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Jan. 7, 2009 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
53:34
1249 Fearing Therapy - A Listener Conversation (sequel to FDR1230)

A listener complains about four barriers to entering therapy.

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Time Text
Hello. Hey, how's it going?
Pretty good. I just want to start off by saying I really appreciate your time.
I know this is a pretty busy time for you, so I really appreciate having the opportunity to talk to you.
Oh, my pleasure, and I guarantee you this is going to be a quiet podcast because I'm strolling with a sleeping baby who may, in fact, interrupt what we're doing.
Okay. So the major question that you had, if I understand rightly, was, you know, why not so much with the therapy?
Right. Okay, so if you'd like to sort of go through what it is that you think and feel when you contemplate talking to a therapist, I would be happy to hear.
Okay, so I've been journaling a lot since I first noticed these feelings because we had a podcast earlier where at the end of it, I kind of, I felt more than ever prepared to begin the burden.
Right. Got it. Got it.
That makes sense to me. Okay.
So should I go to the next reason?
Or should I just go through all four? Yeah, I would say let's go through the reasons and then we'll do them one at a time.
Sorry, we lost a second or two of audio here.
His first point was that he felt it was very unfair that he had to pay and expend resources to fix what he felt his family had broken with regards to paying for therapy, and we get into that a little bit later, but he mentioned that up front, and then he moves on to his next point.
Okay. Alright, so the next one is that I feel very, very safe and comfortable dealing with problems by myself.
It's something I learned to do at a very young age, a very useful survival tactic that caused me to be introspective and curious about myself for a very long time.
And so that kind of leads me to this, maybe it's an unrealistic desire that if I could somehow approximate therapy by listening to podcasts by myself and talking to people, whether it be on the boards or with you or on Sunday talk shows once in a while, you know, I'd love to do it that way very much as opposed to meeting a therapist.
So that's reason number two.
Right. Reason number three is I have this...
This conclusion that if I start going to therapy, my job is going to become unbearable very quickly.
I'm already looking into the idea of trying to find a new job because I'm basically hiding who I am to maintain employment.
And making myself vulnerable to a physical person one day a week is probably going to be the final straw and kill any desire Or ability I have to force myself to continue going to this job.
And since I'm living independently, I need money to stay on my own.
And that's kind of a weird conclusion, but that's come up multiple times as well.
Yeah, no, that makes sense because your costs would be going up at the same time that your income might be somewhat declining to say the least, right?
Right. Right.
Okay. And the last reason is that this is kind of the practical reason that I kind of tried denying earlier.
I would tell myself before when I wanted to go to therapy that if I wanted to do it, I'd be able to do whatever – I trusted myself.
I said I'd be able to do whatever it takes to make it happen as quickly as possible.
But there's some complex reasons including where I live right now and the costs that are associated with me having a place to live right now and being locked into a lease.
It seems that it would be financially, right in this week, this month, the next few months, it would be financially impossible for me to afford it right now.
And that was something I was ignoring before, but which seems really obvious to me right now.
Right, okay. And those are the four reasons.
Okay. I mean, I think it would be a good idea to go over those, but what you haven't included, which makes sense to me, is your feelings.
Right? I mean, you've got logistical considerations, you have practical considerations, you have financial considerations.
I mean, and I do get a sense, and I understand that.
It's like, well, why do I have to pay to fix something that someone else broke, right?
Right. But you still, and again, maybe this is unfair to ask, but I'm just curious in general.
What are the feelings that arise when you contemplate picking up the phone and making the appointment?
I mean, let's just say that the other considerations could be solved in some fairy godmother manner, right?
I mean, what do you feel about making that call and opening that door and sitting on that chair or couch?
I think that's a fair question.
When I think about doing that, I feel a lot of fear.
And this is hard to describe because, and maybe this is me over-intellectualizing everything, but when I start to think about therapy, I come up with this dilemma where if I could just make the leap to being an authentic person and not having this job that I'm dealing with and managing right now, I would be able to go to therapy right now.
I would have nothing against it.
I'd feel liberated.
But then I think about having to couple this therapy with the job and I get afraid because part of me knows that this The therapy is going to be wonderful and it's going to reveal exactly how shitty this job is right now.
And the job is going to have to be what pays for the therapy.
So I get afraid when I think about it because it'd be kind of like putting myself out there finally and forcing me...
I think it would...
I'm not talking about emotions right now.
I feel fear and excitement at the same time.
Those are the emotions.
