From: Josée Cadaba <cadaba@sheridancollege.ca>

To: Counsellor Blank <cadaba@sheridancollege.ca>

Subject: RE: Cancellations

​

Hey counsellor,

​

Apologies for the constant cancellations! School has been taking up a lot of my time. I would have issues throughout the week that I would want to bring to our sessions, but whatever feelings I had over those moments either dissipate or I get so frustrated I disassociate and forget everything altogether.

​

Good news is that I’ve cleared my plate, so I’m free the rest of the week! I’ll be booking an appointment with you shortly. See you then!

 

Cheers,

​

Jo

​

​

From: Josée Cadaba <cadaba@sheridancollege.ca>

To: Counsellor Blank <cadaba@sheridancollege.ca>

Subject: Booking: Counselling Session

 

Upcoming Booking for Josée Cadaba

Date: January 19, 2022

Time: 3:00PM—4:00PM (UTC-5:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)

 

Please allow 24 hours in advance if the appointment requires rescheduling.

Powered by Microsoft Bookings

​

“You mentioned in the email that you would get frustrated. Do you wanna expand on that?”

​

“Honestly, I want to, but I’m pretty shit at expressing my emotions. That’s why I write, I guess; I can take all the time I need to articulate myself. You can’t do that when talking.”

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“Do you find that it’s helped you?”

​

“I think so, yeah. Actually, I’ve been doing some writing over the holidays for self-reflection. If it’s ok with you, can I read an entry?”

​

“Of course.”

​

​

From: Counsellor Blank <cadaba@sheridancollege.ca> 

To: Josée Cadaba <cadaba@sheridancollege.ca> 

Subject: Prompts 

 

Hey Jo,

​

After your session today, I found that the writing that you had shared with me from over the holiday season has proven beneficial to managing and organizing your thoughts and feelings effectively during our sessions. I would like to propose that we utilize this strategy for our sessions. I understand your concerns with booking appointments involve not having anything “meaningful” to bring to the table, but perhaps this could work as a sort of compromise.

 

Based on our sessions, I’ll send a few prompts for you to consider for the next session. Don’t think of this as work, as I know you are doing some independent journaling aside from school assignments. Think of these prompts as a way to delve further into what we’ve discussed, and perhaps it could bring about a new topic for our next appointment. We’ll try it out this week, and you can decide whether this strategy works for you.

​

Prompt for this week:

​

How did you view your mother back then in comparison to how you view her now?

​

How did that change?

​

Regards,

​

Dr. Blankity Blank, M. Div., Registered Psychotherapist

Counsellor, Wellness and Counselling

​

​

From: Josée Cadaba <cadaba@sheridancollege.ca>

To: Dr. therapist <xxxtherapistnamehere@sheridancollege.ca>

Subject: Prompt 1 Response

​

📎 1 attachment (52kb)

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Good evening, therapist,

​

I was going to bring the prompt to our session, but it ended up being a little longer. I thought I could send this to you, so you had it in advance for this week. See you then!

​

Cheers,

​

Jo

​

PREVIEW OF PROMPT1.DOCX

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Prompt: How did you view your mother back then in comparison to how you view her now? How did that change?

​

I won’t say that she’s changed. I heard somewhere that doing so implies that the person is no longer acting the way that is desired of them. But I never had any expectations for her—none that I had created. I think most kids growing up idolize their parents because that’s the closest they can get to some sort of idealized figure before school. Parents, for the first few years in our life, are gods. They feed us, put a roof over our head, do these absurd things called taxes. Kids are simple.

​

It's a matter of my own perspective that had shifted rather than my mother changing as I had gotten older. It was the justification motivated by dependency that made me look to my mother at a young age.

