For the armchair-therapist Dwellars

[footfootfoot]

Originally Posted by anonymous

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Like you guys remember when my cousin got horribly attacked earlier this year? It was super upsetting, and I definitely felt upset. Also, literally 3 hours after I heard the news, I made a straight-up joke about him getting stabbed in the neck. And also I was crying. And also I laughed. And also I was irritated, like "great, now we're going to have to drag this uncertainty and worry out for months of recovery, I hope he just dies now to get it over with." And also I was guilty for thinking that. And also I didn't really feel conflicted about any of these things, because I knew none of it mattered, I still had to cook dinner that night. Sorting out my feelings has always been a colossal waste of time for me, because the answer is always, "yes, I feel that. Now get back to work."



I know. And I really did try last time. Like I said, I made a happy place, I did all the exercises she told me to do, genuinely gave all of it the old college try for 9 straight months. And I'm more than willing to accept that others are better at it than she was. But the idea of multiple intake interviews exhausts me so much--I typed all that out, and now I have to recite some version of it again and again, for a dozen different people? I'd rather just live with my problems.

As for feeling multiple, disparate feelings simultaneously, that is apparently normal. I think a lot of people are too uncomfortable with the so-called dark aspects of their psyches to cop to it, but all of us can feel opposing emotions at the same time.

Another route apart from endless intake interviews is to decide what sort of therapy would work for you. Maybe not Freudian analysis but Cognitive behavioral therapy or dialectical behavioral therapy, or Jungian analysis. Choosing a therapeutic mode (talking to people who have or are engaged in it) would get you a few steps closer.