Last week I gave up the ghost and went to therapy.
I know talking it out, taking care of oneself, healthy to ask for help, all that. But last week, I was a middle aged woman, ugly-crying in a stranger’s office at 9:00 in the am.
On the balance, I can’t decide if it’s more depressing that I have become New Yorker Magazine style cartoon caricature. I hate therapy. It skins away all those protective coping mechanisms, leaving me feeling both naked, and like an onion – as though every whiff of myself waters my eyes. It’s no way to be.*
In other news, we moved. It’s been five years, so that last house was the longest I’ve lived under one roof since I was six years old. Milestone!
Good news: We bought this house. You can have the keys when you pry them out of my cold, dead fingers.
Bad news: Kids hate this house. And wow, do you know any greater fuckover than when you do something to a kid that scarred you as a kid? Like moving? And then the kids act all scarred?
And at first, you’re all like, “Hey I get it, but you’ll survive,” and “Hey, I totally get it, but we tried to buy that old house twice, and the landlord just wouldn’t sell, so we would have had to move eventually anyway,” and “Cheer up dears, I promise this will feel like home soon enough!”?
But eventually, you find yourself thinking, “Oh my god, you can literally see our old house from our new one. Same schools, same friends, same neighbors,” and “Holy shitballs, snap out of it,” and eventually, on the second week of nonstop tear leakage and panic-snuggles while I’m trying to unpack, the All Time Best, “Back in my day we moved across the country every two years, so quit your sniveling!” That’s right! Your feelings are invalid! Suck it up!**
Annnnd then I’m a bad person. But fear not! I’m in therapy.
* Also, what I hate about therapy: Therapist was wearing green nail polish, green leather flip flops, and a green shirt. Totally small talk, I said it was a cute look, was green her favorite color? “It is today!” she laughed in that deflecting way therapists do.
And I totally get that I’m supposed to stay out of her business, but I hate that there’s always an edge to therapy as if I might get glommy fatal attraction style inappropriately involved, or show up to next session in all green, or some bullshit. Then I get scared that I sound kind of psycho making this complaint – perhaps my boundaries are inappropriate, I am violating some unspoken social contract? Then there’s this urge to just act a little psycho, because it’s hanging out there, like a question that needs an answer. And then I’m in that naked-onion place again, dammit, for daring to inquire about green toenail polish.
**Again seeing myself as a New Yorker cartoon in this instance. Another perfect fit for the caption Christ, what an asshole.
Hey, I’m giving up the ghost and going to therapy, starting tomorrow! At 9:30am, I will be the one ugly crying in a stranger’s office. I believe they call this “synchronicity.” See also: “everything sucks right now.” Sorry you’re in this place, too. Hope therapy helps us both (even if we hate it).
Wow, moving – stressful! Even when it’s close by. Kudos.
So glad to hear you’re in therapy. I hope you’ve found a good fit – remember that it’s really ok to “fire” your therapist if after a few sessions it feels pointless or you just don’t click or you feel uncomfortable/judged, and find a new one. 🙂
As for the weird boundary stuff – yes, it _is_ totally weird, because it breaks the normal social contract, and you’re not crazy for find it uncomfortable. But it is useful, too, and remember that it’s also not normal social behaviour to sit down and pour out all your feelings/thoughts/fears/dreams to someone who exists only to help you process them and make your life better.
Good luck. 🙂
(love the New Yorker cartoon thing. Hilarious!)
Yesterday when I sat in therapy feeling defensive and unprotected and like I was paying for yet another person to criticize me, I was thinking “I just knew I hated therapy!” Then I remembered, this therapy is free through the hospice.
I am not still not sure, though, whether I pay for it or not that I need someone else to criticize me, my choices, and my sense of frustration.
