No?
Huh, I was sure therapy was required by law for anyone with a pulse that lives with or near other human beings. Well, there definitely should be a law if you think about it.
Life is hard enough when you are simply left to your own devices. Why on earth would people ask other peoples opinions of what kind of car to buy, where's a good neighborhood to raise a family, or what kind of haircut do you think I should get but not solicit the advice of a mental health specialist to make sure you're not acting like a complete asshole to the people around you?
Just my opinion but I think therapy is helpful. Therapy keeps you honest. Especially when you're married. And have kids. And parents of your own. And in-laws. And friends. And communicate with the outside world. And have a pulse. See what I mean?
So, yes. I've been to therapy. Many, many times. Individual, couples, group -- you name it -- I've tried it. Why the hell not? I've got nothing to lose. Here's my thinking. If it was just little 'ol me against the world and I was literally responsible for only myself and nobody else then I guess I could imagine going through the world without any constructive criticism from a therapist on how to deal with all the crap life throws at you. But combining lives with someone else? Potentially cohabiting for 50+ years with the same person? Throw kids, relatives, and finances into the mix and you best get yourself to a therapist and make sure you're doing a little self-check every once in a while, no?
Problem is -- good therapists are hard to come by. Crappy therapists can really ruin the whole purpose of even deciding to give it a go in the first place. Therapy is like going to the gym. If you're not committed, your not going to see progress. And if after you've already dragged your sorry ass out of the house to go to the gym and the spinning instructor is awful or the tv/earplugs on your treadmill are malfunctioning -- you tend to just throw the towel in (no pun intended). My husband and I had a GREAT therapist. How did you get your husband to go to therapy you ask? More on that later. But right now the operative word is HAD. Earlier this year, our "therapist," who is now probably more like the holy ghost in our marriage -- or more appropriately, a very dear friend of ours, let us know she'd be moving out of state over the summer. Huge bummer. Please God, don't let anything drastic happen...we're therapist-less and are currently flying this plane without some necessary landing gear.
Thankfully my husband doesn't read this blog -- so, I'm going to go out on a limb and "out" us as having had couples counseling (INSERT collective gasp -- you don't say! Who knew? They seemed so normal....) But yes, as frightening as that might be some of your non-believers -- we've been to therapy. It is true that with much persuasion and after almost a decade together, I finally talked my poor, innocent, and unscathed husband into going to couples counseling with me back in 2009. Not an easy task to talk a stubborn, self-assured, Irish Catholic into going to therapy. Come to think of it, I could probably make a lot of money if I put together a "how-to" manual on exactly how to talk a stubborn Irish Catholic male into couples counseling -- I'm going to venture to guess there's probably a good market out there for something like that -- just sayin'.
We all marry each other for different reasons but one of the reasons my husband and I are married is because we are so unbelievably different from one another. And getting him to consider couples counseling with me back in the day would be an example of this. I had been going to individual therapy for years when he met me and I continued to go for a bazillion years more after we met. He says he's always appreciated the fact that I'm the type of person who is willing to work on myself. That he's really proud of me for always trying to figure out why I am the way I am and am totally open to trying to fix some of my less-than-fabulous qualities. But when I asked him if he thought maybe he could benefit from seeing a therapist - I think he in all honesty wanted to eat the words he had just spoken. It was fine for me to do it. But him? He doesn't need therapy! Can't he just appreciate me "working on myself" from a safe, very far away distance that didn't involve him? Fair enough. I didn't expect to rewrite thousands of years of Irish Catholic cultural history and assume this was going to be a simple task. This would take a little convincing.
Especially since there was nothing necessarily "wrong" in our marriage or our lives. If anything, we were actually thinking of starting a family and therefore things were actually a lot "right." But starting a family is a huge deal, we're both smart people, we could pretend we knew what we were getting ourselves into, and just hope that our track record together the last eight years together would be sufficient enough experience to delve into this next phase of our lives. Right. Because collectively over the past eight years together we had made and raised exactly zero babies together. Yup. Therapy will teach you things like this -- that if you think you know how to get through something that you've never been through before -- you might want to call bullshit on yourself. At least just a little bit. And then maybe work on yourself a little bit BEFORE you go and make a major change like this in your life. Preventative medicine vs. waiting to go straight to the Emergency Room -- ya dig?
If my husband and I were really going to be honest with each other we'd admit that we could probably use a little guidance through this next phase in our lives together. So he agreed. Now, to be fair -- his beer of choice is Bud Light -- much like his practice of Therapy Light -- a scaled down version of the committed therapy-goer that I am :) Regardless, he's gone to therapy with me. Many times. And I will always be super proud of him for being willing to do something a little uncomfortable for the betterment of our marriage and potentially our family. Very not so stubborn-Irishman of him. Major points with the wife.
At twenty weeks into our first pregnancy, we got our daughter's heart diagnosis. And at the time -- it didn't look so hot. She would only ever have half a heart. Very rare. Very complicated surgery plan. Not a lot of statistics to even give us a vague idea of how she'd fare. So, yes. Having a therapist on board dealing with us as a couple -- wasn't just a lucky turn of events in our marriage -- it became essential. And man, she did an awesome job with us. With BOTH of us.
Can you imagine awkwardly starting couples counseling and talking about mundane relationship crap (or as we fondly refer to as relationshit which totally has its place BELIEVE ME) and then walking into your next session and saying, "You know what, Lady Therapist? He definitely needs to be more sympathetic/empathetic and I really need to work on being less anxious/needy -- but um, we might just have to back burner some of the listening exercises and learning how to make "I" statements for the near future because -- our unborn baby is really sick and we don't know if she's going to live or not or what our future holds anymore." Yowzer. Forget or newly forged commitment to attend the first class of Couples Therapy 101 -- let's get right to the final exam, shall we?
Once we were well into the battle for our daughter's life after she was born, and literally in the trenches doing the army crawl together as a married couple hoping we'd come out the other end as a party of three -- and if not, god forbid -- then at LEAST an intact party of two -- we were forced to lean on all kinds of people you might never think you'd need in life. Doctors, surgeons, nurses, therapists, social workers, priests. "You there! You think you can help us survive all this in one piece without knowing the outcome? Perfect, we don't care what your title is or how awkward it might be to share our feelings with complete strangers -- we'll take all the mental health support staff we can get to just survive this thing that's happening to us." We needed all of it. And everyone was an incredible support to us. But I can't deny the fact that we were incredible for accepting the help and knowing we needed it to get through something like what happened to our daughter.
I even said to our Lady Therapist during our last visit -- I don't know who had it worse that night when we we came into your office and dropped THAT bomb on you. I just remember thinking -- "Get your medical books out sister cause we're about to give your PhD a run for its money!" She was all in. And sweet baby jesus, were we relieved to have her in our back pocket for the battle that lay ahead. This woman stood by us through everything before our baby was born, she stood by our daughter's bedside in the cardiac intensive care unit, and stood by us all the way up until our last visit with her this summer -- two and half years later. She's definitely the cream-of-the-crop when it comes to therapists and I know they are hard to come by -- but that's what makes her divine intervention into our lives right when we needed it most -- all the more amazing. We did our best to convey this to her when we said goodbye -- she quite literally was one of the legs holding up the table that was our marriage and our family over the past few years. She gave us the tools we needed as a couple to make sure everything didn't collapse on itself. She wasn't a relative, a friend, a priest -- she was a therapist. And she made all the difference in the world. We will miss her greatly and if I can ever persuade my husband to see anyone else ever again -- that person is going to have some pretty enormous shoes to fill.
Anyone can easily think they're a pretty hot shit and totally in control of themselves and their life -- or at least trick themselves into thinking that. But then there's reality. Like when the universe crushes you with its massive fist and reminds you that you aren't in control of anything. We've all had this happen in one way or another. And I don't mean to be Debbie Downer, and scare the living crap out of you to the point where you have now opened a new tab in your web browser to find the names of therapists in your area that are covered by your insurance -- but if you are doing that? I can't say it's not a bad idea :)
I wish therapy didn't have the stigma of being a sign of weakness, or an admission to being less than perfect. I wish it was completely normal for every individual to seek counseling for themselves and almost expected that people who decide to get married do couples counseling and have the humility and self awareness to learn from each other's good and bad qualities. I think it would be great if people tossed around the names of their therapists like they did dentists or mechanics -- that way, we could weed out the crappy therapists that nobody likes and our chances to find good ones would automatically increase. Therapy would just be a totally normal part of our general day-to-day living. "You go to therapy right? Ya, totally! What are you kidding?" That kind of exchange would just be your run-of-the-mill mental health banter at your average cocktail party.
We all better hope this happens before my kids are finally school age and I go back to work -- otherwise I'll have to advocate for some national law that mandates everyone go to therapy.
You know I'll do it, if I have to.
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