Done Adulting Vol. 1 Ch. 84

“So, Jamie, tell me about what’s been going on since I last saw you,” Dr. Mary said.

Jamie caught her up. He missed a session because he was sick, but then they went a couple weeks while she was on vacation. He told her about Mel, about his questions about why littles were treated differently, and his sudden needle phobia.

“Let’s talk about the needles first,” she said. “You weren’t scared of them before you came here?”

“No. It’s just that they hurt so much more here. But they look exactly the same.”

“Well, maybe you’re not the same.”

“What does that have to do with how much they hurt?”

“Think back to the first time you had a shot here. What was that like?”

“Horrible! The nurse and the doctor treated me like I wasn’t even there, and then she stabbed me.” A tad dramatic, but not inaccurate.

“Then what happened?”

“Mom and Manda hugged me.”

“Did you like that part?”

“I was embarrassed. Crying over a shot is stupid.”

“Why is that?”

“Because it doesn’t hurt that much.”

“But that one did. What happened later?”

“I got a lecture on not being rude to people who are rude to me ... And Amanda told me it was okay to cry because it’s just another way of asking for help.”

“Do you believe that?”

“I guess. I mean, yes, but it’s still silly.”

“Maybe you needed to ask for help and didn’t know how.”

Jamie rolled his eyes. “That’s a little Freudian, isn’t it?”

“A little what?”

“Never mind.”

“I’m just saying, I don’t think your fear of needles is a big deal unless it bothers you a lot. You got the vaccinations you needed, and you learned a little lesson.”

“And the second time?”

“How did you feel after?”

“Tired. And it hurt.”

“Anything else?”

“Like what?”

“Like your mom said you were pretty clingy for the rest of the day.”

“I ... I got mad at her and said something I shouldn’t have, and I felt bad about it.”

“Is that the only reason,” Mary asked.

“I guess I also sorta liked the attention she was giving me.”

“Tell me more about that.”

“Well ... I don’t know. She was just being very sweet with me, and I ... Maybe I needed that sort of attention ... that day.”

“Just that day?”

“Not ‘just’ that day. But some days,” Jamie answered shyly, staring at ceiling from the sofa instead of looking at her. He’d become awfully honest with her after initially telling himself he needed to be careful with her. Realizing this, we immediately became less open as their conversation continued.

“How can you tell the difference between those days and other days?”

“I don’t. I just, ya know, sometimes want to be more ...” He trailed off.

“More ...” she asked.

“More little,” Jamie said, now feeling irritated, but he wasn’t sure at whom.

“Why did you have a hard time saying that?”

“Because I’m not.”

“Not what?”

“Regressed. I don’t need that kind of treatment.”

“Being little and being regressed aren’t the same thing though.”

“Yes, they are.”

“Well, I think being little is just emotionally being taken care of more than intensely, and sometimes that means much more. Being regressed is physically and emotionally needing that kind of care all the time because your faculties have been reduced.”

“Seems the same to me.” Even as he said it, he knew he was being churlish and didn’t believe his own words.

“I’m saying, Jamie, that you can be unregressed and as little as you feel like in the moment at the same time.” Mary was a little surprised to see how argumentative and opinionated Jamie was being. Being little didn’t have to be about needing; it could also be about wanting. Was Jamie so careful with letting his vulnerability show that he couldn’t even admit to himself that he wanted something?

Jamie didn’t respond to her. A couple things had been weighing on his mind that he didn’t feel comfortable discussing even with Amanda. The first was Mel. He didn’t understand why he felt so different around her, why he so easily slipped into such a little mindset around her, especially when she goaded him into it. That didn’t happen with anyone else. In fact, the opposite happened. If someone else tried to initiate that kind of interaction with him, he reflexively pushed back, sometimes harshly. If he initiated it, which he only did with Amanda and Mom, then it was different.

“How much did they tell you about me and Mel,” Jamie asked.