Intense fear and intense excitement.
Okay, the excitement is why you want to overcome the block, so I don't think we need to talk about that.
But tell me about The worst case scenario, and let's just put aside for the moment the practical considerations, and I don't want to minimize those because they're very real.
But, you know, where there's a will, there's a way, right?
Give a man a why he can bear almost any how.
And so if we find out that the fears are not about the practical considerations, and maybe they are, but let's just look at the possibility, then we can find a way to make it work.
And I think you may have a misconception about therapy, which, of course, right?
I mean, you've never done it, so you may have a misconception about it.
But I want to make sure that I understand what is the emotional worst case scenario.
And you can throw in practice.
So we've got you go and you find that you can't be who you are in your job.
And so you quit your job.
You can't afford therapy.
The process is incomplete.
You can't get a new job because you're messed up.
You end up living under a bridge.
I mean, what is it that goes on with the worst case scenario here?
Okay, so the worst case scenario would be I start therapy and it starts to become helpful and my desire to be honest with everybody that I meet becomes stronger.
And I can't stand my job anymore, so I quit that.
I'm unable to find employment.
I get kicked out of my apartment and I have to decide between being homeless and going back to my family, which isn't really a decision because I know I would never go back.
So yeah, the worst case scenario would be Authenticity and happiness with being authentic, but homelessness at the same time.
Right. So, happy homelessness is not on your list of to-do's, right?
Right. To say the least.
Yeah. Right. Okay.
Okay. And are there any I'm not saying there are, I'm just curious.
Are there any of the fears that you have about therapy that don't involve financial destruction and so on?
Is there anything that goes on for you emotionally around therapy or the idea of entering therapy that has an emotional component that's not related?
I'm not saying there is, but just in case, I want to make sure I cover all bases.
that's the fears that would be more related to an internal state rather than practical results?
Did I completely confuse you with that question?
No, there might be something to that.
While I've been in this process of reflecting about therapy, I've also been probably for the first time throwing myself 100% into trying to recover a relationship with my brother by RTRing with him every chance I get, sending like... So he came over for a visit and then he left.
And there were parts of the visit that didn't go so well.
I didn't have a good experience of them.
And after he had left, I just sat down and I wrote this very long email trying to be very honest about my feelings and what I thought about my feelings and very curious about what his feelings were.
And after I sent that email, I didn't hear back from him for a week.
And when he called me back, it was a short three-minute conversation.
I remember that that was extremely painful for me.
It was really dark for me, sending that email and not hearing anything back for a week.
Sorry to interrupt.
I just want to make sure that I understand that when he did contact you again, there was no reference to the email.
Is that right? He talked about two parts of the email, the beginning and the end.
He didn't really address the heart of it at all, and he said he didn't want to because he didn't want to get upset.
Well, at least there was some recognition of your email.
That's progress, isn't it?
Compared to where things were before, if I understand.
Yeah, I think it would be better than it was before.
So after he gave me that call, again, after the call was over, because he wasn't available to talk for very long, wanting to give this relationship 100%, I sat down and I wrote another email explaining how I was very happy to hear from him and that I was kind of sad that he hadn't responded to me earlier.
And then I... In that second email...
Actually, I'm kind of foggy now.
I'm not remembering exactly what I said in it.
But... I think, well no, I know I said in it that I wanted to talk to him more about it whenever he was ready or had the time, and that I appreciated him talking to me about it before.
And that email was another, that email was something I sent out a few days ago.
I haven't heard back from him through email or phone since then either.
Right, and of course, when you're trying to rewrite, or I shouldn't say rewrite, but when you're trying to To expand the parameters of a historical relationship like that with a sibling, it's not an overnight process, right?
Right, yeah, I don't think it could be, no.
I mean, the patience and persistence, you know, he is acknowledging, to be, you know, to look at the positive side, he is acknowledging, it takes him a while, but he is acknowledging some parts of what you're writing.
He's not just completely ignoring it.
He's not sending you back angry emails saying, I can't believe you're bringing this.
I mean, he's The door is open to some degree, right?
Now it's not off its hinges, so to speak, but it takes time, right?
Right, yeah. And yeah, I think you're right, and that's something I wasn't thinking about before.
I mean, I've heard a lot worse.
It comes to people being honest with family members, obviously.
So I think that, you know, it's important not to look at What's missing when there's progress, but what's there?
And to me, it is a positive response.
Now, it's not 100% positive, but that's an unrealistic expectation, I think.
