After her client is left at the altar, Doctor Noelle Akopian doesn't have an easy job.

Okay — to be fair, it's not like she had an easy job before. Noelle has never laboured under the misconception that her profession would be easy.

Through two decades of clinical practice, she's learned all about the importance of setting boundaries, maintaining a professional distance, accepting that it is not her job to solve her clients' problems but to provide them with the tools to improve their own lives. Above all, if she wants to avoid burnout, she must not let herself be pulled into the cyclone of emotions in some clients' more turbulent lives. She has to let them make their own decisions, learn from their own mistakes if need be. And although she can offer advice and emotional support, it's not her place to judge.

Still, some cases make this more difficult than others. Sometimes, it takes every ounce of Noelle's willpower not to blurt out, "Can't you see the denial you're in?!"

Case in point: Rebecca Bunch.

The first few weeks after the wedding was supposed to take place, Rebecca is alternately grandiose and despondent. She takes her place in the seat across from Noelle, bouncy and animated as she talks in rambling, frenzied sentences about her successes at work and how much better off she is without Josh Chan, "that lying liar who lies, who said he would be with me forever and then cheated on me with God" (she waggles her fingers in sarcastic mysticism at the last word).

But other days — or even during the same appointment — Rebecca sits in haze of misery, answering Noelle in monosyllables, her eyes red and puffy, folded into herself like she's trying to disappear.

Noelle gets the story in bits and pieces. Rebecca kissing Nathanial, paying to move up the wedding, her father and then Josh's betrayal. Sometimes Rebecca doesn't want to tell the story. Other times she can't stop talking, roiling with rage or guilt, blaming Josh or herself or the world. She criticizes Josh viciously, but she's no kinder towards herself: "If only I hadn't been so stupid," "so crazy," "if only I'd planned it better, everything would have worked out."

"Would you have been happier if it had worked out?" Noelle asks her on two separate instances.

"Well duh!" says Rebecca the first time, wild-eyed and shaking with vehemence. Her arms whirl in wide, furious gestures, and she looks like she's about twenty seconds away from flailing into Noelle's favourite lamp and/or storming out of the office to find another (likely illegal, definitely self-destructive) coping mechanism to add to her repertoire. And while Noelle wants her client to "fully feel her feelings," this takes a backseat to keeping Rebecca out of jail (and preserving her lighting fixtures). So she changes the topic back to Rebecca's work.

The second time, Rebecca is more melancholy than angry. She sits with her shoulders slumped, head down, her whole being crumpled inward. "I should have seen the signs," she says quietly. "I should have been there for him, done more to make him love me. If I'd just tried harder... I should have been able to do this."

"Would you have been happier if you had?" Noelle asks once again, keeping her voice gentle.

Rebecca takes a moment to answer. When she does, the doctor has to lean forward to hear her. "I don't know. But I know I'm not happy now. I don't... I don't know who I am without him."

This time, Noelle knows she's telling the truth.

Rebecca has always had trouble holding onto a sense of who she is. She mimics movie characters, tries on personalities like outfits, changes like the weather of a much less temperate zone than West Covina. And the hardest part is that these identities aren't as simple as lying — Rebecca commits to the role, shapes her life around it.

All the roles Rebecca took on weren't so much about deception as they were about trying to find a sense of identity and belonging. She wanted to be loved. And in exchange for that love, she was willing to become anything, anyone. All the identities she'd taken on to please Josh, Robert, her friends, her family... they weren't a cover-up to hide her true sense of who she knews herself to be. They were the only way she knew how to be.

It's her pattern. Find what others want, and become that. Be loved at any cost.

She's been practicing for this all her life.

And yet, it doesn't work.

Despite her walk-in wardrobe of identities, the same traits emerge in Rebecca — her intensity, intelligence, off-beat sense of humour, enthusiasm, desire for meaningful connection. Not to mention her moodiness, insecurity, and self-loathing. Despite Rebecca's best efforts, all of her best and worst qualities eventually resurface. But rather than face herself, Rebecca simply finds another new identity to take refuge in.