​

She was gone most of the time, leaving me with my immigrant grandfather who couldn’t hold much of a conversation even if I knew our native tongue. But I wasn’t mad; it’s one thing for a kid to know a parent works, but it’s another thing to acknowledge that their energy is no match to a tiny 4-year-old. If she wasn’t working, she was sleeping, and it didn’t help that she took the night shift often. I couldn’t complain though; when I woke up, I’d have my school clothes for the day folded neatly by my bedside ready to go. She was a god in the capacity that she did everything without me seeing it.

​

Fast forward a couple of years and I’m a sad and angry 10-year-old at the bottom of the staircase by the front door waiting for her to come home. At that time, she had gotten a boyfriend who lived a city over where she would stay over with for days at a time. I don’t want to exaggerate and say that she was gone for weeks and even months, but time for a kid is practically non-existent and depends on how we’re feeling. If it feels like 3 months, there’s no debate about it.

​

On the few occasions that I do bring up my concerns, which in this case was that she wasn’t coming home, her solution was to bring me and my sister with her. Whether it was to bond with her or her boyfriend, I’m still not sure. Not that it mattered; my sister and I would watch TV until noon; she and her boyfriend were sleeping in from watching shows together till 2 a.m. that we weren’t allowed to watch. The first few weeks of visiting, we starved those mornings because we didn’t know where everything was, nor did we think we were allowed to climb the counters to explore the cupboards. This wasn’t our house. Wasn’t even hers. Being raised by a traditional Filipina mother, we were conservative, so seeing a white man in only briefs made us more than uncomfortable. We made sure to look away when he walked by, pretending that our stomachs weren’t moaning at the sound of the toaster being used. He’d grab his breakfast, pour his coffee, and head back upstairs to his office, to which he would stay for hours on end to play videogames. Meanwhile, she’d be getting ready to leave for work. So, what was the point of bringing us? We could’ve done the same thing at home—except we wouldn’t be in our pajamas all day. We’d be fed, too. Needless to say, I stopped believing in my god.

​

​

From: Josée Cadaba <cadaba@sheridancollege.ca>

To: Counsellor Blank <cadaba@sheridancollege.ca>

Subject: Booking: Counselling Session

 

Upcoming Booking for Josée Cadaba

Date: January 28, 2022

Time: 6:00PM—7:00PM (UTC-5:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)

 

Please allow 24 hours in advance if the appointment requires rescheduling.

Powered by Microsoft Bookings

​

“From what I’ve read, it seems that you felt neglected. Would you agree?”

​

“Well, yeah. But at the same time, I also get it. She’s gone through a lot as a single mom, you know?”

​

“Jo, would you say that you raised yourself?”

​

“…Yeah.”

​

​

From: Counsellor Blank <cadaba@sheridancollege.ca>

To: Josée Cadaba <cadaba@sheridancollege.ca>

Subject: Prompts Session 2

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Hey Jo,

​

Thank you for opening up about your experiences during our last session. I understand that it was difficult for you to resurface these memories and I admire your strength in facing them.

​

As you expressed interest in continuing with these prompts, I would like to continue to send you more based on our discussion from our session. As I had mentioned before, there is no pressure to think too hard about these questions, nor is there an obligation to bring the prompt as the topic for next week. You may choose to go a completely different direction in subject matter if you’d like.

​

Prompt for this Week:

​

If you were to write a letter to your mother without fear of a negative response, what would you write?

​

Regards,

​

Dr. Blankity Blank, M. Div., Registered Psychotherapist

Counsellor, Wellness and Counselling

​

​

From: Josée Cadaba <cadaba@sheridancollege.ca>

To: Dr. therapist <xxxtherapistnamehere@sheridancollege.ca>

Cc:

Subject: Prompt 2 Response

​

📎 1 attachment (52kb)

​

Good morning, therapist,

​

Sorry for the delay. Admittedly, writing for this prompt was emotionally taxing, so I had to take breaks in-between to calm down. I’ve run out of meds for the past few days so it’s tough to make it through the day and escalating small arguments at home don’t help either. Don’t worry, though. I already had my appointment with my doctor. I’m just waiting on my pharmacist to have my prescription ready. The doctor also decided to increase my dose, so apologies in advance if I seem off during our upcoming session.

