A friendly fight with a friend about therapy.

I have conversations about the virtues of therapy with all sorts of people. I’ve discussed it with people I’ve worked with and people I’ve loved, people I’m close to and people I barely know who have confessed to me some secret struggle they’re going through. This happens frequently since I wrote my book which detailed some dark times in my own life and mentioned how therapy was one of the things that helped me through them.

But my friend doesn’t buy it. She thinks it’s a sad indictment on modern life that we can no longer rely on our loved ones to help us with our problems. “Our parents never went to counsellors” she argues. “They talked to each other or their relatives when things were bad. Now, that sense of community has broken down and we have to pay strangers to help us. That’s what families used to be for!”

Did I mention my friend was both Greek and idealistic?

I take a deep breath and a big sip of wine and, uncharacteristically, consider my words before diving in. “Come on honey,” I begin in the most even tone I can muster, “That’s a very rose-coloured view of the past. So much was swept under the carpet back then, never to be discussed publicly. People were loathe to admit they dyed their hair for heaven’s sake, let alone that they were struggling with emotional problems!  Things like depression and anxiety and grief and post natal depression all happened silently behind closed doors. That doesn’t mean they didn’t exist or that they were fixed with a cup of tea and a friendly chat with your sister.”

While she considered this and was unable to immediately respond due to a mouth full of linguine vongole, I seized the opportunity to launch the next phase of my argument. “I also think we have higher expectations for our own happiness than previous generations. We’re certainly far less tolerant of physical and emotional hardship than our grandparents and great-grandparents were and that’s a good thing! It’s progress that our attitude to emotional issues isn’t just ‘harden the f*&^ up’. We want to be as happy and fulfilled as possible and sometimes that means enlisting the help of a professional when you hit a roadblock.”

Either I was wearing her down or she was really hungry because she kept eating, giving me the chance to make my final point. I could practically hear swelling violins. Damn if it didn’t feel good up there in the pulpit.

“Talking to a counsellor is totally different to friends or family,” I insisted. “People who know you will always bring their own baggage to your problems. They’ll also automatically try to cheer you up and they’ll rarely make you confront ugly or uncomfortable things about yourself. It takes someone impartial to do that.”

I’m genuinely baffled by some people’s refusal to seek help when they’re struggling. If there’s a prize for the person who staggers through life carrying the most baggage without ever sorting through it or putting it down, I don’t want to win it.

Unbelievably, it seems for some people there’s still a stigma attached to seeing a counsellor. Others think you have to have a mental illness or that you have to be deeply traumatised and crying every day. You don’t. Some think you have to have experienced some huge tragedy like being abused as a child or losing a loved one. Nup. Some think you have to lie on a couch and talk about your childhood. Wrong again. You can sit perfectly upright in a chair and talk about whatever is bothering you, past, present or future. You just have to find the right person to talk to.

One of my favourite websites is Dooce.com where Heather Armstrong writes about her suburban life with her husband, two daughters and two dogs. She also writes, candidly, about her battles with depression, anxiety and post-natal depression. Of therapy, she recently wrote:

“…I continue to see my therapist, not every week or even every month, but whenever I hit a road block and need someone to help me talk my way through it. I think many people are afraid that if they agree to see a therapist that they are in some way admitting failure or defeat. Or they have been told by their boyfriend or their mother or their best friend that they should buck up and get over it, and that asking for help is a sign of weakness. Well then, let me be weak. Let me be a failure. Because being over here on this side, where I see and think clearly, where I’m happy to greet my child in the morning, over here being a failure is a hell of a lot more enjoyable than the constant misery of suffering alone.”

Amen to that, sister. I’ll happily be a weak failure too. Happily being the operative word.

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Have you had therapy or counselling? Was it good? Bad? Beneficial? Have you had positive/negative reactions from people?  If you HAVEN’T ever seen a counsellor despite having gone through crap, is there a reason?

Is there still a stigma attached to therapy these days? Surely not…..