Therapist responses

T : You seem better ( after a 6 months break )
Me : I am. I think the best treatment is " no treatment " for me.
T: Uh... okay. So do you want another session ?
Me: Sure, as long as you don´t give me any treatment
T: Uh... okay. What ever works best for you.

Reminds me of most of the therapy i did... pointless exchanges with a stranger who was not invested in my life, and who was paid to dispense generic caring. And lots of ambiguity and evasion in response to my openness.

I wouldn't call exchanges I have with the therapist emotionally intimate, but she is generally a genuine person judging by the fact that she doesn't act like I've got roses blooming from my asshole just because I'm the client. I don't know if she's said anything lovely to me or not. If she did, I would probably disregard it and assume I had mislead her in some way or else be suspicious of why she said it. So those are reasons to not report such things.

I used the term 'lovely' loosely, I really meant moments of genuine connection between us where she was really understanding and responding to where I was at, not that she said I was wonderful or anything like that...I think I'd lose respect and trust pretty quickly if all she said was how great I was!

Oh, ok. Well, I guess I have had those as well, but they are harder to convey than the dumb things she says. As in, without a whole lot of context, the significance will be lost on the reader. So maybe that is part of it, as well - the not sharing, I mean.

Yes that's the limitation of sharing anything deeply personal, it won't always be understood by others.

Me: What am I supposed to do? Just submit to everything all the time without questioning things?

Therapist: Just what do you feel you have to submit to?

Me: The world is just so ridiculous and threatening sometimes that there is no winning. No matter what you do, no matter how much you work, and how much good you do at the end of the day you are on your own. People only care to the extent that it causes them no problems. The second it isnt worth it to them to care- the second they take advantage.

Therapist: It is interesting to me that you refer to your treatment as making you “submissive” and it being “threatening”. Do you think your treatment providers want to hurt you?

Me: No. I don’t. But just because they might not want to hurt me now, doesnt mean that they wont. Everyone is threatening because no one wants to submit. Not even a little. And most people will jump very quickly to avoid vulnerability in the slightest.

Therapist: But wouldnt it be just easier to think differently?

Me: Maybe. But Ive never been one for relying on what is easy. You do that- you submit in that way- and you forget that the world is threatening and you suffer more.

Therapist: Um. But lets get back to your treatment.

Me: You mean my super duper threatening treatment?

Therapist: Yeah. That.

S: I love you.

R: I know.

Well I agree, but I actually wasn't really referring to sharing something deeply personal, just that it's not worth it to me to recount a bunch of boring details and tiresome trivia just to reveal the significance of a comment to the reader. I find that boring and so would everybody else.

Dumb things therapists say, on the other hand, frequently require no backstory and are easily comprehended by the reader. That's my take, anyway. Then again, I'm the type of person who loves dumb daily quotes calendars and can't stand inspirational drivel. So there's that.

Sometimes I get annoyed by this approach because it feels really invalidating. And it also makes me wonder about people - do people just go around changing the way they think - in essence, their beliefs, as it suits them? Do they choose to think in the way that is "easiest?" I tend to think that's a big part of why there is so much man-made suffering in the world.

This is how I am. I do not share the personal details of therapy. Its a space just for me.

My least favorite response from my psychiatrist is the no response. Translated as "you can work this one out on your own, I trust you". Grr, I hate it when he trusts me.

Me: I just wish that I wasn’t sick

Last Therapist: Me too

It was one of the last things she said to me and probably one of the things that has ever meant the most to me, because she said it in such a way that I really knew that everything about her meant it