Right, yeah, and I think that's something I've been dealing with, that unrealistic expectation, because I remember after I sent the first email, I just felt empty, like that I hadn't heard back from him the next day.
Yeah, you know, I just recognize that it's hard.
He may perceive, and I don't know, right?
But just to give you a possibility, he may perceive the communications coming from you.
Obviously, it's a pretty radical change from your relationship.
He may perceive those with as much ambivalence and anxiety as you perceive going to therapy, right?
Like, if I end up getting closer to my brother who's sending me these open and honest emails, What happens to my friendships, my family relations, my own job relations, you know what I mean?
You're asking him to make a leap that, with therapy, you're very cautious about, right?
I never even thought of it that way, and that makes a hundred...
Oh, that makes so much sense, yeah.
...steps, but I think we all generally recognize that philosophy and honesty We start going down what we think is a staircase and it turns into a bobsled run where we're just trying to hang on.
And he is, as aware, to give him due respect, which I give to everyone, everyone's a genius and everyone's a philosopher, he is unconsciously or maybe consciously aware of where this kind of honesty is going to lead with you and, of course, in particular with his other relationships, both professional and personal.
Right. So I hope that helps and gives you some sense of the step.
Real honesty is not an incremental step.
It's a catapult. Yeah, I think we've probably both been feeling that since I started this.
Sure. Okay, good.
I just wanted to mention that and point that out.
Okay. And is there anything else you wanted to mention about that?
Well, the reason I brought it up is because you were asking about any possible anxiety I might have about the process of going through therapy.
This has been the first time I've really, really tried to RTR with someone, and it might be related because of that.
Because if I went to therapy, it might be easier because it's someone I don't know or have a history with, but I would be trying my best to RTR with them every second I was in therapy, too.
Sure. Sure.
Okay, that makes sense.
Um... Alright, so let's look at the practical considerations and, you know, all the usual caveats that I have in all my podcasts I'll just mention here and I won't bother them with you again.
This is all, you know, my nonsense opinions and if they're of value, blah, blah, blah, right?
You know the caveats.
I'm not going to drone on about them, but this is just my personal thoughts and experience about this and I have some experience.
Obviously, I've done years of therapy and I know quite a bit about it, but this is all internet info, right?
So take it with a grain of salt.
That having been said, I've never heard of a situation where somebody ends up homeless because of therapy.
I mean, just looking at the statistical facts of what it is that you're facing.
And any therapist, of course, who said that my goal is to end up with you living under a bridge, but with real honesty, would be somebody I would not necessarily even get past the first five minutes with.
Yeah. You know, hey, I'll take your money, but what I will give you in return is a rusty old shopping cart for you to put your dreams, hopes, and remaining personal possessions in, right?
That's not what therapy does, right?
Right. My sense is, and again, this is all just a nonsense theory and tell me if it makes any sense.
My sense is that you have the feeling that you're placing yourself and your future into the hands of somebody who has authority when you go to therapy.
That in a sense, the therapist is going to give you And as a result of you, quote, getting yourself, you're going to end up like a train on a particular set of tracks that's going to lead in a direction that's quite anxiety-provoking.
Like, they have authority, they're going to, in a sense, tell you what to do or experiences, if you like.
Okay, so I realized, and it might not be the most accurate way to describe it this way, but I realized that I didn't love my parents my senior year of college, and I was listening to...
FDR podcasts like crazy and I had known since my sophomore year of college that I hated it there.
I didn't like it at all. It was a Catholic school.
So I was managing my dislike for school That was my third year of doing that.
Telling myself that the ends would justify the means.
I'd have this piece of paper at the end that would help me.
In the future, and that was the reason I was doing it.
I would take off the maximum amount of days of school that I could without getting expelled, and I would keep my grades up anyway and do all these things to make a bad situation as livable as possible.
My senior year, when I start waking up having nightmares about The abuse my parents did to me and the abuse that I'd done through their coercion to my siblings.
I just had no...
No love for them at all, and I wanted to be away from them.
And when I was home for breaks, I wanted to be away from them as well.
And that year was very difficult.
It was like running a marathon and telling myself, it'll all be worth it in the end, but in the moment, it felt like crap.
Right. Right.
So, in terms of authority and getting on a kind of railroad track, is there a part of you that sees therapy as That process that you're going to get truths or you're going to get insights that are going to, in a sense, overtake your choice.
Does that, again, does that make any sense or is that way off the mark?
