Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Talk therapy
Have you hugged your personal demons today?
They’re lonely, you know. And hungry. Oh, so hungry; they would love to creep back to their place of prominence and authority, sit on that throne they shared for many years — shared with each other, of course, but never with you.
Your demons are lonely and hungry, and they are as pissed off as a jilted lover with borderline personality disorder. Things haven’t been the same, ever since you banished them. Ever since talk therapy.
Yet, banishment is perhaps not the best metaphor, and neither is exorcism. Both imply a permanent separation, something I’m convinced is impossible. Your demons never leave you. No, a better metaphor is castration. They’re like neutered beasts now, still capable of doing damage, but they’re calmer now. And the best metaphor? A cage. Before, you were caged, and your demons were free. Now it’s the other way around. Now they can only hurt you if you let them out.
***
I grew up in a family that considered therapy of any kind to be a severe stigma. Lunatics went to therapists. What kind of imbecile would tell his secrets to a stranger? Secrets should stay secret. That’s why they call them secrets, for cryin’ out loud.
In first grade, I fessed up a bit of family dirt to my beleaguered teacher, who at open house turned around and asked my parents about it. They denied everything, naturally (what business was it of hers, anyway?), and she let it drop. Why shouldn’t she? I was a compulsive storyteller. Remember the Hannukah lobster?
Back home, my father told me in terms even a six-year-old would comprehend that family business stays private. You don’t tell people outside the family what goes on under this roof, understand? Ever.
Not even about the people who come in at night while we sleep, and the listening devices in the attic?
Whoops. Sorry, Dad. That just slipped out.
***
I broke that rule for the first time when I was 13 or 14. At school, a psychologist (a social worker, maybe?) ran a “rap group” for kids who felt like joining in. When school gave way to summer, he continued to give private sessions free of charge in a downtown office. I saw him several times.
Most of the time, I couldn’t say anything at all. He’d ask me, “What are you thinking?” and I would butt my head against a figurative wall. (Yeah, when The Wall came out four years later, I had a flash of recognition. I knew all about that.) Eventually, though, I managed to put words to my story.
That relationship ended badly. The therapist became so riled up by what I’d told him that he tried to intervene, thereby violating what I consider Rule #1: the therapist should listen, should catalyze change if possible, but should never try to force change. Activism is the hallmark of an inexperienced therapist — or of a charlatan like Dr. Phil.
The whole thing was such a shame. I’d had a chance to cage the demons, but I lost it. They would rule the roost for at least another decade.
***
I coughed up the tale to GFv1.0, too, which was a mistake. Teenagers do not know how to listen. Even if she could have fulfilled the role of therapist, I realize now how wrong it was to expect it of her. We shouldn’t put loved ones and family members into this situation. It’s similar to asking an eldest son to assume the role of father upon the father’s death or absence, when that eldest son happens to be only 12. He doesn’t have the skills at this age, and even if he did, it’s not his job.
I’m not suggesting you hide things from your spouse. There’s a difference between sharing everything with your lover and expecting her to help you with your demons. A big difference. And it is, again, a question of roles. Did you marry her to be your partner, or to heal your wounded spirit?
I know I’ll take flak over that last statement, but I stand by it. If your husband or wife soothes you, helps you to grow, makes it easier for you to adapt, then that’s great. That’s the sign of a good relationship, in my opinion: I’m a better person with you than I am without you. But to put the burden of cure onto your lover is just plain wrong.
Look at it this way. As doctors, we’re taught not to treat our family members for anything serious. It’s impossible to be objective about your spouse or child, and without objectivity, you’re lost. How much worse is it, then, to expect your spouse to be your therapist? I’m trained to be a doctor and I won’t do it. Does your husband have the training to be your therapist?
I’ll go one step further: we shouldn’t charge our friends with this responsibility, either. Once again, they lack the training. Worse still, you run the risk of permanently altering your relationship. Dump on your friends from time to time — nothing wrong with that, provided you let them dump right back — but don’t expect them to help you cage your demons.
***
Over the years, I have learned that all therapists are not created equally. Some know their shit, and some do not. Here are some pointers, things I’ve learned from experience that might help you find the right person.
