“I wonder if I’m making it worse, like how you can drink too much water."
I hate therapy.
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Look, it’s been 20 years. Maybe it’s time to call it. Maybe it’s time to manage my expectations and be way less ambitious about how happy I’m supposed to be. Perhaps it’s time for peace. Surrender. Capitulation. Like, why am I clinging heedlessly to this childish dream of living in New York and being a writer when there are clearly other paths?
My former artist friends who now work in tech seem happy enough. They still identify as part of the “creative class.” There’s a lot of talk about snacks, and what they have for catered lunch, now that they’re back to five, six days on site. Could this be me? I don’t know. All I can say — and this is with full respect for other people’s personal journeys — I don’t think talking about it and paying someone to listen to me is helping. When it comes to formalized talk therapy, I’m done.
Not the way, like, Europeans are done with therapy, where they go the prescribed six times as if finishing a course of antibiotics for a pernicious fungal infection. I haven’t graduated or, god forbid, been “cured.” Even I’m not THAT delulu. It’s just that after multiple decades of talking about myself, I’m beginning to question my identity as a coastal elite self-absorbed neurotic with avoidant attachment, complex PTSD and self-identified neurospiciness.
Don’t get me wrong: Therapy used to hit. But lately I’m less drawn to sifting through my various pathologies, doing a daily searching and fearless moral inventory as a human centipede of one, mucking about pleasurably in my own emotional effluvia — an ouroboros of philosophical anus to throat — bearing witness to every single choice and kernel of corn, really choking down and ruminating on each spiritual lesson I kept failing to learn.
I used to love doing The Work. There was a time when I would not abide by others who weren’t at least attempting the doing of The Work. Regardless of how pressed they were for time and money, if you’re not in therapy, how else are you supposed to signal personal responsibility and an understanding of emotional hygiene?
In any case, I’ve done IFS, CBT, DBT, AcOA, some AA. I’ve also dabbled in EMDR, and THC, lmao! But on that note, I’ve also done heroic doses of psilocybin with a licensed trauma therapist who comes from the tradition of plant medicine healers that Michael Pollan’s person comes from. Plus, DMT if we’re counting. I medicate. And meditate. I tap the shit out of some meridians. And I do Wim Hof breathing. Plus, NSDR or non-sleep deep rest. And I journal. But seeing as I have persistent self-centeredness and occasional covert narcissism, I wonder if I’m making it worse. Like how you can drink too much water.
The other day, I was at Whole Foods dithering about what trash chute to put my lunch remnants in, whether I had the right kind of plastic vs. stuffing it in the regular-degular garbage receptacle and then remembered that we all know recycling is a lie. And then a few months ago, after a whole night of watching a wildfire hug another wildfire willed by the caprices of the Santa Ana Winds in real time, I put on SPF the next morning and had that feeling again. That maybe therapy can’t help me. That it is as effective — and I know these are big words and it’s just a pet theory, a theoretical exercise mostly — in the way that the Democratic party in the United States is effective. And is also mostly a theoretical exercise.
Like, when I really look around and see the people who seem genuinely untroubled, I’m seeing a trend. Some of us have legacy trauma and others — stay with me here — have generational wealth. And I think those guys seem pretty OK.
I saw this tweet going around and it says: Every single person I know lowkey having a mental breakdown rn that’s community. I’m no statistician, but everyone who is community rn is people who aren’t wealthy. Or sidling towards the bloated protection of a plutocratic billionaire. I know I sound paranoid, but I’m starting to think therapy might be that thing of how people with private jets told us about carbon footprints to shift focus on individual actions when most of the greenhouse gas emissions are produced by corporations and industries.
I look around and see these gofundmes, and I know that the cure for addiction is non-isolation. Community. I’m just spitballing here, ideating with no wrong answers, but it gives me the idea that maybe it’s time for mutual aid. That maybe it’s time to be the change I want to see in the world, to lead by example and to just take it to the group chat. Do telehealth that way. I’m going to start speaking my unsolicited truth to all my wealthier friends, dropping 12- minute voice notes to the chat and books of unedited texts. I figure the ones who can still afford it can take it to their therapists?
I’m just giving myself some grace here. Besides, I just found out I lost union health insurance last week. Not that it matters since what therapist worth their salt is in-network anyway? And as my therapist always says: That will be $300.00.
—E. Perel
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This is probably the best hate reads of this season in terms of piercing analysis. I have noticed the same exact thing - my friends who come from generational wealth are so much happier, their lives are smoother, their relationships are easier. They truly don’t have to worry about anything because they know they’ll be fine. They think up some existential problems for themselves to fill the time, sure, but so do the rest of us. They don’t get into fights with their partners, because what is there to fight about? The maid will pick up the socks, they’ll just order takeout again tonight, they’ll plan a fabulous vacation to recharge. They can afford to be in low-paying jobs that they find meaningful and enjoy. They can curate their lives in a way the rest of us just can’t. And because of social media, this is what we all aspire to, so we all see the deficits in our own lives even more plainly. No amount of individual therapy can change the material reality of the world.
I think this is also why most of our art and media is kind of shit these days, those institutions are all run by scions of the wealthiest sociopaths, who have never had to actually grapple with how the world works in any meaningful way.
thank god someone said it...therapy made me think about myself all the time and girl that simply can't be healthy