No, I think that's exactly right.
And I think... My decision to stay with my job so that I can live independently, that decision is going to be taken away from me as I'm going to feel that I can't continue to do that anymore.
It's going to be unbearable.
Right, so you're going to get a new set of rules.
Sorry to interrupt, but you feel maybe like you're going to get a new set of rules now called perfect honesty, perfect individuation, which takes away your choice.
Right, because I already feel that's starting to happen, but I can control it now and I can start planning.
But if it becomes unbearable, then I'm just going to be thrown out in the dark.
And when you say you already feel that's starting to happen, what do you mean?
Well, I'm starting to make plans for seeking employment elsewhere.
It's been difficult for me to formulate steps of finding employment somewhere else where I don't think I'll be in the same situation anymore, but it's something I've been thinking about a lot.
Sorry to interrupt. No, go ahead.
Sorry. Well, because I'm not enjoying having this facade and not being myself at my job.
Right. I just, I mean, I'm concerned because, and this may be entirely inaccurate, but of course I get, you know, dozens of emails a week with people saying to me, you know, I work in a library.
Is that bad? You know, I want to take a government grant to go to school.
Is that bad? And people are looking for These rules, like they can get their life on a train track and follow these rules, and that will be right or correct, right?
And I don't believe in that, really, at all.
And that's not my approach.
I mean, obviously, I'm the guy with UPB and so on.
I think that there are rational standards and so on.
My concern is always that people want rules in order to avoid self-attack.
So if someone says, oh, I work in a library, and maybe they really enjoy working in a library, and because there are government libraries, there are no private libraries.
So if you really enjoy working in a library, you can't, or at least it's very hard to work in a private library.
So then you say, well, I can't work in a library because there's government funding.
Well, then you can't use roads, you can't use water, you can't use electricity, you can't use the internet, right?
That all becomes quite silly.
So I guess I'm always concerned about people who are attempting to replace one form of authority, i.e., you know, parents or teachers or priests or maybe even politicians, attempting to replace one form of authority with another form of authority called philosophy, if that makes sense.
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I definitely am sensitive to the idea.
And when I accepted this job, I realized that if I wanted to set those kind of standards for myself, this wouldn't be compatible.
But I accepted that for a lot of reasons.
But I don't think I'm...
The part of it that's unbearable is that I'm not being myself when I'm there.
And I know with quotation marks, maybe I don't really know this, but I know that if I started being myself, if they knew I was the food for my parents, if I thought child abuse was horrible, if I thought the government was corrupt, I know I'm not going to last there because basically I work for a non-profit that advocates the government to allocate money for disease research.
The people that I've worked with are very much so the type of people who believe in civic duty and that the government can be used to do good things.
And these are college-educated, these are really intelligent people who believe these things, and I've kind of gotten a glimpse at some of the corruption in their own lives.
Some of them are parents and things like that that lead me to believe that if I were to act like myself, my time there would not be under my control anymore.
I'd basically be fired.
Right.
But again, I'm just going to talk about some possibilities here.
But tell me, is these philosophical truths relevant to the performance of your job?
No, no, because I do.
I mean, there's no job description called, you know, bring reasoning from first principles to everything you do here, right?
Right, right. I mean, you have a job description that has specific tasks or requirements which you can fulfill without bringing philosophical principles to bear on the situation, right?
Yes, that's true.
I mean, to give a silly example, the guy who comes to service my furnace might be a socialist.
I don't care, right? Because his job is not to socialize my furnace, but to maintain it, right?
Yeah, you're right. And I do technical stuff, so...
Right. So all of that stuff is fulfillable without reference to philosophical ideals, right?
Right. And at the same time, though, this is a very small non-profit.
It's run by a total...
There's about 10 of us that work there.
And everyone...
The upper management really tries to promote this idea that we're a family.
So there's lots of encouraged socialization in the job.
And... So I'm constantly on guard.
I'm thinking of things to say which will diffuse situations, dishonest things that will not get to the heart of who I am and what I think is important because they're potentially explosive and it's inevitable that the conversations happen because it's such a close-knit working environment.
Right, right. Now, obviously...
What I talk about is the logic of personal and political liberty, right?
So, to me, the freedom to not answer questions is important, right?
Because if we have a rule called freedom, that's kind of a contradiction, right?
Yeah. I mean, when I am asked, and I was asked recently, you know, do you see your mother?
By someone, it doesn't really matter who.
And I said, it's a It's been a while.
