Everything Is Now "Therapy Speak"

Gaslight me, baby.

I’m a definitely f’ed-up person, so I’ve been in therapy on and off for about 29 years now. I think I first went in my early teens, and awkwardly I went to the same therapist as my mom (uhhh), and all I really remember about that period of time was that some lady in the waiting room kept talking to me about wanting to live on the fake plant that was sitting there. After that experience and a few sessions, I kinda stopped going to therapy for about a half-decade. I was boozing too much in early college, told myself for a while that “it’s just what kids do,” then realized it was a problem and went to therapy there for a bit. I went to group too. Those were OK experiences, but by mid-junior year I wasn’t going anymore. I went to a lady in NYC in my late 20s who told me I should come twice a week due to my immense problems, at $350/pop no insurance, so that was nice. (I didn’t do that.) I went to a guy in Minneapolis for a second who was awful. In Fort Worth I’ve been to a few people, who are various shades of “mostly OK.”

Men and therapy is a complicated dance, some of which is detailed in that post above. I’m not conventionally male in that I can talk about a lot of feelings and shit pretty easily, but I’m also not very successful, generally am fat, can’t impregnate anyone, have mental health concerns, drink too much sometimes, etc, etc. I’m good at talking but I don’t know if I’m always good at doing, so maybe therapy is an easy bubble.

Plus, over time I’ve come to believe that most semi-intelligent people can talk circles around a therapist, which I’ve done a dozen times by now. Overall, I’m not sure I believe in it that much.

I came across two things recently about the societal tyranny that is “therapy speak.” First there’s this article from

The Free Press

: