Even Therapists need some manner of release.
Helping anyone day in and day out with their anxieties, baggage, concerns and doubts would take its toll on a person, especially when these anxieties, baggage, concerns and doubts come from children. Adding to the stress is not only doctor/patient confidentiality but also having to check your perspective and sense of judgement at the door so as to give the patient comprehensive help.
For Dr. Bliss, release meant a giant steaming mug of tea and note papers upon which she'd let out all her personal feelings towards the clients she serviced before sending them on a one-way ticket to the shredder. By and large these papers weren't any different from what she would say to a patient, but getting it out of her system was a matter of principle more than anything.
Then there was Curly.
Over the years, Dr. Bliss made her peace knowing that being a psychologist (of any age level) means that you walk into your job knowing those you serve have problems. Yet there was always that ripple of hope that somehow and someway, there would be breakthroughs and eventually progress. By contrast, the page that sat on her desk bore four words which perfectly summed up the fear and frustration Curly inspired, conveying so little and yet so much at the same time.
I Can't Fix You.
The Gammelthorpe boy was beyond help, at least in terms of whatever help Dr. Bliss could personally offer; and it irked her to no end because there was more she wanted to say and elaborate on when it came to all the issues the boy had:
A lack of accountability and self-reflection when it came to wrongdoing.
A persecution complex capable of clogging a black hole.
A dangerous and exploitative level self-righteousness only seen in angry little boys.
A myopic concept and worldview of justice and fairness.
A disturbing obsession...no, hunger for all things of a conspiratorial nature.
A frightening philosophy on power and control (and the obtaining thereof) that would turn Machiavelli's stomach.
A strict family structure bordering on unhealthy which rested on secrets and long simmering regrets/resentments.
Driving home how scary this all was at the moment (and how even more nightmarish it could be if left unchecked) was her most recent session earlier that day with Curly and the spectacle of him oblivious to being hauled out of her office once his rant about Arnold ended in psychotic laughter. More than anything, Curly's assessment of the Shortman boy proved to be a psychological uranium mine when it came to the public exhibition of his warped and wretched soul; earning a special layer of contempt and intrigue by not only nearly mirroring his life circumstances, but showing him there was a level of agency when it came to dealing with the crappy hand life dealt him and making some level of peace with the world. Agency Curly chose to squander and in so doing become (as he put it) "the devil to his angel, the yin to his yang, the chaos to his order, the dismally hopeless black to his radiant and idealistic white."
Yet try as she might to elaborate, all these fears and more swam about Dr. Bliss' psyche; only to come to a screeching halt at whatever part of the brain is responsible for putting thoughts into words and actions.
'I can't fix you' summed it all up.
Crumpling up the paper and jamming it into the shredder above the wastebasket near her recliner, Dr. Bliss put away the pad and got up to refill her tea mug. From the corner of her eye, she saw sitting on the kitchen table her copy of Curly's Mitigators journal. With a defeated sigh, she he finds herself succumbing to her morbid curiosity to give it another look and grabs it off the table.
Dr. Bliss left off somewhere right before the final battle before Arnold's Mitigator Squad and Ludwig's Legion of Evil, yet this time (free from wondering why Arnold appeared to earn a special level of contempt), the pedagogic psychoanalyst found herself free to really examine an aspect of her client's self-insert revenge fantasy that had previously been overlooked; the illustrations.
Doodled within the margins were little illustrated snippets that dotted the text here and there. While the people were cartoony and a little crude, it was clear that there was some potential that existed, especially when it came to landscape and objects. The one that struck Dr. Bliss however was a scribbling of the Gammelthorpe child himself clad in a rather ostentatious military uniform (complete with sashes, medals, a monocle, a flowing cape over his left side and a Keiser helmet with a frowny face) appearing to levitate over a dumpster releasing noxious fumes. Of his scribbles, it was the largest; taking up the entire bottom right corner of the sheet.
The wheels in Dr. Bliss' head began to turn as she picked up her phone and dialed the Gammelthorpe Laundromat.
She couldn't fix Curly. But she knew of some place that might.