1. As I mentioned above, activism = incompetence. If your therapist gives you a play-by-play of how you need to change your life, he’s an idiot. Watch Dr. Phil if you need an example of this sort of behavior.
2. Stick with a same-sex therapist. If you’re gay, pick an opposite-sex therapist. I don’t care if the therapist is sixty years older than you, ugly as sin, and smells like a junkyard dog, the sexual dynamic will be there, and you don’t need that.
3. Pay attention to how you feel after your first or second session. You should feel as though your internal pot were boiling. Disturbed, depressed, threatened, elated, excited: these are all good signs. If you’re feeling meh: this is a bad sign.
If by the end of your second session you don’t feel things opening up inside of you, dump the therapist. He may not be a bad therapist, but he’s not right for you.
4. A good therapist will spend 95% of his time listening. Yes, you are paying someone to listen to you talk. (That’s one of the things my parents could never understand.) But you are also paying your therapist for the 5% of the time when he asks just the right question — a question which may bring you face to face with your own internal wall of silence. A question which may make you think, Oh, holy shit.
On the face of it, there will be nothing profound about this question. It could be something as simple as, “Why do you think that is?” It might not even be a question. “It sounds like that really bothered you.” (Heh heh. An implied question lurks therein.) It’s the internal storm you feel which makes it such a great question. Which brings me to number five:
5. Never, never forget that you are doing 99.9% of the work of internal transformation. Not happy with the progress of your therapy sessions? Well, maybe it’s because all you ever talk about is your day-to-day bullshit, stuff you could unload on a friend, or even dump into a blog, for heaven’s sake. If you’re not willing to face the demons, why the hell are you even in therapy?
6. Don’t get discouraged. You might have to work through a few therapists before you find someone who is right for you. In my experience, psychologists are a better bet than psychiatrists (unless you really do need the drugs . . . in which case, might I suggest you get yourself a psychiatrist and a psychologist?)
***
I passed by my demons this morning, as I do every morning, as I do every waking moment. They whined and simpered for me like beaten dogs.
And I pissed on them. Fucking assholes, they nearly ruined my life.
D.
This week I took my daughter to see her pediatrician and while there I became utterly engrossed in this story in National Geographic Adventure – also on the topic of personal demons.
I tried therapy with a couple of different people some years ago and I never could get comfortable with being the only one talking. I finally decided that humans are pre-disposed to the back-and-forth of conversation, and I couldn’t get over my discomfort at being the only one talking. This was made worse when I finally said something “real” and the therapist’s response was to ask me whether I thought the authorities needed to be contacted. I realized then and still do that it’s a fair question – after all, I’d hate to think someone else could be hurt due to my lack of action – but it took me right out of the place that allowed me to reveal anything of importance and I couldn’t get back to it. I stopped going shortly thereafter.
I’ve since realized that the way my mind works is to make connections and have ah-ha! moments as I experience more, know more people, learn more about life in general. So I don’t know that even if I could have gotten myself back to therapy if it would have done me much good because I suspect what I need to go from realization to realization is new life experiences, not examination of previous life experiences.
Of course, that could be just me rationalizing not going to therapy, but I figure if I’m growing and dealing and trying to become a better person the venue isn’t all that important – whatever helps get the job done is fair game, so long as you’re doing something to get the job done.
Thanks for commenting.
Like I said, I believe that we do 99.9% of the work of our own transformation. If you can do it yourself, more power to you.
I wonder about your therapists, though. You say there was no back-and-forth and suggest that you were doing all of the talking. I think this is as bad as the therapist who says too much. My favorite therapist (i.e., the one who helped me the most) always remained engaged. He said things to let me know he was listening and that he understood what I was saying, and he was dynamite at asking bland questions that forced me to look at something with new eyes. I did most of the talking, but not all of it.
I’ve had my ins and outs with shrinks throughout my adult life. Shortly after my divorce in ’91, I went because of the stress of being on workers’ comp (chronic hand injury), suddenly a single mother and all the after-emotions of divorce. The pyschologist I talked to was more interested in my cheap & easy dinner recipes than in helping me figure out how to deal with my life. I stopped going.
