They say that going to therapy straight after a traumatic event is next to useless. The trauma is too raw for that kind of counselling to be of any help. So I did it right. Shortly after the rape, I went for crisis counselling—the first-aid of the counselling world. It gets you through the immediate aftermath of the event.

Then, after more than a year, I started going to proper long-term therapy. I committed myself to putting in the “work” I needed to recover. That’s shrink-speak. When you go to therapy, you are doing “work.”

My therapist is a woman. Naturally. You wouldn’t consult a man after being raped. Her name is Lydia Bascombe, and she thinks I shouldn’t be so flippant about needing her.

“Why do you feel the need to compare yourself to other rape survivors?” she asks.

“It’s a natural impulse, isn’t it? When you’ve been through something life-changing, you want to know how other people who have been through the same thing are coping.”

“But you disparage yourself constantly. It’s as if you believe you have no right to therapy just because not everyone can afford it.”

“Do I, though?”

“Why do you feel that you don’t?”

Shrinks always answer questions with questions. I am not the first to make this observation.

“It’s a luxury,” I say. “An indulgence. You can dress it up as something else by calling it ‘work,’ but it’s an opportunity to talk about yourself for an hour. To someone who is paid to care.”

“There are other luxuries that not everyone can afford. Like a roof over one’s head and three meals a day. Do you feel unworthy of those too?”

“Perhaps I do.”

“But you accept them. You don’t put on sackcloth and ashes and start living in a shack. You don’t choose to subsist on mealie-meal and tripe. You don’t flirt with nutritional deficiency and hypothermia.”

“Aren’t you arguing with me now? You’re trying to persuade me to see things your way. Therapists aren’t meant to do that.”

She goes quiet. She is struggling with what looks like irritation. She is annoyed with my refusal to see the light—to get better.

“Rational argument can be part of the therapeutic process.” There is little conviction in her voice. She has overstepped the mark, and she knows it. I feel satisfaction at having rattled her. But now it is her turn to rattle me, and that won’t be nearly as pleasant. It is all part of the give-and-take of what she likes to call “the therapeutic process.”

“Perhaps you find it easier to focus on other rape survivors than on yourself?” The gentleness in her voice tells me she is moving in for the kill. She will make me cry today. She can sense my tears in the wind.