And then I responded with another question to that person.
We don't owe everyone perfect honesty.
That's something that's earned through mutual respect and trust within a relationship.
Yeah, I agree with you.
I don't think I've done anything immoral in my dealings with the people at my job and being dishonest or not telling the whole truth about something.
Because I do recognize that I am in complete control and at the end of the day, I'm not hurting anyone and if I'm able to be happier by not telling them the full truth, then there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.
Okay, yeah, good. I just want to make sure that at least you see my perspective, whether you agree with it or not, my perspective.
The important thing is consciousness, right?
So what I want to be aware of is if I am being evasive for a particular reason, I want to be aware of that, right?
I don't want to be unconscious because then I don't have a choice, right?
Right. Yeah, and trying to be more conscious, that's something I'm trying to do.
Okay, okay, good. So, as far as, and again, there's lots of schools of therapy, and I'll just talk about, you know, my particular experience.
I mean, obviously a good therapist will not sit there and give you orders, right?
Right. You must do this.
You must do that. You must quit your job.
I mean, so that would be silly, right?
So, it's not going to be the case that your therapist is going to tell you to quit your job, right?
Or if they do, get a new therapist, right?
Yeah. Now, there's also, I don't believe, any objective or particular rule which says working for a non-profit that uses government money to research diseases or whatever, and obviously there are worse ways to spend government money than attempting to cure diseases, right? Like, war, right?
Yes. And the dollars that you get for disease research are subtracted from the dollars that go, to some degree, that go to war, right?
So there's ways that you can look at that as not horrendous, right?
And in some ways, if the money's going to be spent, you're not working for the Defense Department, right?
No. So I don't think that there's any rule that's going to come in that says you have to quit your job, right?
And if you wake up one day with a strong urge to quit your job, then there's no...
Let me do a minor speech here.
And tell me where it is.
Interrupt me if it doesn't apply.
When we are raised by people who act out, who have an impulse followed by an action, like they're angry so they yell.
Or they're angry or they throw something or whatever, right?
Punch a wall. I'm not saying all this applies to you, but just in general, right?
When we have people who act out, we get this idea or this impression that impulse leads immediately and it seems inevitably to action, right? Yeah.
Does that ring true?
Does that make any sense?
I was with you before you were even done saying the first sentence.
Okay, smarter than me.
That's great. That's what we need, right?
Okay, my parents are the type of people who would come home from work, they'd be angry, they'd be frustrated, and they'd probably spend a good first hour that they were home from work Complaining to me and my siblings and to each other about how much they hated their job, sharing gossip. And I remember being so disgusted with that.
And I haven't done that.
Not even to myself.
I don't come home from my job and complain, this person doesn't understand that, or this guy is so incompetent.
I don't encourage those sorts of, that kind of impulsive acting out of suppressed frustration when I get home from my job because of that.
Okay, and so if we get this idea that impulse is followed by acting out, then what actually happens is we become afraid of thoughts or ideas.
Because there's no intercepting rationality between the idea or the impulse and the execution.
Again, tell me if this all makes sense or if I'm way off base.
Yeah, I think to a large extent I'm already afraid of the feelings I'm having, that I'm starting to outgrow my job, that it's starting to be unbearable for me.
Right, because you think that it's going to lead to an inevitable decision because thought leads to action without the interception of reason or perspective.
Yes, yeah. Now, of course, the point of therapy is to recognize the complexity of thought, the ambivalence of emotion, the challenges involved in making a substantial life decision, the need to make it with reference to all the facts,
to be sustainable, to end up with everyone, you know, all of your thoughts in line, so to speak, or at least more or less in line, to keep combing over the challenges of that decision in order to make sure that it is the right decision and not A reaction to something or an acting out or something unconscious or a programmed self-destruct from your past or something like that, right? So there's no, at least with good therapy, in my strong opinion, there's no possibility that you're going to wake up one day and impulsively quit your job.
In fact, I would say that in the absence of therapy, that's the actual risk, right?
That's interesting. So you're saying that therapy will help me to be even more equipped to deal with the feelings I'm having now about my job than I am already?
Right. Let's just look at it.
This is a pure theory, but let's say there's a possibility that what you perceive as the forced socializing within your job is Distasteful to you primarily not because of itself, but primarily because you were forced to be socialized or to be social as a child.
It's a possibility, right?
I mean, however accurate or inaccurate it may be, let's say that's the case, that it's actually a historical distaste that is magnifying what occurs, the negative stuff that is occurring at your job.
