When your therapist is more real to you than your innocent loved ones outside of therapy, you have a huge problem. Too often therapists play puppet master. They dangle power and control in front of you as a carrot on a stick. They confuse real life with fiction.
Don’t do what I did. Don’t treat life as a story you write. Truth is more than a story. You can’t land on the moon without mathematical precision. You can’t arrive at your destination in life without accurately using words as tools, not weapons. Words and numbers, as well as images, combined inform us of reality. I’ve seen relationships of years drastically altered (if not ended) based on a couple months of therapy. Don’t ruin your life based on the negativity of strangers. Therapists focus on negative emotions, like anger, to demonstrate a need for their services. If you’re angry at an imaginary version of a real person, it doesn’t help you move forward. It just stokes the flame; as with fire, it provides light or destroys life. Your life is valuable. Don’t burn it to the ground to please a mental health professional with a twisted narrative.
Be careful. Your future can change based on the choices you make today, including whom to love and live with or whether or not to take your life. My sister taught me that you can't choose whom you love, but you can choose whom you date. For me, love is a choice. Furthermore, I choose not to date. I tried dating, but it was so boring. Dating was all empty conversation, and it all evaporated. I guess no one's presence is permanent except maybe God's. Yet, I think, I'm one of the few women who would rather marry and develop feelings of love after commitment. There is nothing sexier than commitment. Many women fall in love with a man's potential (Is that a mistake?). I'm a woman with potential, so why doesn't a man see potential in me? What could be more charming? I wish I had the grace to share my home, but men don't seem to notice me, so I plod through each day and find purpose, like exploring spirituality and self-expression.
The Eurocentric white male gaze that most people internalize through literature and cinema transforms our thinking. We need freedom from this oppressive gaze that thrives on conflict. It is centered on raising stakes and payoffs. You are not a character in a book. You are more real than fiction. Don’t give up your peaceful worldview for a tantalizing plot twist. Resist the temptation to play the hero and to cast a villain. Don't make an enemy of a friend. The world is not so neatly divided into an us vs them, self vs other. The framework you use to meditate on the structure of your real-life relationships may bend or stretch, but remember people are paradoxically simple and complex, alive and dead. Choose empathy, not the delusion of being the center of the universe (or multiverse).
Dependence on medication and therapy can imprison. It limits daily activity and interaction, however well-intentioned. Sometimes, this dependence can prevent a person from starting a family. My advice is to engage in healthy relationships with co-equals. Don’t create false narratives, however self-serving. Travel the world. See the beauty in what life offers. Don’t make the mistake of building a throne for your therapist. Do not worship at their feet. They don’t know you. If you need help determining or attaining your wants and needs, maybe a therapist, like a good librarian, can help refine your search terms or connect you to resources that may improve the quality of life. We can all benefit from ways to hone our choice-making strategies. Your response to stimuli is your choice. If you feel like the world is a stage, stop acting. Before you fill the mental blank page that psychotropic medication provides, check in with yourself and ideally the Lord our God to tap into an awareness of reality. My belief in one God keeps me going. There is reward, discipline, and punishment. I have gained and lost. What I will never again do is let a therapist mold me into their image. Sometimes, that is an unintended consequence of vulnerability. You take on new shape as a result of opening up, like a flower whose petals are delicate and short-lived, yet filled with immeasurable beauty. Like a potter to clay, you make an object into your creation. Though God fashioned you, you carve yourself into someone else or live in their shadow. I am not a sculpture. I am not a character in a novel. I’m awake.
So, don’t toss this precious gift of life to those who don’t deserve the honor. A therapist can’t hold you at night. Live with integrity. Pray for wisdom. Make things right. Be brave. Apologize. Work together with loved ones and stop putting them on trial in absentia in a therapy session.
It takes courage to face the world. May God bless you with patience and perseverance. One hour a week in therapy is not long enough to get the full picture. Life cannot be contained in artificial borders. Let your thoughts and emotions leap off the page. Stand up for what and whom you believe in. Live and love. Build an empire that lasts longer than the grave. Don't develop victim mentality or reside on the sidelines. You matter. Manifest your dreams. Be real and true, pure and perfect.
Best,
Yeru
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