​

Regards,

​

Jo

​

PREVIEW OF PROMPT2.DOCX

​

This wasn’t the first letter I had written for you.

​

I’m not going to recall what I wrote that night, because that would mean I’m disturbing the ashes of the words I left cremated, and I don’t want them haunting me again. But I’d also be lying if I said those feelings of sadness and anger floated up into the night. We were at companions at this point, these emotions—it was always hard for me to cut off toxic relationships. Spite is a powerful thing; keeps many motivated. Keeps me motivated to write.

​

The first letter was that night Gio and I returned to the camping grounds. Everyone was already asleep, but we shuffled around to scavenge for the remaining wood to rekindle the flame. Full of Tim Hortons and repressed feelings, I thought it was a great idea to live a cliché and write letters by the campfire. I thought it was more for Gio than myself as a good amount of conversation consisted of his on and off relationship with a girl’s whose name was deceivingly sweet. But I had the paper and the pencils, thinking I’d have a spark of inspiration as I gazed out at the lake, when in reality it was a depressed creek, green with shit and shame.

​

“So, you’re gonna write a letter to her,” I said, “and then you’re going to burn it.”

 

He scoffs, “I knew it,” and scoots closer towards the flame. He rummaged through our bag of kindling, a variety of aged hydro bills and ancient documents, attempting to look for an envelope of papers thick enough to use as a writing surface. To no avail, he began to write on his thigh.

​

He was too focused to get a conversation going, so I watched the flames. They flickered and swayed, dancing to some unheard beat. I throw more kindling into the fire; they sing briefly in embers. I like their song. I pull out my notebook tucked beneath the damp towel I had wrapped myself in to mask my sugar tea-ed blood from the mosquitoes, “Fuck it, I’ll join you too.”

​

You planned this whole camping trip to get away, but I felt trapped, more than anything.

 

Leading up to when we left the house, I had done my best to keep everyone together. Of course, you had left without context leaving everyone wondering where you were, leaving behind baggage of blankets, air mattresses, and tents—but no instructions. Yet upon your return you screamed at the floor, asking why everyone was just sitting there waiting for directions. So, I created direction. I told everyone to start bringing things to the cars while you continued to deliver your sermon to thin air. When you started to become a blockade to the process, I had to confront it; break down that wall so we can reach an understanding.

​

“Mom, stop yelling. It’s fine, relax,” I said, my volume several levels below yours, enough to hear than to scare or anger. But your ears were several decibels too sensitive, and you snarled, “Don’t tell me to relax. No one knows how to do anything. It’s always me.”

 

You’d think that this being a routinely thing, that I’d take my usual approach. Crack a joke to ease the tension, brush it off, move on. Rinse and repeat, and rinse and repeat, and rinse and repeat. However, the method starts to lose its lustre, like clothes lose colour with every wash.

​

But I was less than some rag thrown into the laundry load. I am an elastic band on its last strings of rubber. The way you snapped left a welt on the skin for how far your words would stretch to hurt. I snapped too. I broke.

​

You were my first panic attack.

​

I was in the washroom, choking on air trying to make its way to my lungs. I exhaled that and then some. Too much. My body twitched in fits, denying the air, denying the frantic knocks on the door trying to get into the washroom. Unresponsive to the whispers of comfort and the gentle petting on the crown of my head.

​

They moved me to the couch in the basement to let me continue my heaving in peace. The tile I had fixated on turned into the yellow paint that changed a shade darker at the crevice. I called Lexie, my fingers shaking too much to send a coherent text.

​

“Hello?”

​

“Lexie. Panic. Attack.” I choked out, rocking my body back and forth to create a rhythm with my voice, “Help. Please.”