Right, being forced to go to family gatherings and things like that, so I'm kind of bringing that to the job.
Right. So a therapist, of course, will help you work through those feelings that you had as a child when you were forced or asked or pressured or whatever to attend functions that you didn't want to attend.
And then when you've worked through those feelings, you can then actually deal with your job in the present rather than as an echo or reflection or snowball from the past.
And you may find that your distaste for socializing within the job after you've worked through stuff in therapy about your history It's less or absent.
That's interesting. Yeah, and I wouldn't know that if I was continuing to sit around and just try to hush those impulses or conquer them by myself.
For sure, for sure.
And also, the odds are, I would say, infinitely higher, which doesn't mean that they're certain.
It just means they're positive, whereas with therapy it's most likely to be that the odds are negative.
The odds are infinitely higher that if you don't work through these feelings, and again, I'm not saying that these feelings are all accurate, right, this thesis that we have, but if they are, if you don't work through these feelings, what's going to happen is your history is going to overwhelm your present and you're just going to impulsively quit one day rather than have someone that you can work through these feelings with so that you can make a decision based on the facts of the present rather than the momentum or impetus of history.
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
Yeah. I wasn't thinking about it that way before.
So, yeah.
Therapy is not an authority-based situation where you're going to end up being told what to do or end up on a kind of train track of integrity or authenticity, whatever that train track might look like.
But instead, you're going to be able to make rational decisions with full self-knowledge about the present And with someone to help you unravel the gravity well that we all have to do with the past that influences or negatively affects our current decision making.
So to break it down, therapy will help you keep your job and not going to therapy is putting you at most risk for an impulsive quit.
That would be my argument. That makes a lot of sense.
I think you might be entirely right.
In which case, there's frankly no better...
Investment, right? Yeah.
I mean, if you have to pay a hundred bucks a week, say, to keep your job, then you're up, you know, a lot more than a hundred bucks a week, right?
Yeah, because I wouldn't have a job.
Right. And that's what I mean.
Like you say, well, therapy might cause me to quit.
And I say, well, quite the opposite is true, right?
Or could be.
Yeah, that's terrific.
Yeah.
And you won't get those perspectives on your own.
At least that would be my thought.
No, I really won't.
Just in the journaling I've done recently, I kind of just circle these negative feelings, continually thinking about them as they happen and trying to let them Just giving myself a lot of attention and love and patience.
But that's not helping me to understand them better.
It's not helping them go away.
Yes, and of course, as I've mentioned before, and maybe you've heard it, maybe you haven't, it's something my therapist told me years ago, which I thought was brilliant and incredibly true, which doesn't mean it's true for you, but I'll put it out anyway, that the self-reliance which we have, which results from An excess of solitariness as children, right?
Then we all have this self-sufficiency.
I want to deal with it on my own.
I want to use my own resources.
We all have that impulse.
Because those of us who've grown up with isolation, to whatever degree, we are used to solving things on our own.
And in fact, getting other people involved is a negative, right?
Yep. But problems, this very self-reliance which makes us want to do that, is actually an effect of the solitude.
And you can't solve problems that arise from solitude by pursuing solitude.
Okay, that makes a lot of sense.
I've heard you and other people mention that problems...
That saying, problems in isolation can't be solved through isolation.
It never really hit me until I heard the reasoning you've just used now.
When we become very self-reliant, it can become tough for us to think of how are people useful?
And I mean, useful sounds kind of cold and clinical, but what value do people bring to me, right?
Because for a lot of us who've come up out of these dysfunctional families, People don't bring utility to us.
In fact, for the most part, we're happier alone, right?
Right. And the one thing that therapy will change with the right therapist and with the work that you do is that someone, and this was deeply shocking to me when I first went through therapy, another human being brought incredible value to my life, which completely breaks a pattern, right, for me.
Right. And yeah, I feel like that's happened with me and you and everyone else in the FDR community.
It's so easy for me to be, and maybe this is an inappropriate expression of boundaries, I'm not sure, but it's very easy for me to be 100% honest when I'm talking to people in the chat or posting on the board.
There's really no impediments because it's such a refreshing change.
Right, right.
And I hugely appreciate that.
And I'm obviously completely thrilled and happy that what I have done has brought such value.
But even with the second conversation that we've had, you and I don't have a relationship, right?
And it's a continual relationship with back and forth.
And that's why I don't do therapy and never will, right?
But that's what the therapeutic process.
