Life is Not a Movie

Therapy

"So, Nicole, tell me a bit about yourself." Dr. Jensen asked.

I looked from him to Tom then back to the doctor and then to the ground.

"Nicole?"

Snapping out of my gaze I looked back at the doctor. "I'm 14, my favorite color's purple or blue, depends on the day, and I am an actress." I simply stated.

"Okay... and why did you come here today?"

I looked back at Tom. I'm pretty sure this is how the whole appointment is going to go, just me looking between the two of them and occasionally the ground. "Why don't you ask him."

"Alright, Mr. Hiddleston, why is Nicole here today?"

"Well, I guess I'll just get straight to the point. My wife and I have reason to believe that Nicole is depressed."

Wait! That's what this is about! He thinks I'm depressed. Well guess what, I'm not!

"Oh really, and why would that be?" He asked Tom.

"Um well, I recently did some research just to find out more about this before I made any assumptions. But many of the symptoms that came up when I searched it, I soon realized that Nicole had shown a lot of them. Such as, she's become very distant from the rest of us, she doesn't eat as much as she used to and sometimes it seems as if she doesn't eat at all, and she tends to lash out at random times."

What?! Okay now he's just making things up!

"Yes, that does seem like something someone who is depressed would do. Nicole, what are your thoughts about this?"

I turned towards the doctor. "I'm not depressed."

Dr. Jensen looked at Tom. "Denial, another key sign of depression."

"I'm not depressed!" I stood up.

"Nicole. Sit. Down." Tom gritted through his teeth.

I just glared at him. Then out of the corner of my eye I could see Dr. Jensen give Tom a little hand motion saying, 'let me handle this'. Dr. Jensen stood up and I looked back to him.

"Nicole, take a deep breath, on the count of three. 1, 2, 3." He sucked in a breath and let it back out then motioned for me to do the same. I obliged, but was still mad. "Good, good. Now can you please take a seat?" He asked as he sat back down.

Once again, I followed his orders and sat down. I wish Zeus was here, we haven't been hanging out for  while, I feel like he doesn't want to be around me any more. Now I wish I had him more than ever. I went back to staring at the floor while the doctor talked to Tom.

"I'm really sorry to have to do this Mr. Hiddleston, I assume that you would want to be here for the entire session, but I'm going to need you to leave." Tom was about to chime in, but Dr. Jensen stopped him. "I just think it would be best if I worked with Nicole alone for a bit. So if you don't mind..."

"Uh- of course." Tom got up and opened the door ready to leave. "I'll just be outside, let me know if you need anything." And with that he left.

Dr. Jensen waited until the door was shut then turned to me. "So Nicole, tell me, what are your ways of calming down that you find most helpful?"

"Okay, but before we start, I don't want to be here. At all. It was his idea, not mine. His. I only found out about it this morning and I wasn't even going to come until someone convinced me too."

"That's fine, that's perfectly fine. In fact I'm glad that you're being honest with me. Now, about those calming techniques." He smiled. He is was too cheerful. We're not going to get along.

"Music. Music helps. A lot."

"Great! Now what kind of music, or what do you do with it to calm down."

"I mainly listen to it. And it's a variety of music, anything from country to classical."

"Anything else?" God this guy is persistent. I hate it.

"I have anxiety, so what mainly calms me down is my iron pills." I explained.

"Iron pills, what do those do?"

"When I become anxious or stressed my iron level drops and it makes me really weak, which only causes causes me to become more anxious and panic more. So the pills help restore my iron and calm me down, giving me my strength back."

Dr. Jensen sat there for a moment thinking. Let's hope he's thinking about getting rid of me.

"Okay Nicole, here's what were going to do. Since your father says that you have been lashing out lately, we're going to work on some other calming techniques, because you can't always have music with you. Also, what we're going to do is going to help you calm down before anything actually happens. Does that sound good?"

I shrugged. "I guess."

"Alright, so the first thing I'll have you do is counting. Sometimes just by counting to ten when you start to feel mad can make a world of a difference. What I want you to do is the next time you start to feel mad or stressed about something is to start counting. Just take a deep breath and count to ten and if that doesn't help, then try it again and just keep doing it until you're calm."

I just shrugged, hoping that this would be over soon. Suddenly there was beeping noise coming from a phone on his desk. Dr. Jensen scooted his chair over to his desk and pressed a button.

"Yes?" He answered.

"Dr. Jensen, your 3:00 is here." A voice came from the other end, it sounded like the receptionist's from when we signed.

"Okay, thank you." He then pressed another button and turned towards me. "Well I guess that's it for today. Where did the time go?" Dr. Jensen stood up and I followed him to the door. He opened it and standing to the side against the wall was Tom.

"Oh, hello. How did it go darling?" Tom asked me.

"Fine." I stood beside him.

Tom looked at the doctor who just smiled at him. "I can't wait to work with Nicole some more, she did very well today. Um, I would like to see her once a week from now until further notice, so you can make your next appointment with Miss. Heather on your way out."

Every week! You have got to be kidding me!

"Sounds perfect, we will see you next week then." Tom smiled and lead me to the lobby.

Tom scheduled another appointment as I stood behind him, anger just radiating off of my body. Afterwards we walked to the car and got in. I slammed the door so hard the whole car shook.

"Woah! Watch the door."

"I'm not going back there." I stared out of the window.

"Nicole... I already made another appointment."

"Well then call and cancel it, cause I am not going back."

"You know I won't do that."

I was ready to start screaming at Tom when Dr. Jensen's voice pooped into my head. "Count." It said.

I took a deep breath and started counting. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. I let the breath out.

"Fine." I said.

I could see Tom's eyebrows raise in surprise through the side mirror. "Wow, okay. What did you guys do in there? You definitely seem more calm."

Another deep breath. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. And out. "Nothing." I went back to staring out the window.

"Alright, don't tell me." Tom tried to make it sound like he didn't care, but I could see him smiling.

The next five minutes were spent in silence until Tom's phone went off.

"Hello? Yes. Yeah we're right here. Okay, we'll be there in five minutes." Tom hung up. "Chang of plans, Joss needs us on set for a quick shoot, which basically means that we'll be there until midnight shooting. So we're going over there now."

"Okay." With that Tom did a sharp U-turn and we were off to set.