I have started hoping patients cancel

Dear Delyara, I am a therapist. People come into my office carrying marriages collapsing, childhood abuse, suicidal thoughts, dead parents, frightened children, addictions, shame, secrets they have never said aloud. For years, I felt privileged whenever someone trusted me with those things. Now, when my phone shows a cancellation, relief moves through my body so strongly that it feels almost like happiness. Yesterday, a client cancelled because her father had been rushed to hospital. My first thought was, Good, forty-five minutes. The shame arrived immediately afterward, but it did not erase the relief. I still do my work properly. I listen. I remember names. I notice when somebody says “fine” differently from the week before. That is why I am frightened. There has been no dramatic collapse to prove I need help. Only a growing hunger for other people not to need me. Between sessions, I sometimes sit behind the door hoping the next client is late. I fantasize about getting mildly ill—nothing serious, just enough to justify a week off without admitting that I cannot keep absorbing pain at this speed. Therapists know the vocabulary: burnout, secondary trauma, compassion fatigue. I have used those words with colleagues. Knowing the correct terms has not stopped me from looking at a waiting-room notification and wishing, for one ugly second, that one suffering person after another would simply decide not to come.