I’ve spent many a day writhing in analytical pain, as I tried to understand all my mental health problems through impersonal and theoretical postulations.
For years, I believed that the best approach to “self-improvement” essentially meant not knowing oneself at all. Pursuing an allegedly objective perspective on the world, I tried to understand and alleviate my anguish through book learnings. Yet, I always felt that the solutions I came up with were too abstract, and that their appeal was merely elegance, not relevance.
It was only once I began my psychiatric journey that I had my suspicions confirmed. I remember my doctor giving me various pieces of feedback on my unorthodox approach: “You’re trying too hard to be good at therapy,” “The improvements you’re making aren’t based on any foundation,” and “I still feel like you’re putting up walls.” All of which, in retrospect, are totally valid. I would try to perform what I believe her job entailed for her, instead of just being open.
“Who are you?”
Her most resounding utterance was actually a question, not a statement. As cliché as it sounds, she implored “Who are you?” in a simultaneously soporific and anxiety-inducing tone. It was at that point that I realized the undeniable futility of my previously held convictions and methods.
How would you respond if someone asked you to give them a brief synopsis of who you were, prohibiting any appeal to feelings or personal experience? The stuff of which boring biographies are made, that I can assure you.
Vulnerability
What used to feel like more of a symposium then began to feel like a rigorous trial and examination. People characterize healthy psychotherapy as involving exposure and vulnerability, which it certainly does—disregarding all self-inflicted pokes and prods.
Vulnerability (literally meaning able to be wounded) has the connotation of being defenseless against the advent or onslaught of something external, but it doesn’t account for self-wrought punishment. There should be a word for the experience people have when they’re at the non-existent mercy of their own self-depreciative and scrutinous hands. I’ve yet to encounter it, but I’m sure the concept isn’t a foreign one.
Post-session decompression consisted of me taking my sweet time dismembering any good qualities or intentions I thought I possessed. This sinister impulse was always with me, but I was too concerned with trying to follow its conclusions, as opposed to questioning it as a method.
I had no problem weaving complex and self-cynical tales about my behaviour, but I didn’t know why I had this instinct. Whatever explanation I could muster seemed trite. I needed a unique and unprecedented reason, because any conventional one was too banal, and I would’ve had no justification for not being able to diagnose and remedy it earlier. In short, I was trying to appeal to my own ignorance for answers.
Group therapy
My neuropsychiatrist then proposed an uncomfortable but well-reasoned course of treatment: group therapy. I knew deep down that this was exactly what I needed, but balked at the prospective vulnerability it would require. However, I agreed, begrudgingly.
A six-month program that would entail 30 105-minute sessions would go on to change my life. Inevitably, the proximity and mutual trust that developed among the group forced me to confront my two biggest fears: conflict and rejection.
As the group was comprised of several strong-minded individuals, there were never any ephemeral and petty squabbles. Each contention was rooted in deeply varying perspectives on the world, but was also predicated on ironically similar core beliefs.
Themes revealed themselves, and almost every member could participate and relate to personal feuds that at first appeared exclusive. Process over content was stressed, because it was easy to get caught up in defending and preaching ideas instead of expressing why they bore any emotional significance to us as individuals.
Leaving the intellectual realm for the sentimental was one of the hardest tasks I’ve ever undertaken. It’s safe to take refuge in arbitrary concepts during social interactions because they act as just that, shelter. In retrospect, it seems so silly to not have seen this before.
Difficulty establishing meaningful and personal connections will always be partially nested in an inability to tell your own story. Encyclopedias don’t make great novels; they’re simply a record of information on a multitude of subjects. That’s what I’d wanted to be: a person so full of external ideas that I would never falter and risk exposure or humiliation in relationships. Now that I’ve had a taste of emotionally grounded connections, though, I don’t want to forsake them.
Taking it out into the world
With therapy having ended in December of last year, I’m in a period of so-called “digestion” that consists of patients implementing what they’ve learned and observing its consequences in the real world. I’d be lying if I regurgitated the stereotypical narrative about having turned over a new leaf or being a completely new person.
To me, those reports are not only dishonest and unrealistic, but damaging to the psyche. They give the impression that the object of therapy is not only to change a person within a short period of time, but that such an endeavour is possible and permanent.
I’m still experiencing waxes and wanes within my self-confidence, and I don’t expect my old tendencies to vanish or even deplete. I’m simply aware that I have new perceptions, and that they have more value than I once assumed.
I don’t know if one group experience will suffice, but I now know I can trust myself enough to take on any new therapeutic enterprise, and treat my interpretation of the world as something worthy of consideration and expression.
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image: pxhere
