My Therapist Said...

I've been wanting to drop, "My therapist said..." casually in conversation ever since I started watching Woody Allen movies. Sophisticated, complicated, deep people in New York City saw therapists and got manicures and wore sunglasses everywhere.

(It's funny how that how you want even undesirable things if other people with more money have them: I was never, ever embarrassed by braces--they were a badge of honor for me. Almost everyone else I knew had them when we were 13 or 14, and braces identified me as a member of the middle class. I couldn't understand why everyone complained about them--they fixed you and made your teeth just like everyone else's.)

Seeing a therapist was every bit as wonderful as I anticipated. I could have predicted loving it, but I was a bit too nervous beforehand: When I was young and homeschooled, we had to be evaluated once a year--a certified teacher would look over a portfolio of our work from the year and ask us what we'd learned. My siblings didn't like this very much and would be nervous. For me, on the other hand, this was the best day of the year--a real, live adult had to sit and listen to me talk for an hour or so. Boy, I loved talking her ear off.

Seeing a therapist was just like that. I'm a verbal processor, and I've talked to all of my friends about my problems and happinesses until they can't take it anymore. Here's another person to listen to my crazy thought processes and give me feedback and encouragement.

But really, it wasn't just about giving me an outlet to talk--it was helpful because my therapist had no ties to me or my situations. She could offer unbiased, objective thoughts. And she could ask questions that made me think in a different way. Whenever my friends ask probing questions, whether I want to or not and whether they intend it or not, I feel that they expect a certain answer--that I'm perfectly happy with everything just the way it is or that I'm terribly depressed and need to make a change or something in between. And because I perceive that they expect a certain answer, I don't find a space for self-reflection in answering them. Rather, I get defensive or find myself spinning a story a certain way. With my therapist, though, I can take her questions honestly and answer as honestly as possible.

Moreover, she offered a different way of thinking about my anxieties and fixations, which has been immensely helpful. Honestly, I slightly feel like she healed me. Which is to say, I've just seen her twice and don't anticipate that I'll see her again unless I need it. But now I will advocate to therapy to just about everyone.

In fact, I briefly thought about becoming a therapist myself after seeing her. In the middle of a sentence in which I voiced this thought to Stearns, though, she cut me off--"No, you wouldn't be good at that at all." I trust her on this, since she's the one I've given advice to the most over the years.