Men Suck Donkey At Therapy (And Many Male Therapists Also Suck Donkey)

The Rane Wallace Paradigm.

In that picture above, I’m the fat fuck second from the left in the back; Wallace is the skinnier fuck far left on the bottom. He was my therapist for about eight months, maybe close to a year. I don’t actually remember the exact thing that led me to go to him as a therapist, although I would assume it had something to do with drinking.

If I am doing the math and dates correctly, I believe I went to him somewhere around March 2021. Actually, I can tell you that it was definitely about drinking, because our first appointment was supposed to be on a Wednesday after work, and I was drinking downtown at some shit-hole called Durty Murphy’s in the late afternoon, so I cancelled that appointment. So yea, March 2021. About two years ago.

At the time, I had been seeing various therapists for probably multiple decades. My mom took me to one when I was in maybe fifth grade. That was OK; I don’t even remember the person’s name. In sixth grade, I went to my mom’s therapist, which has all sorts of problems because you talk about your mom and then he tells her vague stuff you said and it’s kind of a mess. I have no idea why we did that, and it didn’t last long. Ah, 1993. A simpler time.

I took a beat on therapy for a while, then went 2–3 times to different people in college. A lot of that was about drinking and general depression, fitting in, feeling worthless, etc, etc.

Took another beat for a few years, maybe 5–6, and ended up back in therapy in my late 20s in New York City. It was an older blond woman. She was big on “talk therapy,” which had been similar to other therapies I did but she doubled down on it. This was maybe the first time I realized that if you’re somewhat intelligent, you can kinda talk around therapists and never really have to do or change very much. That’s obviously not the best approach to therapy, but if you’re 28 and want to keep getting drunk with your co-workers on Friday nights, I mean, that’s the angle.

I took another beat for 4–5 years, and you could argue at this time I definitely should have been going, but I wasn’t. Eventually I found myself down in Texas and I went to one guy, which didn’t last long. Then I went to a guy for about three years, including through getting divorced, and that was good but ultimately we became friends and that tanked it. I saw him and his wife at a social event once and he introduced me as a “friend” with a nice smile. Obviously he cannot say “client” and I get that, but by the end, we were just talking about random life shit like the flaws of middle management, and not my problems.

Took another 1–2 year beat and then went to this lady along Trinity Trails in Fort Worth, who was OK but I talked circles around her. I went to a men’s retreat that she led, where I got to bash a pillow with a baseball bat talking about my desire to be a father that hasn’t been articulated yet. That was fun. I want to say that was maybe July 2019.

I took another beat, briefly went to this place in Arlington (#JerryWorld) to get some antidepressants prescribed, and then came to Wallace. I have literally no idea why I thought this was a good idea in hindsight. His best friend from growing up was my wife’s ex-boyfriend, and he worked in part for this judge in town, whose daughter is a good friend of mine (and a better friend of my wife). There was too much overlap. We still started it up, though.

Ultimately, this dude is a good therapist for many and I’d generally recommend him. I think we had the same problem whereby we became “friends” (loose term) and thus the clinical work was a lot harder. He introduced me to this F3 shit, which was a big part of my life in ’21 and ‘22.

Ultimately it kinda flamed out, because I’m fat and tedious.

At the same time, Wallace and I kinda flamed out. I did get to lead a workout with an addiction theme while in F3, though, which was cool.

I’m gonna get to the main point about men and therapy in 12 seconds, but first I just wanna give you two things on R.W. here: