and forth between . . . fear and innocence. And the fear is that same one we talked about . . . y’know, the one that’s really unneeded, and… It’s just a wrong way to… But that’s what I keep saying. That’s what’s no one’s fault. The Lie wouldn’t be there if not for that fear, but… If it wasn’t for the fog…”
Ray’s eyes widened.
They widened too far.
His body seemed to grow rigid like a dried-out tree.
I was worried he might slip from his trance to an actual anxiety attack.
I decided my best tactic would be to keep him talking.
ME:
“Tell me more about the lie.
“Who told the lie, you or Mo?”
Ray looked up and lurched, startled, as if seeing me for the first time.
His face swam again with restless panic.
Yet the panic ceased quickly like a burst of fragrance disappearing off into the air.
His gaze fell once more aloof and still.
RAY:
“Well, I lied all the time about what I was doing after work. I had to. I had to . . . to always lie to everyone about that. But The Lie I see between Mo and me goes much deeper than . . . than just me being crazy because I had to pretend all the time or whatever. Or I hope it does. But all I can do is… Again, The Lie comes from that same fear that’s deep in the . . . the fabric . . . the foundation of everything that makes The City and Church what they are. It’s the culture. It’s that fear that convinces everyone on every level New Cannibalism is the best way things could be . . . the only way . . . which just means someone always has to end up getting sacrificed to pay for…”
ME:
“Well, why don’t you start at the beginning.
“But I want you to tell me, specifically, about only the real lie you see.”
Even if Ray was unknowingly attempting to deflect attention away from his own self-lies, I do not believe his show of emotion and confusion were at all false or manufactured.
I will make it a point to eventually bring him back to whatever it was he felt the need to lie about “doing after work.”
Yet I take the way Ray now seemed to be so rapidly and uncontrollably crashing back and forth between his two dispositions as more confirmation that we are headed in a good direction.
I don't know anything 