5- The seven light angels
I don't think it's okay for you to talk about my sex life - I said with an indifferent air - I don't like that - I murmured, lowering my head. I put on my denim jacket and pulled my hair back over my shoulder. I blinked, pressing my lips together, still not looking at the doctor, with a strained, indifferent expression, internally broken by feeling exposed in front of my psychoanalyst.
Melisa didn't share anything with me that I didn't already know. When you have so much melancholy due to the loss of the object, you enjoy a feeling superior to the object, so it is natural that you reject establishing sexual contact with Cristina without breaking into tears or expressing that melancholy. You have to accept that state first in order to work directly on your subconscious. Where your emotions were founded, in order to be able to abandon them - She continued speaking, ignoring what I had just told her, which made my blood boil. - When I talked about your case with Cristina, she told me that sometimes you write letters to Paola at night, and you suffer from insomnia. I think it is convenient for you to distance yourself from Paola, even through writing. Since she is an object that you have ideally lost, she has not died. By distancing yourself from her, I mean to stop writing to her, Anastasia. If you continue writing to her, you will keep her present with the hope that she will someday read your letters. It will be a painful separation and you will probably fall back into that state of mourning and melancholy if you see her again, or continue to remember her through writing.
I see…
It is essential that you stay away from her, and do not harbor any hope of seeing her again. You must stop writing to her, understood? I remained silent.
Only then will you be able to have a balance in your mind, body, and spirit. Every time she lets you come back, you will fall back into a state of melancholy. I know it sounds harsh the way I'm talking to you, but…
It makes me feel like an obsessed and manic person - I admitted - And I never thought I was an obsessive manic person until today.
You shouldn't feel that way. It is natural for you to be confused, and your symptoms do not show any obsessive traits where you couldn't focus or function in your daily activities because you are expending all your energy on the loss of the object. You don't have an obsessive or manic condition, where we would be talking about madness and psychosis. That's when we medicate patients. We simply have to work with the emotions anchored in yourself, Anastasia, those emotions that don't correspond to anyone else but the lost object.
I'm going to prescribe you some sleeping pills, take them at exactly nine o'clock every night - She began writing the instructions on the medical pad.
Even if you don't believe it, many people in this world suffer from melancholy. They just repress the feeling and don't seek help. You're not the first person I've tried to help. Saying her name out loud is not advisable. Melancholics think they are fine, they believe they are poets or artists, so in the least expected moments, they take their own lives or their reason becomes completely clouded by their feeling of loss. That's when you see them make big mistakes like going back to someone who doesn't truly make them happy, falling into alcohol, drugs or even accepting a new job that they don't like but helps them escape their melancholic state.
I understand. I really care about Melisa - I admitted, shrugging my shoulders - I'm not using her as an escape - I said, raising my gaze to meet the doctor's eyes, fixed on me like a hawk.
I know, Anastasia, but your emotions are hidden in the depths of your soul, and in those depths, Melisa feels confused. Some people feel more than others, when they lose the loved object, it is normal for there to be such a strong outpouring of emotions that you end up losing a part of your own identity - The doctor spoke with an unbearable sweetness while I felt smaller and smaller. And "the lost object" became the most ridiculous substantivized pronoun I had ever heard. Would it bother Paola to read me? How would she feel seeing that I had meticulously searched her life to immortalize her in all my poems? Her memory floated exhumed and embalmed in my writings. Would she be bored or moved by reading them? Neither of the two options made me feel comfortable. Maybe, after all, I was still seeking Paola's love through writing. Perhaps the doctor was right. But I refused to accept it. Writing made me happy and it was one of the few activities that made me happy without Paola being involved, just like dancing, painting, or dressing in authentic silk, traveling and breathing in the fresh breeze while the sun warmed my bare shoulders, always wearing a light dress or a fine fabric blouse. Those big dreams full of glory that are accompanied by small pleasures; Paola was always the reason for my big dreams, but the small pleasures were solely mine and were filled with happiness. Every time I felt like my heart was breaking, I would seek those dreams from the past and go listen to music, but music also healed my soul because it was one of my most basic needs. Writing and listening to music, bathing and listening to music, sometimes I simply found music in the sound of water breaking against my skin, even walking and listening to music. If I could smile and dance every second, I would, and in that natural happiness, life becomes lighter. Paola's happiness was always linked to my happiness. How many times did she try to make me happy? I just passed through the past searching for signs of Paola, signs of affection that would reveal her in the task of making me smile. However, I couldn't find what I was looking for. She would always tell me that when she loved, she became a detail-oriented woman, but the detail-oriented woman was always me. I didn't find any romance, just a passion that, in excess, killed all romance. Maybe she only dedicated herself to allowing me to make her happy, and she knew that as long as I loved her, she filled me with fortune. But that thought didn't console me. And what if Paola truly never loved me honestly or sought to make me happy? No gesture, no detail towards me. Truly, I couldn't find anything. The thought filled me with bitterness and suddenly my mood changed, I felt disappointment enveloping my heart. And at the same time, a certain understanding that love is selfless sacrifice made me know that even if that were the case, and Paola didn't love me, she allowed me to love her and for that, I felt gratitude and also understanding.