by Luba Palter, MFT

In her new book, Happily, Sabrina Orah Mark recalls the idea proposed by poet Lucie Brock-Broido that each self keeps a secret self which cannot speak when spoken to. Mark professes that she has been teaching her secret self to speak. I devoured Mark’s new book as if my life depended on it. Maybe it does.

I first learned of Mark through her column in The Paris Review – also entitled Happily – during the thick of the pandemic. I hungrily proceeded to read every one of her entries numerous times over. I felt they were breathing air into me during a listless period. Her strange, dreamlike essays connected me to something primal, dynamic, vital, and forgotten inside of me. I remember wishing her columns would be published in a book. I would have this book on my nightstand where I display special keepsakes from friends and loved ones. I would read these prayers/incantations and they would whisk me away into sleep. And in my dreams, I would hear and speak the language of forgotten selves. That was my fantasy. But maybe it was not such a fantasy after all.

Aren’t we (therapists) also trying to teach our secret selves to speak? Aren’t we trying to speak to our patients’ secret selves? Aren’t we hoping our patients’ secret selves will speak to us? If I heard Mark’s secret self, perhaps I could hear my own. I hoped she unlocked the secret code. With this code, I would come to my patients’ secret selves. I would hear their whispers, longings, cries, fears, and desires. Alas, there’s no magic! No secret codes! But, there is being with. And pondering. And reflecting. And feeling. And consulting. Here is what this month’s being with brought me:

You sit on the edge of life 

Watching

Painfully nursing your broken bones and heart

What will it take to enter the room?

Zoom has made it easy to disconnect

A literal glass between two psyches, bodies, and hearts

You search for me everywhere

Mostly in the middle of the night

When the voices are loud with their needs and demands

You shut them out by stuffing your mouth with whatever meets your eyes in the kitchen

I am nowhere to be found

You are alone

A familiar childhood story

No adults are around

And you are hungry

Your heart is hungry, your ears, your fingers, and toes are hungry too

And you are scared

Some nights you are terrorized in your sleep

Your mind is writing stories

Stories of loss and desperation

The shadow people of your mind scurry to the corners of your head

Screaming, shouting, crying in a language you do not speak

You come to me hoping I will hear them; terrified of what they might say

Terrified I will not understand them