"Mala Agarwal?" A lady comes out and says her name. She is tall and blonde, and is wearing a light grey skirt and a white button up blouse and black hills.
"Yes, that's me," Mala confirms.
"I'm Ashley Atkins, nice to meet you," introducing herself.
"Follow me," she said.
When they gets to her room, her room is filled with dark wooded book shelves with thousands of books. The books inside all the shelves are humongous books that will take years to read. Mala assumes they are law books or counseling books to help school kids.
"So you are my counselor?" Mala asked.
"Your therapist," she confirms.
"A therapist? Isn't that like the same thing?" Mala asked, curiously.
"No, a counselor is
someone that is trained to give guidance on personal, social, or psychological problems, a therapist on the other hand is a person who helps people deal with mental or emotional problems by talking about those problems a person trained in psychotherapy," she informs.
"What's psychotherapy?" Mala asked.
"Psychotherapy is the use of psychological methods that is based on regular personal interaction with adults or children, to help a person change behavior and overcome problems in desired ways," she informs.
"Interesting," Mala said.
"So mrs. Mattie has sent me a letter regarding your condition of depression, and I want to discuss that with you, but our sessions lasts an hour every time you attend so I will give you a schedule to see me," she said, while she takes out a clip board with a plain sheet of paper on it.
"Yes and I feel that this thing is taking hold of me," Mala informs.
"Why do you feel like depression is taking hold of you?" She asked, while writing.
"May I ask what are you actually writing?" Mala asked.
"I'm taking notes regarding your information of depression, it will help me understand all the symptoms and experiences you're struggling with," she informs.
Mala begins telling her the moment with her and Chris that night and how he almost rapes her and how that night still haunts her.
"You're traumatized by that moment so you have what I call Psychological trauma," she informs.
"What's that?" She asked.
"Psychological trauma is damage to a person's mind as a result of one or more distressing events which caused overwhelming amounts of stress," she informs.
"And I have been stressed out lately," she admits.
"And that exceeded the person's ability to cope or integrate the emotions involved, eventually leading to serious, long-term or negative consequences. Okay our session is now up, so I will want you to tell me more in our next sessions, so to inform you, we can not talk long amount of sessions regarding other patient's schedules I have, so you will see me twice a week on Mondays and Fridays, so what are the times you prefer?" she asked.
"4:00pm on both days," Mala said.
"Okay, 4:00pm it is, so see you next Monday," she said.
"Bye," Mala said, as she gets up and leaves the room.
Author Ciara Webb
Co-Assistants 26Khayali and Ridhi P
Story written by Ciara Webb
Co-author Mansi Rupesh More
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