you don't need therapy

And heaven forbid you take your issue to Reddit or Quora. The first response is almost guaranteed to be, “maybe you should try therapy.” (But I thought that’s what you were here for??)

Well… Maybe we should stop normalizing therapy.

Hear me out! My reasoning is simple.

Paying a stranger to listen to you requires money. And time. Also, it’s kind of weird.

Essentially, therapy is a luxury few can afford. And it should be seen as something of a last resort. 

Therapy allows for the rest of society to free itself of the burden that is, well, you. We all have baggage. And when people stop allowing the person next to them to rely on them for emotional support, communities disappear and what you’re left with is hollow cities.

Welcome to America.

Therapists are not experts on life. At least not any more so than your grandparents are, and depending on the therapist (and your grandparents), it’s quite likely your therapist is actually less qualified on the matter of living.

If you’re mentally equipped enough to recognize that you have something bothering you in your life, then congrats! You’re also equipped to figure it out, WITHOUT A THERAPIST.

A therapist is essentially just a coach, an accountability partner if you will, because here’s the thing, life is hard.

LIFE IS HARD!

Say it again. Life is freaking hard. It hurts, it’s stressful, and it obviously does damage. I mean have you seen your grandparents? Those guys are not looking great. Life is not for the weak. And if you’re here, if you’re doing it every day, then you my friend are not weak.

You are not weak and you don’t need therapy, its a mental game. But, you do need guidance. And you need to listen. To others, but also, to yourself! And then when you believe yourself to be a guru of healthy living, share. Talk about what helped you. Talk about what hindered you. Life is about sharing and no one should be a gatekeeper to mental or emotional wellbeing. You don’t and shouldn’t need to sacrifice so much time and omg the money that therapy takes. You don’t need to make these sacrifices to feel better. You’ll need to make sacrifices. But not those. You can be your own accountability partner, but only if you decide that’s what you really want.

If you started taking hold of your life in the amount of time it took you to just find a decent therapist (And god help us, you aren’t trying to find one that your insurance provider approves of), you’d probably already be feeling quite empowered. It’s not that therapists don’t help, it’s that the majority don’t. And the most affordable, are the least likely to help. They’re overworked and they barely remember your name. The reason a therapy session is actually 50 minutes long and not the full hour, is because your therapist is booked up and they need that time to prepare for the next set of issues about to walk through their door.

You’ve heard of the baker’s dozen, well… that’s the therapist’s hour, friend. At least your baker is adding to the order and not subtracting.

It’s not that therapists are evil people.  They’re very well-intentioned people, usually. They simply took on a job that was never theirs to begin with: improving your life. And it caught on. Of course it caught on! You mean to tell me I can share the load of fixing my life?

No.

YOU CAN’T. It all comes down to you. Therapists are just meant to guide you through that journey. And in that way they replaced a need for community and strong bonds with people who are actually part of your life. (Don’t have those people? We’ll talk about that later, it’s okay.) 

Fortunately, there’s an alternative to therapy. Let’s call it self-therapy. And it’s FREE.

You, meet your therapist, you! AH! You guys already know each other?! Probably not as well as you’d like. But don’t worry, we’re here to fix that. That’s the journey of self-therapy. You’re not just being your own therapist.

You are meeting and accepting You.

I’m gonna be honest with you, it’s scary. It’s damn painful too. You have not always been a great person. And you’ve also encountered not great people. And maybe you were even raised by them (my condolences).

You need to be prepared to not like certain things that you find – about yourself and just, the way of the world. That’s a heavy ask, I know. The good news is, some of these things you can change. But… some of them you’ll just have to accept. And that’s hard, because life is long. But we’ve already established that you’re a strong person. You’ll get it done. No matter how difficult it is.

So what are some of the moves required in the battle of You vs You?

Here’s the overview, so you know what to expect.

     Admitting you have a wound in your psyche.

There is a wound somewhere in your existence, and maybe you know exactly where it is, but maybe you don’t, and that’s okay. You’re here, you’ve most likely completed step one. Congrats on starting the journey.

     SILENCE THY MIND

This is hard. It’s hard. It has its own entire process and it might be something you’re continuously working on during self-therapy. Some people are naturally really good at this. Most are not. If you have anxiety (that is not in your control) then this will be a crucial step in your journey. Some people think they’ve silenced their mind, but in reality they’ve just severed certain pathways, this is typical in depression and in people with strong avoidant personalities.

Often we opt to distract our minds instead of silence them. It’s a good survival technique, and if you’ve mastered that, learning to silence it won’t be too hard. Silencing your mind is an ultimate form of self-control and you’ll be continuously strengthening that muscle throughout life.

     Prepare to stare into the abyss

That sounds dramatic, right? Well it is. Trauma results from being forced to look into the abyss. In other words, before you’ve prepared to do so.

What is the abyss? Well in a nutshell its nature at its worst. Both human nature and mother nature. And you are not exempt from human nature my friend. There is an abyss inside each one of us. And denying that only allows it to grow bigger.

(MEME: GREATEST TRICK THE DEVIL EVER PULLED)

There’s a lot to cover here. This is where you really get to know who you are. If you have a sobriety problem, it’s time to address that. Lacking boundaries? Seeking validation in unfortunate places? There is no shortage of ways you can do yourself harm. And so, so many of them are quite acceptable to society (I’m looking at you, stoners).

But it’s not all so serious, some of it is fun. Like simply, who are you?! Are you an extrovert? An introvert? Do you take too much responsibility for the chaos unfolding around you OR… maybe not enough? Do you enjoy new things or do you HATE THEM? Let’s find out! You gotta know who you are so you can prepare to deal with things in a manner that is most constructive to YOU. This is the time to make everything about you. This is your permission to be self-absorbed (But not entitled. And do leave your absorbed self at the door when you return to the real world. Thank you.) This part is a lot of fun, and you’ll probably want to pull your friends into it so they too can know themselves the most.

     Stare into the abyss.

Okay, well don’t stare. It’s bad for your eyes. And your soul. But you can take the blinders off once you’ve reached this point. We’re here to examine nature. At its ugliest, at its most beautiful. You’re going to observe things that upset you, but because you trusted the process, because healed your wounded psyche, you’re strong and ready to go.

This is what the previous steps are preparing you for. This is where you meet the strongest version of yourself. There is a good chance you’re not going to like what you see. So you need to be able to take a moment (step 2 – silence your mind) and find comfort in who you currently are (step 3 – prepare to stare into the abyss) when things get hard here.

A lot of people were forced to look into the abyss without first preparing to do so, and it burns a person’s soul to do this. It is the main ingredient of childhood trauma.

But that’s why we’re here, fam. You’ve seen the demons that come from the earth and the people that walk it. If this is you, I’m going to calmly and respectfully ask you to please take your ass back to step 2. I don’t know who dropped you at step 4, but they were wrong to do so.

Please understand that even though this overview is only 4 steps, the process is far from 4 steps. Some of us have a lot of undoing to do. Which is then, of course, followed by reconstructing your sense of self. Basically, this is bootcamp. And you need to be a soldier if you want to heal and reach the highest version of yourself.

Life is a battle.

And we have to help one another conquer it.