Went to a parent support group next, run by a different pyschologist. Very first meeting, I mentioned that when I felt overwhelmed and knew I was on the verge of losing my Irish temper, I’d simply tell my kids “Mama’s a b**** right now, so if you play nice and let me sleep on the couch, then we’ll do something fun together.” The kids usually complied, I woke up and kept my promise. I got reamed by the other parents for using the word b**** in front of my kids and the shrink said nothing at all. Never went back there either.
A few years later, I almost just up and left my life and took that as a warning sign. Went to another psychologist. She was more interested in my grandfather’s three marriages (sequential, not concurrent) and other oddities in my family tree. That didn’t last long either.
In 2001, pre 9/11, I became suicidally depressed. Since, for the first time in my adult life, I had health insurance that covered shrinks, I figured I’d get a good one this time instead of the charitable variety I’d had to deal with before. (big laugh) I went for 8 visits. 3 visits were spent filling out her paperwork for my insurance company. The other 5 visits were her insisting that I A) spend more time out in the sun (I get migraines from too much sunlight), b) get a pet (there’s 6 in the house), c) become active at church (I am highly active in my religious group) d) should stop and smell the flowers–literally–during my lunch hour (I worked in the middle of a massive industrial park and had only a half-hour lunch–the nearest park was a 15 minute, one way drive) and e) go to Ann Arbor for monthly poetry readings since I was interested in writing (I hate poetry). They also put me on drugs that completely numbed me to every emotion, high or low, and completely killed all vestige of creativity.
Every a-ha! moment I had came from my own journaling and reading. She was utterly unimpressed by all revelations. I didn’t fit into her mode of what a depressed person should be, so she was damned well going to shove me into it. I fired her and for the first time in months felt GREAT about something in my life. I had taken control of something and that, really, was what I needed to do.
Yeah, I understand there’s great shrinks out there, but I haven’t met any of them. Frankly, having always pulled myself out of depression and stress, I figured I can save the money if I’m doing the 99% of the work. I’ve learned to ask myself the questions needed to keep myself functioning. Now it’s just a way of life.
And, actually, I disagree with you on the fact that monsters remained caged and with you. The monsters I’ve faced and worked through in the last several years are no longer monsters. They’re transformed into strengths.
However, I’m totally with you on Dr. Phil. He annoys me to no end.
Yeah, therapist #1 was the one who made the faux pas with the question. She didn’t talk much or direct me at all and as it was my first experience of being in therapy since childhood (I was forced to go as a kid and still vividly recall one of those childhood sessions and my feeling of “this is ridiculously stoopid”); I constantly felt like more of my energy went towards getting over my discomfort of talking than anything else. Therapist #2 talked even less and had a quality to her watchfulness that made me feel like a butterfly pinned to a board.
In subsequent years I’ve come to understand that with things like this, it’s entirely natural for it to take some trial and error before finding the right fit in a therapist. I’ve just had no impulse to try it again.
After I commented earlier, I remembered an example of how “real life” has provided me with revelatory opportunities. Some years ago I had a friend with classic “daddy issues” wherein she repeatedly sought out the wrong kind of men in an effort to fill that dad-shaped hole. She and I were having a conversation about how she recognized she had those issues, but couldn’t figure out how to stop reacting to them in the same way time and time again. I related that I didn’t know what to tell her, that I never had a relationship of any kind with my dad and I’d never had the impulse to want constant male attention and that I found it quite easy to get by without men. She replied, “And you don’t think that not having a relationship with your dad doesn’t give you issues?” in that way that only a friend can dare. It prompted a true revelation for me: other women react to an indifferent father by seeking out male attention, even if it’s bad male attention, while I reacted by pushing male attention away.
Anyway, I never had anything close to a revelation like that while in therapy. Since I found it so uncomfortable to just talk talk talk in the first place, I never had much desire to try again.
You two are making me feel even luckier that I managed to find a gem. Two gems, in fact. There was a guy at Berkeley whom I saw only two or three times, but he let me vent in ways that my dormies would not tolerate.