But at the same time her personality is too strong to ever be fully erased. She swings between contradictory extremes, seeing the best in everyone, herself included, or the absolute worst. She's Mother Theresa Luther King (Noelle didn't ask what exactly that meant, but she got the gist) or a Disney villain. She makes her friends, partners, or even acquaintances the center of her universe, then changes her mind and forgets about them entirely. It's exhausting for everyone around her. And it's exhausting for Rebecca, too.

In her appointments after Josh's departure, Rebecca's many facets shine through. She is strong and capable and furious and hopeful and childish and vengeful and generous and reckless and ambitious and self-obsessed and self-destructive.

In short, she's the same as always. Only more so.

Noelle keeps a close eye on her. Even in Rebecca's confident moments, there's a fragility — her issues run deep. And even if Rebecca doesn't realize it herself, there's a pattern to them.

On the one hand, she isn't having panic attacks and drinking pen-vodka during office hours. Nor are she and Paula running off to commit various felonies (if it weren't for patient confidentiality, Noelle would have filed some serious complaints about this law firm's management style).

But that's not enough to prove she's doing well. In fact, Rebecca seems to have resorted to the workaholic lifestyle she'd lived before coming to West Covina. The very one that left her sleepless and miserable, medicated halfway to oblivion, and desperate enough to move across the country for a man she barely knew.

A few weeks ago, Rebecca's records had finally arrived. As Noelle read over doctors' notes and court reports, she'd been shaken. But not surprised.

She knows Rebecca. And she knows men like Robert. Despite his feigned naiveté, Noelle is willing to bet that he was drawn to Rebecca not despite but because of her instability. He wanted a fantasy — an ingénue, a femme fatale, a manic pixie dream girl. And Rebecca, who viewed her life as a movie, was always willing to play a role.

Especially if love was the prize for a good performance.

But, performance though it may have been, it wasn't a fantasy to her. She wasn't pretending to be impulsive, obsessive, to care about him above all else. When he said he would marry her, she believed it. Of course she believed it. She had been practicing all her life for a role like this. She was willing to give up all she had, and all she was, to be with him.

To him it was a fantasy. But to her it was a promise.

As time went on, Robert must have realized the stakes of the game he was playing. Being the center of her universe started to feel less like a power trip and more like responsibility — which is exactly what he'd gotten into this arrangement to avoid. Rebecca's disregard for consequences started to look less like a fun quirk and more like overt self-endangerment. Her intensity, once exhilarating, didn't turn off when it became embarrassing, or inconvenient, or even frightening. Her insecurities, her painful memories, her need for genuine closeness — all the messy humanity spilled out of her.

And he had never wanted something real.

Better to get out while he could. Tell his friends she's unstable. He knew no one would listen to her side of the story, anyway. He was a respected member of the community.

And she was the crazy ex-girlfriend. Or at least, that's how other people would see it.

In the end, he didn't have to do very much at all to discredit her. Rebecca's own impulsivity took care of that. Because once he was gone, she didn't care how reckless she was. Without him, she didn't care what happened to her.

Rebecca had shaped her entire personality to please him. She had erased herself for this man. When he left, she was left with nothing.

Or at least, that's how she saw it.

Shortly after the breakup with Robert, Rebecca had attempted suicide. She phoned up family members in a panic, and Naomi had coached her to go to the ER, rushed down to be with her.

It was a complicated love; Naomi hated to see her daughter in pain. But her way of dealing with that was to deny that there was pain at all. The records indicate how Naomi had talked about her: "dramatic," "young love," "theatrical." Naomi sat at her side for hours, and when the doctors came, both Rebecca and her mother assured them it had all been a misunderstanding. Bad breakup. You know how it is. She's fine to go home. Yes, I'm fine.

Rebecca was released early the next morning and attended class as usual.

Then she tried to burn down Robert's house.

A less wealthy woman would have become another casualty of the legal system. But Rebecca had her mother's team of lawyers on her side, and so was lucky enough to have her problems identified as mental illness. But that's about where her luck ended.