​

“Ok, Jo. We’re going to do some breathing exercises, repeat after me.”

​

It was half an hour in where the voice in my head went out of sync with my trembling lips to gain a sense of sanity. 

​

“You’re doing good, Jo. Keep going,” Lexie continued, and I nod as if she could see me trying to keep it together.

​

But I heard the sound of cicadas. They were uniform, shrieking in unison beneath hostile steps.

​

It was you.

​

The tiny voice synced up once more. Inhale for 1, exhale for 6. Inhale for 1, exhale for 7. Just don’t breathe.

​

“No, Jo. C’mon I know you can do it.”

​

“Lexie. Sorry.” I sobbed, my back hurting from the consistent rocking.

​

“No Jo, it’s not your fault. You don’t need to speak right now, just focus on your breathing.”

​

What hurt the most wasn’t that it lasted well over an hour. It wasn’t that the very thought of you triggered another one the next day. Even now, as I’m rocking back and forth from resurfacing these memories, it wasn’t that it had affected me this much. It was that you didn’t even do anything. You picked up where I left off as if you had started everyone off in a clear direction. You left without even checking on me when every single family member had. You didn’t apologize.

​

I couldn’t even bare staying past a night during that camping trip. Supposedly, being in nature meant we’d be surrounded by quiet only hearing the soft trill of crickets complementary to the crackle of the fire as we roasted marshmallows and told ghost stories while mosquitoes kissed anklets on our skin in secret. But with you, all I heard was cicadas. I heard you in the car, despite riding with my cousin’s family when you were more than an hour ahead of us. I heard you when we arrived on the campsite, despite our lot being a good five-minute walk from you. I thought I would find peace in the quiet of an empty home when my cousin and I left the following morning, but I still heard you. I still heard cicadas. I couldn’t see you, but you were there, and you made sure that everyone knew it from the remnants of dialogue you left to linger in our heads. It was the ghost of your voice that kept us up at night.

​

I do recall in that letter that I had forgiven you.

​

​

From: Josée Cadaba <cadaba@sheridancollege.ca>

To: Counsellor Blank <cadaba@sheridancollege.ca>

Subject: Booking: Counselling Session

 

Upcoming Booking for Josée Cadaba

Date: February 4, 2022

Time: 10:00AM—11:00PM (UTC-5:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)

 

Please allow 24 hours in advance if the appointment requires rescheduling.

Powered by Microsoft Bookings

​

​

From: Josée Cadaba <cadaba@sheridancollege.ca>

To: Counsellor Blank <cadaba@sheridancollege.ca>

Subject: Booking: CANCELLED Counselling Session

​

Cancelled Booking for Josée Cadaba

Date: February 4, 2022

Time: 10:00AM—11:00PM (UTC-5:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)

​

Powered by Microsoft Bookings

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Lexie: Wanna play Raft this week? 😊 (Received 1 hour ago)

​

Jo: Yeah, sounds good! :D What time were you thinkin? (Sent 13 minutes ago)

​

Lexie: Well, you got counselling this week, right? What time would be best for you? (Received 2 minutes ago)

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Jo: Oh, I stopped going. (Sent just now)

​

LEXIE is calling…

​

“Hey Lex!”

She’s quiet for a moment, “Jo–”

​

“Lex, it’s really not a big deal.”

​

“Was it not a good match?”

​

“No, they were great actually, compared to the counsellor I had before.”

​

“Then why stop? You might as well keep going, right?”

​

I hum, “How do I explain this? I want to go, but I don’t know what else to say. I’ve said my piece. They know the root of my issues, so now what? The writing that I’d been doing? I could have done that by myself; create this story in my head where she accidentally comes across my letters, feels an ache in her heart and acknowledges what she had done. I can dream all I want about a mother who apologizes for the harm she had caused; a mother who mends what she had broken. But this isn’t some fairy tale, and she isn’t a character I can force to follow the narrative.”