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I scrambled out of bed and quickly got dressed. Getting ready, I loaded my backpack and hurried out. I walked into class late but tardiness was graded on a curve at 8 am.
“Today you will be filling out the T.E.Q., The Toronto Empathy Questionnaire. Not only will it lead us into our discussion on empathy, it will tell you wannabe therapists out there whether you are right for the job,” my professor said suddenly grabbing my attention.
I very much wanted to be a therapist. It was the only thing I had wanted since I was 12. I had read a Psychology 101 textbook cover-to-cover when I was 15-years-old because I was so interested in it. I needed to do well on this test.
When the paper was slipped in front of me, I saw that it wasn’t very long. The questions were also fairly basic. I put my name on it and began.
‘When someone is excited, I tend to be excited too; never, sometimes, or always?’
Easy. Always, of course.
‘Other people’s misfortunes do not disturb me a great deal; never, sometimes, or always?’
Again, easy. Never… usually.
I mean, if it were a normal person, who I assume this question is referring to, I never feel good about someone else’s misfortune. But, let’s say Evan Carter gets hit by a bus. I’m not suggesting that he die… necessarily. I’m just talking about him feeling a fraction of the pain he put me through for four years.
The question can’t be referring to situations like that, could it? Or, did it? Was the questionnaire trying to dig out your darkest thoughts? Was my lack of empathy for a psychopath who tortured me what will make me a bad therapist?
I stared at the question paralyzed. I couldn’t get past it. I couldn’t believe that after everything he put me through, the echo of it could prevent me from being good at the only thing I had ever wanted.
“Please hand your papers forward,” my professor said snapping me out of my trance.
“I’m not done,” I told the grabby girl who took my paper from me and passed the stack along.
She shrugged barely acknowledging my struggle. I knew for sure that that ice queen would make a horrible therapist. But what about me? Was empathy really that important?
I didn’t have to wait long to get an answer to that question. Two days later, my professor asked me to see him before I left.
“At the beginning of the semester I asked you all what your goals were for the class,” Professor Nandan began.
“Yes. And I said that I wanted to become a therapist, because I do.”
He looked at me confused. “Right. Which makes me wonder why you would do this on a questionnaire designed to determine your level of empathy,” he said before placing my sheet on the desk between us.
“I know, I didn’t finish it.”
“You didn’t. But that’s not what I’m talking about,” he said placing his finger next to the doodle I had drawn in the top right corner of the paper.
Looking at it again, I realized that it was less of a doodle and more of a sketch. I was known to draw on things when I was bored, and they weren’t always happy pictures. This one was decidedly not happy and had a message that was hard to miss.
“You drew a football player hanging from a noose in the corner of an empathy questionnaire? Is there something you would like to talk about, Mr. Seers?”
My mouth dropped open as I looked up at the rounded-faced man in front of me. There was no question what had inspired this. Fuckin’ Evan Carter.
“Okay, I can explain,” I began not knowing what I would say next.
“Go on,” he urged patiently.
Was I going to lie? Tell him the truth? This was feeling like a no-win scenario.
“I might have an issue with football players.”
“You don’t say,” he said sarcastically.
“And, I might have woken up from a bad dream about one of them right before coming to class.”
“Did you want to talk about that dream?”