“That you willingly behave a lot littler around her.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s all. Do you want to add some detail?” Jamie wasn’t sure if he did. It seemed more private than anything else the two of them talked about.

“Well, I’m just ... She makes me ... She finds it cute, and I like it when she fusses over me.”

“Mom and Amanda fuss over you, too, though. What do you think makes Mel different?”

“That’s she’s not my mom or my sister ... I mean, neither are Becky and Amanda, technically, but, um, I guess I just feel differently about Mel.”

“Is she pretty?”

Jamie smiled. “Yes ... She has red hair.” Jamie couldn’t see Mary smile when he let that slip.

“Do you think this could just be a case of a young man doing things he wouldn’t otherwise do in order to get the attention of a pretty girl?”

It was obviously that, but Jamie felt it was also something more. It wasn’t just what he did but that he liked the dynamic they had. He didn’t feel foolish with her, Jamie’s default feeling whenever he had tried to get close to a woman. Moreover, Jamie wasn’t trying to get close to Mel as a woman. She was beautiful and kind and funny, but Jamie didn’t know her well. He didn’t know her beyond the narrow relationship he had with her and what he knew of her through Amanda. He certainly wasn’t in love with her, and while he admired her physically, he wasn’t exactly sexually attracted to her either. He couldn’t describe exactly what the attraction was.

Jamie replied a little uncertainly. “Yes, but ... It’s not just that I like making her feel the way she does with me. I like the way it feels for me too. It’s, um, I’m not sure of the word. Comforting?”

“And that bothers you?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe, I guess.” How’s that for a definitive answer, Jamie thought.

Mary knew there was more. She knew Jamie was the kind of person who could take any feeling and complicate it until he was completely at a loss, all the while having no clue he was doing it.

“Jamie, it will move things along in here a lot faster if you try to be a little more forthright and say what’s on your mind. I don’t think either one of us wants to feel like we’re pulling teeth in here.”

Jamie sighed in irritation. “This isn’t easy, ya know.”

“I know.”

“I ... Fine. When we were out together, I let her treat me much littler than I let Mom or Amanda do, and I liked it. Some woman said I was ‘infant-stage,’ and that didn’t bother me. And then after I fell asleep – Okay, after – I ... I apparently tried to ... nurse from her. There.”

“Okay. Did you feel pressured into doing any of that?”

“No. That’s the problem. I just wanted to, with her.” There was the crux of it, if not the whole of it. To Jamie, the wanting to behave that way was a problem.

“Do you ever feel that way with anybody else, Jamie?”

Fine, Jamie though, let’s be forthright. “Sometimes, with Mom and Amanda.”

“But you don’t think you ever behave that way with them. Ever?”

“Maybe a little, but never that much.”

“So what exactly is bothering you? That you behave that way with Mel and don’t want to; that you want to with your Mom and Amanda but don’t; that you do want to and don’t like wanting to ... Some other combination of all that?” Mary would have chuckled at all the possibilities, but she knew better than to laugh at something that was causing a patient distress.

“Yes,” Jamie said. All of the above. Probably some other stuff too.

“Can I tell you what I think,” Mary asked.

“Sure.”

“I think you’re afraid that if you let yourself behave that way with Mel, and admit it you like it, you’ll do it with other people, and maybe they’ll start to see and treat you differently, and maybe you’ll start to be different, that you won’t be yourself.”

She does have a way of cutting through the bullshit, Jamie admired silently. “That’s ... a good summary.”

“But isn’t it possible for you to behave one way with some people and at some times, and differently with other people and at other times, and it’s always your choice, and you’re always you?”

“I guess ... But what if other people start to treat me like that when I don’t want to be?”

“Like who?”

“Like ... Mom and Amanda, for one.”

“Do you think they’d ever do that?”

“Well, no. They wouldn’t.”

“I don’t think so either. We’ll pick this up again next week; our time is just about up. Do you want to send them in for me?”