Eavesdrop on Exchange with Fan

When I wrote Fear, Folly & Freud my wish was that it would help at least one person feel less alone.

This week, my wish came true!   Thank you A.S. for permission to share your words.  

Please enjoy our conversation!  

Dear Nicky, 

I stumbled across your memoir in the early hours of the morning. I don’t even remember how, exactly it happened—I woke up anxious and, as often happens when I’m in that state, started googling around about psychoanalysis in the hopes that I would find a text that could ground and comfort me. (I’ve been in a 4x a week analysis for almost 4 years now—I started when I was 23—and will admit that when I began I was certain I would have terminated by now. But from where I’m sitting now the road ahead looks like it will be a long one!)

Dear A.S., I am so happy you stumbled upon my memoir. I am pleased to know you are in 4x a week analysis; I don’t know anyone besides myself who has had this privilege. I certainly know how it is to wake up anxious. I, also, had no idea treatment would take years. What we have chosen is entirely different from short-term problem-solving therapies.

I bought the ebook of your memoir on a whim—I often find it comforting to read about other people’s experiences of their analysis. Particularly when I’m going through a difficult stage of the analysis, as I seem to be now (I am also a writer, and have found myself blocked, anxious, and full of grief for almost a year now, with the intensity of the feelings the analysis is bringing up for me)!

Dear A.S. Thank you for buying my ebook! I agree that it is comforting to read about other people’s experiences in analysis. You might find Looking for Gold: A Year in Jungian Analysis by Susan M. Tiberghien interesting. Or Tribute to Freud by H.D. I am sorry that you are mired for now in a rough spot. Analysis does bring up intense feelings. I wish I would have known that paying attention to feelings was vital and not a sign that I was weak. I admire your courage and when you write about your experience, please let me know and I’ll buy your ebook.

I read your memoir through in one sitting and found it to be so deeply compelling and deeply relatable. To use a cliché—I (truly) laughed and I cried! Especially thinking about how special I, too, always want to be in my analysis. And how much I read, always looking to be an intellectual “peer,” etc, etc. Your words rung so true to me, and I am grateful to have found your book. It is a comfort (that word again!), always, to feel that someone else has experienced the incredible terror and pain and rewards that come along with an analysis. And how strange it is to realize that the stories you’ve told yourself about yourself have been, in the end, just stories, and to begin to look at yourself squarely, with honesty! What a terror. It helped me very much today to read about your experience. 

Dear A.S. Oh my – we do speak the same language. Thanks for telling me about your wish to be special – I am finding that one of the most difficult patterns to give up. And I agree with you about how comforting it is to know that others have experienced the terror, pain, and rewards of analysis. Your awareness of how we believe our own stories until we have them analyzed makes me smile in agreement! I am so glad my words helped.

I’m very much looking forward to your next memoir—and thanks for this one. 

Dear A.S. – You are most welcome. I wish you the best in your writing career. Thank you!