The legal and medical documents frame Rebecca's treatment as a success. Noelle's fury mounts as she reads them, seeing the medication dosages rise despite little evidence they are working, that they are even the right prescriptions for Rebecca's emotional dysregulation. Overmedicated to the point of numbness, yes, Rebecca became less reactive. But she didn't become any happier.

Released from the hospital, Rebecca went to law school with no therapeutic follow-up — Naomi took over, spoke for her, saying she didn't need it. And as complicated as her relationship with her mother was, Rebecca clung to that denial.

Rebecca remained at the top of her classes, pleasing her mother and the judge — but not necessarily indicating recovery. Exhausting herself to live up to her mother's dream wasn't personal growth but a kind of resignation. Once again, she tried to convince herself that, if another person valued her — even a person she couldn't stand — she was worthy of existing. That if she could just be perfect, she could avoid abandonment. Because, as domineering and hurtful as her mother could be, her company was still less frightening than the prospect of being entirely alone.

But even as Rebecca rose to Naomi Bunch's impossible standards of success, the sense of emptiness persisted. She got top grades, but her internal life was in disarray. Loneliness was constant; she was frantic and numb, unable to sleep, afraid of her own thoughts. The rare times she saw her doctor, she continued to report thoughts of suicide. Her doctors continued to increase the same ineffective drugs, and her mother continued to brush off Rebecca's erraticism as attention seeking.

So Rebecca brushed it off too. It was easier to push it from her mind than to accept that she felt trapped in a life she didn't want. A life she wasn't able to tolerate. And that, in order to change it, she would have to alter the way she had always understood herself.

Rebecca has never seen herself as real. And in Noelle's professional opinion, if Rebecca is to get better she'll have to confront that life isn't a music video, or a movie, or a test to be failed or passed. To learn that a personality isn't a costume to be changed with each new relationship. To learn that no matter how hard she tries, there's no guaranteed method to keep others from leaving her. To learn that she's not a heroine in a movie, nor do others exist to be her supporting characters, and that there's nothing so simple as a happy ending.

Though a film may end with a kiss or a wedding, real people don't get happy-ever-after — they get the rest of their lives, with all their daily pains and victories and love and pettiness. And they try, despite their human imperfections, to be good to each other. And they keep trying. Because that's all anyone can do.

No matter what happens, Rebecca will always have herself. And if she is to make a life she wants to live, she will need to find a way to see that as reassuring rather than terrifying.

When Rebecca finally does face herself, Noelle isn't sure whether it will stir her to work towards self-acceptance, or activate her to self-destruct in earnest. But whatever happens, it will change her.

"Angry."

Rebecca sits across from Doctor Akopian, tapping her Manolo Blahnik against the hardwood and trying not to pick off the sky-blue nail polish that Heather had done for her the night before. She feels like there's a motor inside her, humming through her limbs with the urge to move, to fidget, to run away. At this point, even using her old treadmill for its intended, non-hot-dog-related-purpose is beginning to sound appealing.

But she's not at work, and even if she were, that's no longer her office to go back to. That time in her life is over; now she's here. Now she's officially Rebecca Bunch, Woman Left at the Altar. Rebecca Bunch, Psychiatric Patient. Rebecca Bunch, Not Good Enough.

But she will be.

Feeling a prickling in her hands, she looks down to see that her sky-blue nails have been digging into her palms. She unclenches her fists, flips her hair, and tries to shake herself out into Rebecca Bunch, Successful Lawyer.

Doctor Akopian meets her gaze and waits for her to say something.

"I felt devastated," Rebecca articulates. "I mean, I don't even know why you're asking that, no one's ever been elated about being dumped, especially not at their wedding —" Slow down, she tells herself. Her voice is getting fast, and she doesn't want Akopian to get the wrong idea. No, she wants Doctor A to understand that she's being really, truly rational about this.

She takes a deep breath. "But. I have since let go of all negativity, and am moving forward with proaction and self-care. Henceforth —"

(Unnoticed by Rebecca, Noelle flinches. Nothing self-aware has ever begun with "henceforth.")

"— I have sworn to let no man ever make me feel that way again."

"And which way is that?"