What an awful problem. How do you find a good fit without running through hundreds of dollars?
I’m reminded of a videotape I used to watch (several times, matter of fact) in the med school library: The Gloria Tapes. Based on Gloria’s hairstyle, this was filmed back in the 60s. The video shows her being interviewed by three or four different therapists, the point being to demonstrate different modes of psychotherapy. I think there was a Freudian, a “transactional analyst” (remember that crap? Parent, Adult, Child instead of Superego, Ego, and Id?), some other dope who had written a pop pyschology book, and a Jungian. The Jungian was the only one who connected with Gloria. The other three were laughable . . . which is why I liked watching The Gloria Tapes over and over again.
I liked reading marriage manuals from the 1920s, too, but I’m weird that way 😉
but then again, sometimes examining the demons therapy does jack-shit. No, seriously. I spent YEARS trying to solve my stupid panic disorder phobia stuff by examining my past. Anyone alive has issues to figure out so it wasn’t worthless. But in terms of the stuff that was ruining my life? It did Squat. One year of cognitive behavior therapy and the demons were muzzled and chained up.
I went to a psychiatrist after Matthew was born [Matt’s the 5 y.o.] for post-partum depression. That’s when I found out that I’d had recurring major depression since I was about six. Went on Zoloft and felt normal for the first time ever.
We mostly just talked about general stuff at first, but then one day I opened up about how I’d always had such a hard time finishing anything, and how I could function, but at a much lower level than what I wanted for myself.
We began “real” therapy, and a month or two later, I found out that Mental Health funding had been cut [we had no health insurance at the time] and I couldn’t see her without paying for it.
She referred me to another counselling place in my own county, and they told me that I wasn’t dysfunctional enough, and that I should get some self-help books.
I’d been buying self-help books and trying to fix myself since I was a teenager [I was 26 at the time] with no luck.
We have health insurance now, but I don’t know how much they pay for counselling. I like the thought of a professional picking my brain and helping me figure out how to fix the issues I have, but I don’t hold much hope of ever finding one.
I dunno, though. Maybe I’ll look into it and give it another shot.
But, Kate, it was precisely the past that was bothering me, and I knew going into it that my present problems had a whole lot to do with my past. Unraveling phobias by examining your past — yah, that sounds like BS, all right.
Sure sounds like positive therapy experiences are few and far between. (Watch out, Shelbi!)
I don’t expect my husband to eliminate my demons. I’d just be happy if the fucker would STOP MUMBLING.
Sorry, Floppy. That’s a pet peeve.
This, from a woman named mm?
Mmmnhhmnm hmmhm mhmhm. Don’t you think?
Dean deserves a lot of credit for helping me cage my own demons. He gave me the courage, and good strategies, to take them on, and pushed me into seeking professional help when I came very close to giving up.
I did see a therapist, but gave up too soon – feeling guilty for taking up his time. I did, however, get some very helpful tools for carrying on the battle by myself. A few of my demons have died of neglect (a fitting end!), and the others don’t do much more than rattle the bars occasionally these days.
I’m a guy who had an awful male therapist and a fantastic female one. Of course there was a sexual dynamic, but in my case I was talking about dating a series of women I didn’t respect to a woman whom I did. It was kinda, um, therapeutic–trusting my mental health to a well educated, physically domineering gal who happened to have the psychodynamic chops to bring me back from the abyss.
I don’t know if I want to sleep with my shrink or not. Anymore, it’d be like kissing my sister.
I have no idea where I’d be without therapy. Probably full of tattoos and married to a borderline practicing family medicine in Arizona. As it sits now I’m single and going to be a psychiatrist. And because I did 99.9 percent of the work, I have only myself to blame for that.
The world is so clear to me now. That’s what you get for fighting your demons.
I don’t think I’d ever survive a female therapist. I would start having weird feelings and fantasies which would get in the way BIG time.
This is gonna sound all kinds of melodramatic, but since we’re recounting our therapeutic histories…
My first was the assistant superintendent-slash-guidance counselor of our very small rural high school, who ostensibly was trying to “help me with my obvious trauma” over my father’s alcholism, but in fact was trying to get into my pants. We carried on a two-year affair until he came onto my 14-year-old sister, and I ratted him out to the school nurse.
