You Again
Author's Note: I don't own these characters or this show. I also don't have any sort of psychology degree, so PLEASE don't take anything I say here as any form of psychological advice, though I've tried to make it as accurate as possible. Any credit for accuracies goes to my awesome abnormal psych instructor, any inaccuracies (and I assure you there are probably many) are purely my fault. Thanks for reading and please review. Once more, I'm NOT a clinician of any sort, so please don't take any of this as the least bit authoritative or anything of the sort.
Grace doesn't like getting new clients much. It means paperwork, mental status exams, and thinking up more synonyms for "said" and "reported" than she cares to know. It means hauling out the DSM and turning its pages until she can find something—a diagnosis or a V-code—that seems to fit. It means rule-outs and provosionals and a huge chance for error. But most of all, it means that she doesn't know what she'll be getting.
In theory, Grace treats everyone. She's treated people with cyclothymia, schizophrenia, OCD, borderline personality disorder, and a zillion different V-codes, just to name a few. In practice, however, she doesn't treat everyone. Because if you come to Dr. Grace Polk Polanski, PhD., and you fit into any category containing the word "substance," she'll send you away. Not rudely, for politeness can be taught, and not completely because she'll just refer a few doors over to another therapist, but she won't treat you. She won't tell you why, either because even though Grace is in a professional obsessed with talking, she still doesn't like to talk about herself. If you aren't her client, she'll tell you that some secrets are better off that way. Of course, if you are her client, she'll just keep that to herself, hypocrisy be damned.
Grace is shocked out of her quiet state of mind as she hears a knock on her office door. Grace loves her office, as neutral and "therapeutic container"-y as it is. Beyond the fact that it has really comfortable chairs, it also serves to remind Grace of her job, which in turn reminds her that, when compared to other people, she isn't that abnormal. And though she won't tell any of her clients this, either, she likes to remember that it really could have been worse.
"Dr. Polanski?" the receptionist says hesitantly, "your 10:30 is here."
The only thing Grace knows about her 10:30 is that it will be spent interviewing one "Joan Westlake."
"Send her in," Grace responds with a look somewhere between a grin and grimace. "Assessment" is a clinical term that might as well mean "look at everything," so it means being on the top of her game is important from the moment the client walks through the door.
The woman that walks through the door a moment later doesn't raise any immediate red flags, not that the counts for much, of course. She looks to be about Grace's age—early thirties. She's well-dressed in a khaki pants suit and is pretty without being stunning. She looks a bit nervous but not excessively so. Grace notes that she touches the door when she walks in---she's has some clients with OCD for whom that would been an unthinkable action—and she smiles a bit as she sees Grace. She seems, at first glance, quiet, calm, well-trained. Yet there is something unsettling about her, too, something that seems vaguely familiar to Grace, even though she's fairly certain she's never met a Westlake.
"Hello," Joan says quietly. "Dr. Polanski, right?"
Grace smiles in the warm but bland fashion they advise in clinical psychology, something neutral but still vaguely positive.
"Right," she says. "You understand that everything we speak about in here is strictly confidential?"
It's standard clinical, law-suit protection boilerplate, the thing Grace has to say before she even says "hello."
"That's what I've been told," Joan says, and Grace notes a hint of flighty, nervous laughter in her voice. It seems somehow out of place for a woman dressed in an expensive pants suit, and, as she does with everything, Grace makes a note about it, for she doesn't yet know what, if anything is abnormal about Joan Westlake.
After Grace goes through the standard intake questions—age (32), birth date, occupation (advertising executive), time and date (to check for orientation or lack there of—Joan passes), substance use (which Joan denies, except for the "occasional glass of wine"), etc.---she asks Joan what brought her in today.
Joan suddenly begins to stare intently at her hands and she speaks in voice so quiet Grace can barely hear her. Her voice fills with that same nervous laughter, and then she starts to speak.
"I had a friend way back in high school—actually we met when we were younger, but I didn't know it then… I didn't like him at first; he was always showing up everywhere, asking me to do stuff…. At first, I said "no;" I didn't trust him; he was weird. But when I listened, good things happened. Good ripples. And sometimes it was scary and sometimes, I just wanted to be alone, but when I was, I wasn't happy. I missed him so damn much, even when I said I didn't. He was there he was special and exotic, like a sea turtle…"
At that Joan laughs and smiles, though Grace swears there are tears in her eyes.
"That probably sounds crazy, doesn't it? A friend like a sea turtle?"
Grace, per professional training, doesn't say anything, just waits patiently for Joan to continue.
"And then one day, he just…left. Stopped showing up, stopped talking to me, just stopped being there, even though he said he would never leave. Guess he lied, right?"
She laughs again, even though she is now full-out sobbing. Grace should be making notes on this, but she's not. Because Grace has just caught a glimpse of Joan's eyes and saw in them, not a 32-year old advertising executive but a teenage girl. Maybe Grace needs some assessment herself because she would swear to the God she says she doesn't believe in that she is talking none to other than Joan Girardi.
Grace hasn't talked to Joan in 15 years, ever since the summer before senior year when everything inexplicably broke apart. There had been no fights, no arguments, no cruel words between her, Joan, Adam, Luke, and all the rest. It was weirder than that: schedules stopped intersecting, answering machines ate messages before they were ever heard, emails didn't send. It was as though the threads that had bound them together had been cut in one swift and decisive motion. Grace still thinks about them sometimes, even though she thinks she probably should have moved on by now, and from the looks of it, Girardi has moved on even less.
Joan is wiping her eyes on her sleeve now and apologizing profusely. Grace stares at her and steels herself.
"Girardi," she says with a soft firmness.
Joan looks up, shocked. Grace can see her studying her, eyes taking in her longer hair, her fancy slacks, and the fact that she is not wearing leather. Slowly and tentatively, she speaks.