Eye contact, where it's really focused on you, where someone is bringing insights and feedback that is incredibly valuable to you.
And it is a continual and very personal and proximate process.
There's someone else in the room with you, you have eye contact, all that kind of stuff, right?
And that is great practice for being open and honest with somebody in your life in a way that the internet can't.
And again, I'm not saying it's no value.
I'm hugely thrilled that you find it of such value.
But it is not something which is going to get you to eye contact, honesty and openness.
And if I'm wrong about that, and of course it could be wrong, as I could be wrong about anything, but if I'm wrong, About that, the way that you would test that is you would say, well, I've now been in the chat room or listening to podcasts for a while, and now I find it much easier to be honest with someone face-to-face.
Right. And if I understand what you're saying, at least about work and someone, it's not quite that way yet, right?
No. And I think that that's one thing that therapy brings, that it's experiential honesty, it's sensual honesty, if I can put it in that kind of way.
Right. Honesty with eye contact, so to speak.
Right. And I really appreciate that.
Thank you. Because if you hadn't said just now that it's basically an empirical fact that you and I don't have a relationship, that's true and I accept that.
But if you hadn't just said it out loud, I don't think I would have consciously made that connection, made that thought.
Right. And that's not to say that we don't have...
We don't have an active one-on-one friend, eye contact, let's go to movies kind of relationship.
That doesn't mean that you haven't listened to and found great value in what it is that I'm saying.
It doesn't mean that we aren't relating when we're having these calls.
And we are, right? But that's not the same in my opinion.
And again, this is just my opinion.
That's not the same. And it's a good thing, right?
I mean, the fact that you and I have what I think is very honest, you know, honest conversations is great, right?
And I think that it's a good template for you to bring to other relationships, just as I learn more about how to be honest by speaking with you and with other people, which I then bring to other relationships, both personal and through FDR. But it is, of course, a transitional thing to find these kinds of interactions, interactions in the chatroom, to be honest, open, and positive.
What you really want, and I'm really focused, as I always am, on trying to get you what you really want, but what you really want is that in your life, not on the web, right?
Right, yeah. Or rather, not just on the web, right?
Right, yeah, definitely.
And that's one thing that therapy...
Can bring you that the web can't, in my opinion, right?
At least that's certainly been my experience.
That's why I'm so annoyingly naggy to everyone who has these kinds of issues to at least give it a shot.
Right. I was hoping, it was my hope that I could just be alone, deal with this stuff myself, and check into FDR every once in a while, and then create this version of myself that will be comfortable and happy going out in the world and making those relationships real.
And maybe you can. I mean, I'm totally not saying you can't.
I've not seen it happen.
And that's not how it worked for me.
It's not how it worked for other friends of mine, but that is not, of course, an argument from absolutes, but from empiricism.
I think you can, but I also think that even if you could do it that way, it would be faster, easier, and cheaper in the long run to engage a therapist to propel you.
That would sort of be my suggestion.
Like, yeah, you can fix your own car too, but how long does it take you and how many mistakes do you make, right?
Yeah, exactly. That's a good analogy.
Right. Now, is there more that you wanted to mention about that?
Because I wanted to mention the thing that you started with, which was the injustice.
I wanted to talk for a few minutes about that, but I don't want to interrupt if there's more that you wanted to say about this issue.
No, I think we've done a good job going through this one.
Okay. Now, as to the question of injustice, I'm going to completely agree with you and then completely disagree with you because I'm all about consistency.
Okay. And yes, I completely agree with you.
You know, somebody else knocked the vase off the shelf and you have to buy it, right?
I mean, that sucks.
There's not objective justice in that.
I fully agree that that's a bad situation.
And I'm going to use a silly sports analogy because...
Now that I have a new baby, that's the closest I get to working at.
When you come from a dysfunctional history, you start off in a wheelchair.
I mean, I think that we can all be somewhat aware of that.
And from my experience and the way that I look at it, which again, it's just a theory, my experience is this.
If you start off in a wheelchair, there's two places you can end up in life.
And there doesn't seem to be a lot in the middle.
In fact, it doesn't seem to be anything in the middle, but that's just, again, my thoughts, my experience.
You start off in a wheelchair coming from a dysfunctional, a seriously dysfunctional home such as yours or mine.
There's two places that you can end up.
You can either end up in a wheelchair or you can end up winning the Olympics.
Those seem to be the only two choices.
And if you end up in the wheelchair, what happens is you end up putting other people in wheelchairs, right?
