In this fortnight’s Satire By Satyros, Thomas Antioch talks about his issues.

(Warning: this article contains offensive humour)

In the past two months I’ve spoken to 17 psychologists about my commitment issues.  It’s a big step for me but my panic attacks were just getting worse.  I know there’s nothing to fear but fear itself, but fear just terrifies me out of my fucking mind.  Plus I might be a hypochondriac, though I think I’m just being paranoid.

But the reason this is such a big step for me is this: I have a fear of psychologists.  I know that sounds crazy and implausible and like a really bad premise, but it’s true.  Every night I have dreams about people analysing my dreams.  I realised that the only way to solve this was to see a psychologist about it.  And, after hyperventilating during 16 sessions, my 17th shrink and I started to make progress.

She seems to think that a lot of my problems stem from my unhappy childhood.  You see, when I was young my father routinely exposed me to Freudian analysis.  My father was a brutally strict Freudian who often boasted about having an id/ego ratio of 6.3.  When I was ten, he analysed one of my dreams (the one where Scarlett Johansson is rubbing two watermelons against my face) and quickly concluded that I had an unhealthy obsession with his penis.  From then on he spent hours each day describing it to me in great detail, making sure that on each mention my pupils didn’t dilate and I didn’t start salivating.  He used to draw pictures of his penis in the back of my schoolbooks.  One day I came home to find dad had replaced the television with a giant latex effigy of his penis.

One night, in order to stop my supposed infatuation, my father stood up at the dinner table and, with one flick of a bread knife, cut off his turgid cock.  He dressed it in a wig, lipstick and a miniskirt, placed it on the mantelpiece and said, “That should stop all strange thoughts about it.”

And for a while he was correct – my mind felt much cleaner.  Yet one afternoon I found myself spending an inordinate amount of time in front of the mantelpiece, polishing my father’s ex-penis.  It was strangely captivating; the full red lipstick and blonde wig made it look like Scarlett Johansson in genital form…

Suddenly I heard footsteps in the hall.  I didn’t want dad to catch me thinking about his Johansson phallus!  I turned to run but bumped heavily into the mantelpiece in my panic.  I fell to the floor, looked up and saw that I had knocked the penis off the edge.  My jaw dropped as I watched the penis fall towards me.  It landed, softly, in my gaping mouth.

My father walked into the room to see me sprawled on the floor, sucking his dismembered member.  My father, the strict Freudian, realised his worst nightmare was true: I obviously had a repressed desire to smoke cigars.  He broke down and wept.

Father loathed smoking.  He’d hated it ever since he’d worked for a cigarette company.  The work there disgusted him so much he quit in 1993.  He quit again in 1994, and then again in 1995, twice in 1996 before finally leaving for good in 1997 after getting a job cryogenically freezing turkeys. 

Just telling this story has really helped me overcome my fear of psychologists.  In fact, I’m starting to develop a bit of a crush on mine.  There’s just something about her blonde hair and red lipstick that makes my jaw drop.