Then again, maybe I am just being defensive. Yeah, definitely, but still…
Okay, done, just called to make an appt. with a therapist recommended by the psychiatrist who provides meds (as if I’m not needy enough – who has to remind me each month that he isn’t a therapist and that I could surely gain relief from having one.) It seems to me that part of the female social contract is built on a version of “Oooh, love your outfit!” – the first rung of a complex and oft-awkward ladder, no matter our age or social setting. I think her response fell short of the contract (and bright green matchy-match? meh …). Seems to me a good therapist is akin to great conditioner/detangler: you want to step out feeling a bit tended to, just a little shinier and put together (not that I use this product but it leapt into mind, so I will honor it). Oh Anne, so many changes and worries and no way to manage all of them — big hug to you. Days will come and days will go … quiet deep breaths be yours.
Oh, y’all. I’ve been going to the same therapist for 13 years! Divorce, rebuilding trust after infidelity, new relationships/old demons, my beloved’s cancer, his death, rebuilding AGAIN, having kids, step-parenting, AND EVERYTHING ELSE. This woman knows me pretty well. One time a few years back, I bumped into her in a restaurant and we were both like, “hi…hi..enjoy your dinner..you too.”
It’s soooo worth the awkward beginning.
Does this mean you not longer have carpet in your bathroom. Was it white carpet? I can’t remember.
Good fucking job with the therapy. As soon as I can convince the 3yo to go somewhere not attached to me for an hour I’m going back to therapy, too.
Oh urk. I realise you’re there to talk about you, not her, but it’s not like you made some kind of snorting joke about how her underwear probably matches (which is totally what I would’ve done). Committing to you knowing her favourite colour is hardly the same as inviting you to paw through her personal life.
Anyway. XD
Not that you need my approval! But I support you going to therapy, and I hope she turns out to be an excellent fit for you.
Dear lord I hate moving, especially with kids. I feel for you.
(My favourite colour actually IS green. But I can tell you that ‘cos I’m not a therapist.)
My best friend is a psychologist and occasionally when I talk to her about a problem in my life she does it to me. “Oh, that must have been very hard for you, how do you feel about it?”, like that invisible wall slams down between us. I have to stop and straight up tell her to stop acting like a mental health professional. I totally get why it’s necessary but it is cold. If it makes you feel any better, my psych friend has a whole host of her own issues, I tell her she became a psychologist to avoid ever having to talk about her own problems and she agrees. Knowing that a therapist is probably far from 100% perfectly sane actually makes me trust them more.
Hahaahaa! Had that SAME awkward thing happen in Marriage Therapy! The Therapist mentioned she was moving and I asked (social contract again) where she was moving to. It wasn’t till she got super evasive that I realized that I had asked a “creepy stalker question.”
The hell. I was being POLITE! I couldn’t actually care less where she was moving to!
Ashley, I’ve got you beat… I’ve been seeing the same counselor (off and on, not continuously) for 23 years. Jesus Christ. And I’ve been away for about a year and ohmygod I so need to go back but just cannot find the time even to make the appointment, much less go, because I’m working so goddamn much. It is so freeing to be able to talk about feeling fucked up.
Good for you. I hope this makes a big difference for you.
My in-laws are therapists. That can get odd sometimes.
Good for you! At least the therapist said “It is today” instead of something like “And how do you feel about that?” Not too bad on the scale of deflecting. Agree with what others have written, especially parodie. Don’t know what kind of therapist she is, but mine (PhD, with years of experience) has told me that she has to meet regularly in a group or with a supervisor to go over her relationship with clients. The best will find a balance between letting you work things out and offering advice/consolation/humaness when appropriate.
Therapy is awkward and uncomfortable and impersonal anyway, especially at first.
What I want is a therapist that, after a few sessions, will go, “Okay, here’s a list of your problems, these on the left are the ones you can fix, and on the right the ones your stuck with for life because of flaws in your personality/humanity/nature/nurture/diet. Now, here’s the list in outline form of what you need to do it. Get started, report to me in two weeks.”
I know that won’t happen, but I SO feel like that’s what I need. (Clearly this post is all. about. me. That’s going to be in the list!)
OMG! *you’re. I did that thing I hate so much when others do it!