By your example and by your interaction.
But if you end up winning the gold medal as a super-duper califragilisticexpialidocious athlete, then you can inspire other people to get out of the wheelchair.
And you never end up just walking, right?
you end up being a titan of sports ability.
And it is completely unjust that we start out in a wheelchair, but if we understand that starting out in the wheelchair gives us that access to being an incredible athlete, then but if we understand that starting out in the wheelchair gives us that access to being an incredible athlete, then in a sense, taking on inspiring other people.
Yeah, that makes sense.
And given the happiness that I have in my life, and the amazing...
Things that are going on, given all of that, it doesn't make what happened in my childhood, right?
But it means that I would almost choose to have that if it gives me this.
Like, if I couldn't have this without that, I mean, again, it's a completely theoretical and existential question, so to speak, right?
But if the only way I could get to here would be to go through that, I'd be damn tempted.
And I may even say yes.
If I were given that choice.
Wow. If that makes any sense.
Now, if I stay in a wheelchair, that totally sucks and there was nothing but, you know, horror and destruction in it all, right?
But if I were given the choice to have this and to do what I can do now and the price was going through what I went through as a kid, I don't know.
I mean, what I have now is pretty great, right?
And is going to continue to be that way.
So it's the only way that I know to get, you know, gold out of the shit, right?
Yeah. I'm smiling.
That's terrific. And if you're gonna be a great athlete, you need a coach.
And you need a coach who coaches you, not a guy who puts out coaching videos.
Right, and coaching videos are great, right?
I'm sure you get the analogy.
I don't need to go any further, but you need a coach for you if you're going to be a grader.
If you're going to get out of the wheelchair, you need rehab for you.
You need a coach for you. You need a guy who can get you, or a man or a woman, who can get you to the gold and not just something generic.
Yeah, I think you're completely right.
I don't think there's any Olympic athletes out there that owe their success to...
Taibo videos that they have in their apartment.
There's nothing wrong with Taibo videos.
It's a place to start. Given that it's either the wheelchair or the gold, a coach is going to get you there that much faster.
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
Okay.
Let's just briefly touch on your list of four things and make sure that we didn't miss anything essential, if that's all right.
Right, okay. So, we basically dealt with the first idea, which was that it's an unfair burden to have to go to therapy.
The second one was that my past history of dealing with problems alone, we talked about that as being an expression of my own abuse in the past.
That's the reason that I feel safe dealing with problems alone.
And the third thing was This idea that my impulse to quit my job is going to be increased by going to therapy, but it seems pretty clear that the opposite is true to me.
It seems pretty clear to me that the opposite is true.
And the fourth thing was that there are these nagging technical details which mean that I simply cannot afford to go right now and not for the next few months.
Yeah, and that's a practical consideration.
There's not much that I can do about that.
I mean, obviously anyone, right?
But that's not the key issue, right?
I mean, because there's a way, and you'll find a way to do it, if not now, soon, if you have the right motivation, which, you know, so again, that's nothing that can, you know, we can't Skype that away.
Yeah. That's right.
I can make myself, in the meantime, as prepared as humanly possible for when I can make the option available to myself.
Yeah, and what you're doing, the journaling, the reading, the interacting with people, and so on, all of that is the warm-up for the training, right?
Which is fantastic. Yeah.
Yep, I think that's right. And as far as this call went, other than my creepy internet murmuring because of the sleepy baby, I'm going to whisper in your ear.
Was the feedback that you got or was it useful?
Was it helpful? Was there anything that I could have done differently or better in order to help you through this?
I don't think it could have been more useful.
I don't think it'd be possible to make this conversation more useful.
Oh, good. That's always good to know, right?
I mean, to help, right?
That's important. If I am, that's usually helpful.
Okay, well, I'll obviously send you a copy of this naturally.
I think that since a lot of people are facing this challenge, it would be very helpful to have it in the stream, but that, of course, is entirely up to you.
Right. Yeah.
Yeah, I want to give it a listen, but I agree.
I think it would be helpful to a lot of people.
Okay, I lost about a minute once or twice in the middle.
Unfortunately, for some reason, my recorder does occasionally hiccup.
So if you noticed that anything essential was missing, if you could just tell me where, I'll try and sort of stitch it in just by, if it was anything that I said, I can repeat it.
Okay. Alright, and I will send this to you today.
Alright, thanks a lot, Steph.
Thank you so much. Great call.
Well done. Thanks.
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