"Furious," she restates. But that's not quite right. There's a power in fury. "And worthless. I felt stupid, and alone, and abandoned, and..." She takes a jagged breath. Wiping her eyes, she's embarrassed by the moisture that comes away on her hands. "Whatever. It won't happen again." Successful Lawyer Mode.

"It will, though," says Doctor Akopian. Rebecca gapes at her. "Not necessarily to the same extent, but you are going to be hurt again. Rejection is an inevitable part of life — not everyone is going to like you. That's why it's important to build a sense of self-worth that isn't entirely dependent on outside validation."

Rebecca scoffs. "Okay, you know what, I'm sorry, but I've been through this — I've seen a lot of counsellors in my life. I know it, the whole 'be your own best friend' thing."

"I'm not saying you have to be your own best friend. Simply to treat yourself with the same worth as any other person — as someone who deserves to have her needs met, to be okay, to be happy even, simply because you're human."

Rebecca is quiet for a moment.

"What are you thinking?" says Doctor Akopian.

"Nothing, it's just... it sounds too easy. To just be unconditionally nice to myself."

"Oh, it's not. Believe me. But it's worth it."

Rebecca looks out the window, the perfect jade green lawn darkening in the perfect royal blue of the approaching autumn evening. Everything in Doctor Akopian's life looks so clear, so calm. I could be happy in a place like this, Rebecca finds herself thinking, even as she knows it's not true. She remembers herself, thrashing on that grass after breaking in, that time Doctor Akopian caught her. It's how she always, or almost always, feels; like she's the one imperfect thing in the scene.

Of course Rebecca wants to change. Of course she doesn't want this cyclone inside her to keep spinning, tearing her up and wreaking havoc for everyone around her. Who would want that? She wouldn't be like this if she knew how not to be like this. No one would.

Why don't doctors understand that? She isn't doing this on purpose.

She wants to get better. She wants the perfect calm, the happy life, the love that doesn't run out. But something inside her can't stay still. Can't shake the feeling that, no matter where she goes, she doesn't quite belong.

Maybe constantly trying to be great! and perfect! and amazing! isn't healthy. But it's less frightening than thinking that, no matter what she does, she'll always be stuck feeling this way.

Someone is talking, and Rebecca startles to realize the voice is her own. "You know, when I was in high school, my anxiety started to get really bad — it was like this fist around my heart, gripping it. And then I realized, you know what? This doesn't matter. No matter how shitty I felt, I was able to get my work done. I could keep it to myself, so really, what difference did it make? Like, hey, maybe everyone else feels like this too, but they're just better than at dealing with it, so it would be stupid to draw attention to my own inadequacy.

"And then I met Josh, and... he was the first person to act like it mattered what I felt. Who actually wanted to spend time with me, and listen to me. I know I shared a lot with him really quickly. But... I'd never been able to talk to anyone like that before. I didn't know I could.

"And then he was gone. Now he's gone. And... shouldn't I be able to go back to just not caring? I mean," she laughs, "I got through Harvard by pushing through these feelings, so why can't I do it now?"

Doctor Akopian leans forward. "Well, what do you think is different in your life since then?"

"I dunno. Moving here. And," she shrugs, trying to look casual, "my friends."

"They really do care about you."

"Yeah. They do." Rebecca hesitates. "They don't know everything, though."

"You mean about Robert?"

Suddenly, Rebecca realizes she can't breathe. She stares at Akopian, unsure whether to feel betrayed or angry or afraid, unable to feel anything except the crush of asphyxiation.

"You know about that?" She dislodges the words from her throat like pebbles.

Akopian nods. "I read your file," she says, voice calm as ever.

"Shit," Rebecca exhales. She presses her palms to her eyes, then takes them away, blinking as though suddenly waking up. "Okay. I am sorry you had to see that, but it is not an accurate representation of who I am as a person. I was young, and I thought I was in love, and I was, like, really weird and dramatic —"

"You were in pain," says Doctor Akopian.

Rebecca goes silent. "Yeah," she says after a moment. She lets out a bitter laugh. "No one's ever acknowledged that before."

"That must have been hard."