My second was the born-again Baptist preacher to whom my folks sent me in order to be “healed” from this horrible experience. He told me the sin was mine, as I was sexually precocious and far too much temptation for any honest man.
My third was the college psychologist whom I saw after a particularly bad beating from an abusive lover. My first female therapist, she tried to get me to say that my father had sexually abused me as a child. My father is and was many things. A pedophile has never been one of them. The relationship ended when I, in her words, “refused to confront the truth of my life.”
My next was a very nice man who tried to use hypnotherapy to cure me of my depression. The hypnosis worked — too well. I relived some bad moments from my early years so clearly that I became overwrought in his office and had to be given a sedative. A less then auspicious moment. I never went back.
Finally, I saw a psychiatrist who ended up prescribing five different medications concurrently. Not right from the start, of course. He began with one, and when it didn’t work to his satisfaction, he added another. And another. And another, etc. etc. Until I could barely walk, much less drive or cook or care for my children. But I wasn’t depressed anymore, I’ll give him that. Mostly because it’s hard to be depressed when you’re asleep 18 hours out of 24.
One day, I decided I’d had enough of THAT shit, and went off all five meds. At the same time. Cold turkey.
VERY STOOOOPID, and I DON’T recommend it.
But within a week, I was almost myself again, and within a month after that, I’d begun writing. And writing as been the best — and only — therapy that’s every made a difference in my life. Shame I didn’t discover it at fifteen, but I guess everything happens for a reason, huh?
Told you there’d be melodrama. :p
The unexpected consequence of this post: I really do see how rare it is to have a good experience. Boy, I lucked out.
Selah, I’m curious what happened to that guidance counselor? Cover-up, slap on the wrist, or did he get properly reamed? What an effin jerk.
I had at least a couple of shrinks who wanted to put me on meds. Since there’s a history of tranq abuse in my family, I always refused. (Although . . . I once had a very interesting experience on Ambien. My office staff made me promise never to use it again.)
Re: the guidance counselor. You have to remember, these were the Dark Ages of 1983 in extremely rural upstate New York. Sexual dalliance with young women over the age of consent — and he made sure I WAS before he touched me under my clothing…believe me, this guy was a pro, and I was in no way his first school-girl conquest — was considered “really too bad” and “a shame,” but not anything about which to get your panties in a twist. Particularly when the young woman in question had so obviously gone along with it.
He was given the choice of resigning or being fired. He resigned and took another job in the prison system, couseling…wait for it…sexual offenders.
Meanwhile, his pregnant wife continued to be employed by the school, teaching math, and I continued to attend school, where everyone knew. EVERYONE. In a community of less than 2000, it’s impossible to keep a secret like that for long.
I’ll leave you to imagine how my senior year played out.
He had three daughters, all told. In the end, it’s that thought that kept me up nights.
Re: medication. My husband practices internal medicine, and has seen medication — SSRIs in particular — save lives. I have nothing against medication. It doesn’t help everyone, however, and it didn’t help me. It’s not magic. When it comes to brain chemistry, there IS no magic. There’s only what works in each individual case.
You must have amazing stories to tell, Selah. How awful.
I’ve never tried the SSRIs — never got depressed enough for them. Back when these folks were trying to give me meds, the rx was “to help you sleep.” Feh. Benadryl is my best friend.
Great post, Doug. I remember 2003 when my son was diagnosed with high functioning autism and then two months later I gave birth and then seven weeks later new baby was in the hospital with meningitis and well…stress? Huh? At one point I was with the pediatrician and all of a sudden I realized he was screening me for suicide and I didn’t even care. I remember thinking “he thinks I’m gonna kill myself. Oh well.” Meds, a therapist, a support group later. I’m strong and well. GET HELP and keep searching until you get what works. That is all.
Yeah, but I think the take-home message from these comments is, Watch Out. I never realized what a mine field therapy could be.
I’m glad it worked out for you, of course!