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Therapy was one aspect of rehab that BoJack didn't care for. Doctor Champ's wordy rehab sayings got on his nerves, and he couldn't stand the guy's constant probing questions. But if he wanted to improve himself, then he had to stick it out and go with the program.
It was nice out today. The sky was a bright, cloudless blue and the sun was bright and hot. It was time for his individual session with Doctor Champ. "Hello, there, BoJack!" Ugh. Why was he so cheery? He took a deep breath and lay on the hay bale.
"Hello."
"So. Remember how we said we were going to get at the source of your addiction?"
He rolled his eyes. "Noooo, you haven't mentioned it at all!"
"Sarcasm isn't going to help you here, BoJack." He leaned forward. "I know this is hard to talk about. But if you want to get anywhere, you're going to need to address your problem at its root."
Okay, BoJack, let's do this. "Okay. Shoot."
"Alright. Can you remember when you first drank?"
He tried to think. "Uh....." He ran through decades of memories. Was it during Horsin' Around.... No, it was definitely earlier, much earlier.... That party sophomore year when I drank all that beer?.... No.... The Jack and Coke with Dad?.... No..... "You know, it kind of feels like I've been drinking my whole life."
"Well, when people have struggled with this for as long as you have, then it feels like that for them. Over time, their addiction becomes part of their identity. But you had to start somewhere. You were somebody before all this."
Was I? "Um...." All of a sudden, he was very small, wearing the sailor suit his mother had made for him, and he was in his uncle's dingy kitchen. The Guess Who's "American Woman" was playing on a nearby radio. He could taste the remnants of the vermouth and scotch in his mouth. His limbs felt heavy, like they didn't belong to him. The world around him was blurry and slow. "I was about.... six? Seven, I think? My- my dad gave me scotch." He tried to reach for the rest of the memory. What had happened before then? "Yeah. It was scotch. We were at my uncle's house, and he was sitting in the living room drinking scotch. And he saw me looking and asked if I wanted some."
"Mm-hm."
"And- and I had a sip, but I didn't like it. It tasted bad. It burned, actually. And then he took me into the kitchen and mixed it with vermouth to make it taste better. And it worked." He sighed. "I kept asking for more, and he kept giving me more. But.... I think it was less the taste that I liked, and more.... how it made me feel. I felt... warm. And it seemed like.... he was being nice to me for once."
"And what happened after that?"
"I...." Try as he might, he just couldn't access the rest of the memory. He felt a tightness in his chest. "I can't... I don't remember."
"You do, I can tell. You just don't want to." He leaned forward. "You're safe here. It's okay to feel these things."
"It's.... it's like there's a.... locked door where the rest of the memory is, and I can't get it open!"
"You can, BoJack. Now take a deep breath...." -BoJack complied- "....and let's open that door together. What's behind it?"
He imagined himself opening that door. And it came flooding back. "I got up from the table and started walking around, and... I was wobbly. And my father laughed and said, 'Hey, everyone, look at BoJack!' Meanwhile, everything's blurry, my whole body feels heavy..... it was- it was scary." His eyes started to sting. "And then I felt sick all of a sudden, and I threw up on the carpet in the living room, in front of everybody. It burned really bad, coming up. Probably even worse than going down. I think my cousin Denise cleaned it up, but I don't remember." He could see the teenager walking over with a bucket and a sponge.
"I can only imagine how terrifying that would be for a little boy."
"Yes. I didn't know what was happening." His eyes started to water. "But, you know, over time, I forgot about the bad part. I just remembered how I felt at first. And when my parents would pass out drunk, I'd go downstairs and drink what was left over. And I'd curl up next to them, and... that was the one time I felt safe with them."
Doctor Champ jotted something down in his notes, then said, "So, at a young age, you learned to associate alcohol with comfort."
Well, he hadn't thought about it like that before... "I- I guess." Ah, fuck, I better not cry here...
"And when your father tried to make the whiskey taste better for you- not that what he did was acceptable in any manner, of course- it made you feel like he cared about you."
Hit the nail on the head. "Yeah." He scratched the back of his neck. "Y- you know, it was the early '70s. I'm sure parents could be a little more lax back then, I mean...."
"BoJack, I also grew up in the '70s. That wasn't normal back then, either. I get it, you're trying to rationalize an experience that was completely out of the ordinary. But it's never okay for a parent to give their small child alcohol, and that much of it, too. He could have killed you."
It felt.... strange, to hear another adult saying that how his father had treated him was fucked up. But it was also a relief. "Y- yeah, he could have killed me." And despite his best efforts, the tears were coming out.
Doctor Champ handed him a tissue, and he dabbed at his eyes. "Now, let's talk about your relationship with your parents. What was that like?"