"Yeah."

For a second, Rebecca debates whether to tell her. She chances it. "I'm still in pain," she says. "I mean, I keep trying to do the right thing — to drink smoothies, and do my job, and listen to feminist gym playlists and yadda yadda yadda. But no matter what I do, there's this fear that everything will fall apart. And I think, why bother doing anything if it's futile anyway? I'm just going to crumble in the end, and everyone will see I should never have tried at all."

"A sort of imposter syndrome?"

"Yeah. But... about being a person."

"Well, the good news is, I can certainly confirm that you're a person. But the more difficult fact is, it's not my opinion about that matters."

Rebecca quirks half her mouth in an expression of bemusement.

"Your opinion matters," Akopian clarifies. "If you're able to validate your own experiences, other people's judgments won't hold so much power over you."

"I don't know," says Rebecca. "I mean, I get what you're saying. That would be nice. But it's not that easy."

"Again, not easy. But worthwhile."

"When I was a kid, my mom taught me this trick. She's a paralegal — she always said that if it hadn't been for my dad, she would have been a full-fledged lawyer, that she didn't want me to make the same mistake. She had this mantra — 'Good enough is never enough.'"

Doctor Akopian looks at her, and Rebecca laughs. "I know: yikes. But still... she was good at what she did. I never got along with her, but I always respected how hard she worked.

"In high school, when my anxiety started getting really bad, she sat me down and said, 'Rebecca, I'm going to let you in on a secret. If you really want to succeed, you need to look at all the work you do and imagine it was done by your worst enemy. Pinpoint the flaws, tear them to pieces, until there's nothing you could possibly criticize. Then you'll know it's good.' It was the only time she really talked to me, instead of just bossing me around. So I tried it and..." She throws up her hands. "It worked. Any flaws in my paper? God, what idiot wrote this. Second highest score at mock trials? Look at that loser who couldn't get first. And I just kept doing that, and it got me into Yale, and Harvard, and the firm. It got me everything anyone could possibly want."

"Was it what you wanted?"

"It's never really mattered what I wanted. Like, the one time I tried..." She trails off. "Can I tell you a secret?"

"That's my job."

Rebecca takes a breath. "I'm worried that even if things had worked out with Josh, I'd still feel like this. This... torn-up emptiness inside." She meets her therapist's eyes. "Does the pain ever stop?"

"No feeling is permanent."

"Thank God."

"Though that means no positive feeling is permanent, either. A lot of people believe that if they're happy in one moment then they'll never have problems again."

"Oh, pshaw, who would believe that?" says Rebecca.

Akopian looks at her. "You'd be surprised," she says evenly.

On the table next to her, Rebecca draws lines in the zen garden, sketches a curly-haired stick figure self portrait. She draws more squiggles, crosses herself out.

After a moment, Doctor Akopian speaks. "There's no way of completely avoiding pain. But it doesn't have to negate your positive emotions, either. You can find what matters to you, notice those moments when you're happy, and hold onto those. What's something good in your life right now?"

Immediately her mind goes to that night with Valencia, climbing the pretzel, that calm and then the shock of running, together. Warmth spreads through her chest. "Hanging out with Valencia," she says, carefully omitting the destruction-of-property aspect.

"Great. So there's your homework — spend some time with someone who matters to you, and write down how you feel about it."

"That's it? Just hang out?"

"That's it. Try to have some fun — doctor's orders." She pencils Rebecca's next appointment into her calendar. "I'd also like you to check out this group." She hands Rebecca a business card. "They specialize in dialectical behavioral therapy."

"In what-what?"

"Dialectical behavioral therapy. They focus on emotional regulation, mindfulness, interpersonal effectiveness — skills that are useful for everyone, but which I think will particularly benefit you."

Rebecca takes the card, eyeing it as though it might bite her. "I don't know if I have time for this. It seems pretty hardcore."

"Well, you've said your mood swings can be an issue. And that you can be somewhat obsessive."

"Some might say that's part of my charm."

"Please at least go once to check it out. If you don't like the group, we can talk next time and come up with another plan."

