Public kissing and other such phobias

I love my job.

There are countless perks to daily working in a thereputic environment, including as much "free therapy" as you can tolerate-- even if said thearpy is unsolicted... which it often is. I have adopted a phrase (among many of the other highly-therapeutic-terms in my vernacular, also perks to the job) which describes this occurrence best: Therap-own.


(Therap-own, /ing, /ed : To be "pwned" or "owned", therapeutically speaking.)


I suppose there is something to be said for the therap-owning I recived when my father passed away, or when conflict within my family drove me to near-madness. I'm not saying being therap-owned can't be helpful... but there are other times..... other times...


It should be mentioned that I have an extrodianry   personal bubble. It's a frequent topic of conversation among my co-workers, and my four bosses - who are also licensed therapists. -- My bubble is reinforced by several things I would casually say I am "terrified" of. In fact, it has less to do with personal space, and more to do with what I feel is reasonably allowed in my space. 


(I'm not going to lie, if it were anyone but me, I would probably find such neurosis just as fascinating. It would be highly entertaining to make a quest of popping such an extraordinary bubble. I see that.)

My poor bubble never stood a chance so clearly exposed in my place employment, the bosses therapists have a lot of material to use for their therap-owning. And therap-own, they do.



Every 3-4 months, approximately, my company will host a huge event for the families of the residents whom we serve. The parents and siblings are invited to come partake in the therapy-goodness, and then usually try something daring like rock climbing or trappese swinging. You can only imagine what sort of characters I meet.


One very memorable character had a knack for popping blowing my bubble to smitherenes. 


For the sake of confidentiality, we'll call him Antonio. It would be helpful if you pictured Antonio as a slimey, Italian, ex-mob boss, complete with gold chains for effect. - - Antonio was a bit of a womanizer. He also embraced a cultural greeting, of which I have never appreciated, whereby the greet-or hugs the greet-ee and exchanges a kiss on each cheeck. (*gagging sound*)


To my great and utter discomfort, I fell victim to his greetings more times than I wish to revel here. The day I realized I was the only one within my company he greeted in this way, I was reduced to tears. Not a dramatic display, no uncontrollable sobs, but tears. My bosses caught wind of my unfortuante episode and the therap-owning began.

I was bombarded with texted pictures like this one:

And this one:

And then this one: 

It was after a message attached to this last picture which said something like "This must have been you as a child, tell me, what's the real issue here?" I started to think there was more to this than teasing. 

Yes, apparently there is a form of treatment (respondent conditioning) where therapists will flood a suffering individual with images of something they fear in order to desensitize them by degree. (That's my definition anyway) It's a common treatment for phobias. 

Basically stated; I was being therap-owned. 

I have tried to explain to my therapists the validity of some of my fears and irrational thinking. Their response? More images:

It. Is. Terrifying. 

Whether the exposure therapy works or not is debatable. Part of me thinks if I didn't have any diagnosable PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) before, I certainly would have reason to now: I've had spiders dangled in front of me while on the phone with clients (thank goodness for a mute button!). I've endured a daily game called "how-many-people-can-we-fit-in-this-small-office?". And in spite of Antonio Jr.'s graduation from our program, I still get picture messages with Obama laying one on Hilary. 

The irony in all of this is that I may need treatment after working in treatment! 

But! Even with the occasional rubber spider prank... Even with 5 people in my 4x7 office... Even with slimey Italian man kisses... And even with all the "free therapy" I can (and will) tolerate... 

I do love my job. 

-Mag.