Well, that's a whole other can of worms. He gestured to the tissues and laughed a little. "We're gonna need a lot more of those." He sighed. "I didn't spend much time with my dad. He resented me and my mom for getting in the way of his lifelong dream, which was to write a great novel and get famous. He did end up writing a novel. It was a piece of shit, though.
"Anyway... when I was little, I'd try to do nice things for him, like making him cards on Father's Day or his birthday. He never appreciated it. He just wanted me out of his space. And if I ever pissed him off- which was often- he'd whack me. But there were times when he'd get all emotional and have me sit with him while he cried to Cole Porter records and talked about his big regrets in life. And sometimes, he'd talk about women, and tell me all this sexual stuff that he really shouldn't have been telling me, but I didn't really know any better. I thought he was treating me like an adult, like his best buddy, you know?"
He nodded. "That must have been confusing."
"It was." He looked down. "He cheated on my mom a lot. In fact, just recently, I found my half-sister, who came about because he knocked up the maid. Who knows, there might be more half-siblings I don't know about... A couple times, I actually caught him in the act. The first time was when I was eight, and... I came home and heard some weird noises, so I went to see where they were coming from, and they were coming from his office. The door was open just a crack, and I could see him standing at the end of his desk, and it was shaking.
"I leaned against the door, and it opened all the way, and.... before I could really see much, he shooed me out of there and yelled at me for going into his office. Then he hit me and told me not to tell anyone what I'd seen." His eyes watered at the memory. "My friend's mom saw that I had a bloody nose and asked if there was anything wrong at home, but I couldn't tell her. I didn't want him to hurt me worse. And even though I didn't like the way my parents treated me, I didn't think they were bad people at the time. I didn't think they wanted to hurt me on purpose, and I didn't want them to go away."
"Of course. Nobody wants to think the people they love are capable of hurting them."
"And... the next time I caught him, I was eleven. He was staying late at work, so I brought him his dinner. And I opened the door, and his secretary was straddling him. She left as soon as she saw me. And I asked what he'd been doing, but he didn't answer, just gave me a Jack and Coke because he said I was old enough now. And... I blacked out, actually." He shook his head. "He was actually being.... nice to me. It felt weird. This whole... situation was weird."
"Did you know what you were seeing?"
"Both times? No. Not until years later. I didn't know what sex was yet. But I knew it was something bad, otherwise he wouldn't tell me not to tell people."
"Or ply you with alcohol."
"Right."
"Alright, then. What about your mother?"
He sighed. "That woman seemed to hate my very existence. She'd always tell me that she never wanted me, that being pregnant with me made her ugly, and that I couldn't do anything right. And if I made even one small step out of line, she'd hit me with a strap." He shuddered at the memory of the thing. "But... she's my mom. I loved her, in a really fucked-up way."
"That's understandable."
"And all I wanted was for her to approve of me. Both my parents cared a lot about what people thought of them, and our family, so I always had to make them look good. My mom was part of a supper club, and she'd host these huge dinner parties every Sunday. And every time, she'd make me sing the Lollipop song in front of her guests. She'd heard me sing it once when I was four and she was playing it on the piano, and she stopped and said, 'Do that again!' I hated that damn song, but... that was the only time she was happy with me. And once, I was hiding under the table crying because I didn't want to do it, and she said,"- he did his best impersonation of his mother- 'Do you want your mommy to love you? You go out there and do the only thing you're good for, which is singing the goddamn Lollipop song.'"
Doctor Champ was visibly shocked. "Wow."
"Yeah."
"So you learned that love was something you had to earn, in this case by performing." He leaned forward. "Is this why you became an actor?"
"Wh- no! I decided to become an actor because I loved John Travolta and I wanted to be famous."
"Okay." It didn't look like he believed him, though. "Well, let's dive into that. Why did you want to be famous?"
"Why did you want to be a therapist?"
"Okay, first of all, I'm a therapy horse, not a therapist, and second of all, you're deflecting....."
"No, for real, I want to know. And then we can get back to that question."
"Okay. Well, I went into this field because I was an addict myself, as you know, and I wanted to help others who were in the same position I'd been in. Now, let's get back to the question. Avoiding it won't make it any better."
"Okay, fine." He sighed. "I wanted to be famous because.... I wanted to be admired. I wanted to be loved."
"You wanted the love your parents never gave you."
Well, when you put it like that.... He didn't answer, just started crying again. He felt like a little boy again, wishing he had love and attention from the people that mattered most.
He handed him another tissue. "I know this is hard to talk about. Really, really hard."
"It is. I haven't.... I haven't really talked about this in depth with anyone."
"Well, it's good to let it out." He checked his watch. "And that's our time for today. See you tomorrow, BoJack."