Rebecca sighs. "Okay. Fine."

The doctor smiles. "Thank you. Now, was there anything else you wanted to talk about?"

Rebecca thinks of that cliff. How she'd stood, abandonment collapsing her into nothing but pain and the need to make it stop by any means necessary. Feeling it leak out of her: her intensity, her "drama," her "craziness," her not-good-enough-ness. Her self. She felt herself poisoning everything around her, seeing the worried expressions on her friends' faces, knowing it was all her fault.

They'd seen her now. The parts of her that she'd spent her whole life trying to obliterate. "Dramatic," "attention-seeking," "crazy." The thoughts echoed so loudly she felt as though her head would break in half. All the things she'd been called over the years by the people who really saw her, who realized she was too needy, too much, fundamentally fucked up.

She could escape New York, but never herself. Wherever she went, her personality followed her.

Paula, Heather, Darryl, Valencia... now everyone saw who she was. And now they would run.

And yet, as she stood on the cliffside, no one turned away.

Paula had taken her hand. And Valencia drove her home. Even after all that, her friends had been there for her. They still were.

They really do care about you.

In a way, that's harder to accept than all the self-loathing thoughts. Those are familiar. Being genuinely liked for who she is... Rebecca doesn't know how to deal with that. It sounds too good to risk hoping for. Too much to risk losing.

She takes a deep breath, presses her shoes hard against the floor of Doctor Akopian's office. Grounding techniques. She looks down at her nails and realized she's chipped off most of the paint, glitter littering her lap.

"Alright?" asks Doctor Akopian.

"Yeah. Not great, but... safe. You're right, I do have good people in my life. There is love in my life, Josh or no Josh. Things just hurt right now."

"I'd be worried if they didn't. The pain means you're processing."

"Thanks. Do you think I need to tell my friends everything? I mean, about Robert?"

"That's up to you. You certainly have a right to your privacy — though you may be surprised that people are more understanding than you expect. You've already been through a lot together, and they've supported you throughout."

"You're gonna tell me that if someone really loves me, they'll accept me for myself, right?"

"I'd go a step further and say they already do."

After therapy, Rebecca steps into her car and stares out the windshield, the note of referral to the DBT clinic clenched in her palm.

Doctor A always takes everything so seriously. It's exhausting.

Slowly, Rebecca exhales a breath she didn't know she had been holding.

Okay. This is real life.

Now what happens?

She checks her cell phone, sees that Valencia has sent a snapchat. In the video, V grins as the camera, shifts the screen to the neon sign of the very exclusive sushi place, then back to her face. Three days, she mouths, making a clinking motion with an imaginary glass, then blowing a kiss.

Rebecca smiles watching the video, brushing away the moisture that has once again mysteriously appeared in her eyes.

Yeah. She does have pretty awesome friends.

Before she can second-guess herself, Rebecca clicks the icon to dial Valencia's number.

"Hello?"

"Hey," says Rebecca, "I was wondering if you mayhaps —" (her nervousness, for some reason, prompts an old-timey accent. She catches herself before a m'lady slips out) "want to hang tonight? Like, we could watch Hocus Pocus or whatevs."

"Hocus Pocus in September?"

"Sure! Isn't it always a good time for a cult classic comedy-horror-fantasy film featuring the dramaturgic flair of Bette Midler?"

"Oh, uh, okay. Sure, sounds good. I'll come by at seven?"

"Great! We shall partake in cinéma, rosé, and an exquisite salád experiénce." Rebecca, what are you doing? Stop saying words. That's not even French, or... any language.

"Cool," says Valencia. "See you then."

"Ciao."

"Oh, and Rebecca?" Valencia pauses. "Just... I can't believe I'm saying this, but it doesn't have to be a big thing, okay? It's been a long day, we can just, you know. Chill."

"And chill it shall be."

After hanging up, Rebecca rests her head against the steering wheel, feeling her heart pound.

Then she reaches for her phone once again, opens the internet browser and into the search engine types greatest salad ever.

Rebecca Nora Bunch has never done anything half-assed. And though she may not know much else about herself, at least she's always had that.