"Grace… Polk?" she asks.
Even though she hasn't been called by that name in years, Grace smiles and nods and laughs. She's been trained not to laugh at clients because it never really goes over well, but at this moment she isn't sure if Joan is a client or friend. Heck, she isn't even sure of Joan's last name.
Joan's face lights up, and she smiles wide through her tears.
"Grace! Oh my God! I never thought I'd see you again!"
Grace grins despite herself. Classic Joan, she thinks.
"It's good to see you, Girardi."
Grace can see her face darken just a bit as the last word drops from her lips.
"I don't… I don't go by that name anymore. Too many memories," she says, once more staring intently at her hands in her lap.
Grace looks back at her, the therapist once again.
"Adam. Luke. Mom and Dad. Kevin. You. And him…"
The last part is said in a whisper so low Grace has to strain to hear it.
"Your friend?" she asks for clarification, her mind racing. Surely she couldn't be talking about Friedman?
Joan nods and stares more intently down at her hands then ever. Suddenly, she looks Grace straight in the eye.
"God," she says. "My friend was God."
In the world of clinical psychology, having a client claim that he or she sees God is hardly the strangest thing a clinician will encounter. Even Grace has personally heard things she would consider stranger, like the client with delusional disorder who swore backwards and forwards that the president's chief of staff were really all giraffes in elaborate costumes. Despite all that, Grace can't help but feel shocked at Joan's admission. It's one thing to hear this from a client as a professional clinician with a fancy degree and certain ability for detachment. It's a whole other thing to her this from someone you did chemistry labs with in tenth grade. A whole other person.
Yet this is still Grace Polanski's job.
"How long have you been seeing him?" she asks as professional as she can muster.
Time is a key factor in diagnosing disorders on the schizophrenic spectrum—1 day to 1 month might fit under "brief psychotic disorder," 1 month to 6 months and schizophreniform disorder comes in play, longer than that and schizophrenia can be a diagnosis. Grace tells herself this is why she is asking.
"Saw," Joan corrects. "I don't see him anymore; I miss him. I'm mourning him. I saw him all of sophomore year and most of junior year. He stopped coming around after that. He disappeared the summer before junior year, too, after I was diagnosed with Lyme's. He said it was test of faith… I probably sound crazy right now, don't I?"
Grace swallows her reflexive lecture on how someone "has a psychological a disorder," not that they "are crazy," and realizes that she may have an out.
"Have you had your blood checked for Lyme's?" she asks.
"Every three months the first year, every six months for two years after that, and every year now. It always comes back as dormant. And no, I never told them about seeing him."
Grace is caught between being relieved and being disappointed. As happy as she is that Joan is apparently physiologically fine, the fact that Joan "saw" and "talked to God" when there was no underlying medical cause throws a huge problem straight into Grace's lap. She can't do this; she can't assess, diagnose, or treat Joan Girardi. It's too close, too conflicted, and far too wrapped up in who she used to be.
"Joan," she starts, her voice as stern as she can manage, "I don't think I can be your therapist. I can't look at this without a huge amount of bias, and that'll keep me from looking at it properly. I'm going to refer you to Dr. Greenfield down the hall. He's very good…"
Joan interrupts her.
"I can't talk to him about God. I wasn't even going to talk to you about him, but I figured I'd lied to you long enough… Please, Grace, listen to me. I need to talk about him, mourn him, get over him. I can't do that with another Dr. Dan telling me about 'fractured perception.' I just can't. I'm so tired of looking for him everywhere, praying he'll show up. Please listen..."
And though she doesn't say it, Grace swears she could hear Joan's voice begging, Believe me.
Grace turns to her paper, trying to see a Westlake and not a Girardi in the words. The sadness sticks out at her. Co-morbid depression? she wonders. Bipolar? Schizoaffective? All those years she had joked about Girardi being "crazy," but what if she actually did have a disorder?
Grace can feel herself getting a headache. She sucks at this, and she knows it. She can't separate the Joan she used to know, the one who joined random clubs and dated Adam Rove, with the made-up, wealthy woman before her. It's like she's trying to assess two different people at the same time, and trying to assess one is difficult enough.
She doesn't want to be Joan's therapist; she wants to be Joan's friend. That's why, more than she ever has before, Grace wants a way out. She's had clients scream at her and clients tell her that there were ghouls haunting her office, but somehow this is worse than anything she could have imagined.
Grace lifts her head and looks at Joan who stares right back at her with sad, pleading eyes.
"I want to refer you to a friend of mine, a physician. If it's okay with you, I'd like to run tests, rule-out some medical conditions. It's nothing to invasive, just some blood tests."
Joan nods listlessly.
Grace pulls out a card and hands it to Joan who studies it critically.
"A psychiatrist?" she asks doubtfully.
"He's not Dr. Dan; trust me," Grace says and she can't help but smile a bit.
"And this?" Joan asks, gesturing around Grace's office.
"Make a follow-up appointment; we'll talk about the test results and then we'll see," Grace says as diplomatically as possibly because she really doesn't want to make Joan flip-out again.
"Thanks," Joan says and starts to stand.
"Thank you for your time," Grace responds. "We'll be in touch with you soon."
Just as Joan is about to leave, Grace gets an idea.
"Girardi," she calls, "wait."
Joan turns.
"Yeah?"
"Are you free for lunch Saturday? 12:30? At that new Italian bistro down by the park?"
Joan stares at her.
"Is this some new brand of psychology?"
Grace shakes her head. "No, just friends."
Joan smiles.
"I'd like that. See you, Polk."
She walks out and leaves Grace wondering what the hell she's doing.
A/N: I'm still not a psychologist! Don't trust me!