bigger threat

I was sitting in front of a brand new therapist, my fifth overall. I had two while I was in high school and two while at university and now another to assuage everyone’s concern.
Actually, that was the reason for all the other therapists before this one when I really think about it. I was laying out the basic story for her, where I’m from, where I’ve been, all the usual stuff. What had brought me there to her. Trying to deal with my anger and control issues.
I really liked going to the first one, but it had nothing to do with the therapist. The whole process was still new and a little exciting in an otherwise normal and boring adolescence. It was also right across the road from Country Day School, in the swank suburb of Birmingham—we had really good insurance at the time. I would stop off at record stores in Royal Oak or Ferndale to look for Punk Rock tapes. Getting out of school early was also a plus as well. The drive home through rush hour traffic in my 1976 Ford Econoline, dubbed “the blue coffin” by me, wasn’t so fun however.
I couldn’t help but stare at my new therapist’s painted toenails, though. I wasn’t overly aware of having a foot fetish, but I just couldn’t keep my eyes off of them. I’d make eye contact from time to time or look out the window. She’d nod and smile, sometimes ask a question or male a statement, but it was the same old game as before. Trying to convince her that I wasn’t crazy. I had stopped trying to convince myself of that years ago.
The hospital wouldn’t release me until I had made an appointment with a local therapist/psychiatrist, so I had found the closest one I could. The best thing about the place was the Russian receptionist—Svetlana or Tatiana or something. Strong eastern European features and these piercing catlike eyes. She probably figured I was there because I was just another crazy guy as well. The hospital stay had been involuntary, per some policy or law that I wasn’t previously aware of. I would’ve promised just about anything go get out of there.
The details are a little hazy, thanks to several Irish car bombs and about twelve beers. But I woke up at the hospital and I was having a hard time separating what I had dreamt and what had actually happened. They told me that I had a seizure and had started foaming at the mouth, so they rushed me to the emergency room. Something about a bad reaction with my medication or other. The worse was when I finally made it to the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror—I looked like I had seen a ghost. My eyebrows were arched and my eyes looked crazy, scared and just weird. It was a look of abject terror.
Ghosts and phantom spirits don’t scare me, mostly because I don’t think they exist, most of my nightmares are rooted in everyday reality. Bits and pieces of my life skewed and skewered via a dream state are far more frightening than anything the paranormal could throw at me. I also walked through the woods of northern Ontario, the urban wastes of Detroit and everywhere in between and always knew that the living were a much bigger threat than the dead could ever be.