There is no crisis here. Nobody’s falling apart. Nothing is doom and gloom. It’s that people want more.
There is no single burning moment that compels these men and women to get into the therapy office. No bring me to my knees crisis, or heart stopping tragedy. Some come because of an ongoing simmering desire to not settle for something that feels vaguely uncomfortable, or somewhat empty.
Sometimes, it’s the lack of anything that compels people to go and work things out with a therapist.
Being in the same job for a long time may put you at the top of the salary bracket and give you an extra week’s vacation. But you may wonder if you are trading in your vitality for these comforts.
Going to the same family gatherings where they treat you in the same disrespectful way year after year is painful. You’ve long ago noticed that with enough glasses of wine, the edge comes off and you show up again next time. It’s OK—or is it?
You parent the kids, have a great spouse, have enough money to pay the mortgage and go on a vacation every year. It feels like you are the picture in the dictionary beside the term: has it all. But somehow, you’re feeling dissatisfied in a way that doesn’t fit the picture.
Getting along OK is adequate for many people. But maybe it’s not sufficient for you.
◆◆◆
There are years, when the snow has piled high in winter, and the warm spring comes balmy and sudden, that the folks in my city worry about basement flooding. During those times, like many of the others around, I become one of those people who rushes to the basement on first entering my house, hoping it is dry.
I feel just slightly closer to my ancestors who were farmers. I grew up hearing people talk about going to take a walk around the land or check out the crops. I worried about my house during the years I was a single mom. I was in a cute little house close to the river (read: low ground) that was poorly landscaped. Ideally, the ground slopes away from the house towards the streets and the drainage. In my house, the yard was contoured to be rather like a saucer around the house, collecting the water as the snow melted. The snow would pile at the edges when people cleared the sidewalks around the perimeter where the snow was piled into crusty hard snowbanks higher than the center of the yard. It added yet a higher lip to hold the water close to the house.
One spring, it was especially bad. Many basements in the neighborhood were taking on water. It was in the news every night. In the evenings, before I went to bed, I got on my rubber boots and jacket, and grabbed my flashlight for one last loop around the yard to check out my land. (Hey, I know it was a small yard, but technically, it was my land–or mine and the bank’s, anyway). My sons and I were doing what we could to off-load the water. It was a family adventure. It was rather like I would read about in stories of pioneers where all members of the household banded together to desperately save the homestead from the latest travails that befell them.
We started off by scooping the water over the snow banks—trying to get rid of the large pools of water that took over our yard and threatened to overwhelm our foundation’s ability to stay dry. The shovelling worked for the first few days when it first started to melt. It was manageable to shovel water together two or three times per day.
We kept a careful eye on what we came, not-so-affectionately, to know as Lake Bergen, our family name at the time. The yard had become a body of water. We would watch her size and depth develop as the vast amounts of snow continued to melt.
On the weekend, the rising waters made shovelling seem rather like trying to empty a bathtub with a spoon. The rate of melting was rapid. We got a lot water shovelled to the street, but our best efforts at shovelling didn’t seem to put a dent in the water level. The melting rate exceeded our ability to shovel it during our two-a-day shifts before supper and before bed.
All that shovelling was modestly effective, but simply not efficient.
We could have kept shovelling, but we decided to change strategies. Something completely different. It meant we put the scoop and dump process with our shovels on hold.
When shovelling could not keep up, my kids and I spent a day chopping passages in the ice. We got out the axe and chipped through the smaller but still significant snow-now-turned-ice drifts. We sought to create a little path for the water to escape through the snowbank to the street away from the house into the city sewers. Ice-chipping a narrow crevice was brutal work that took several hours. There was a significant level of satisfaction in creating the path in the ice bank to the street although it didn’t come immediately. We worked for a lengthy spell without a drop being drained. Chopping, clearing, scraping—over and over.
We weren’t even confident this would be effective. We weren’t sure how much water would actually leave.
We hammered a narrow route through the frozen dirt to create a downward path for the water to go. After a time, we could see the slightest trickle that started down the meager path we created. Then we went to bed.
It started with a dribble.
But over the hours while we slept, the magic happened. When water travels, it develops its own momentum. What started as a very narrow trickle increased overnight with the erosion that comes with water continually flowing down and eroding the ice as it travelled toward the sewer.
Two days later, what we had come to know as Lake Bergen in front of the house, had significantly reduced in size and depth, even as snow continued to melt into it. This was due to the human-made River Bergen. Over time, River Bergen made itself wider and wider, and more effective at draining the water out of Lake Bergen.
We didn’t need to shovel anymore.
It was ridiculous how proud we were of our improved strategy.
◆◆◆
It seems to me that life can be like that.
Clients come telling us how very hard they work at a situation. They put in lots of effort but are concerned or even terrified at the lack of significant movement on the issue.
In therapy, they talk about it, get another perspective, process the issue through a different lens and look at it with the support of a counselor in a fresh way. Potentially, it allows the way for a whole different strategy.
Often, after a first session, it’s a somewhat like the axe is starting to create the path, but nothing can drain yet. That’s when a skeptic can declare, “See, I knew this counseling thing was pointless—what good can talking about it do?”
But the fun starts when new understanding comes. New strategies start being used in neat ways and then the water starts flowing. Sometimes, it’s because a client goes home to try an experiment or follow through on some homework that the client and therapist have talked about. Other times, a client can find themselves spontaneously making different choices because of the way the therapy session created internal shifts.
Clients come into therapy saying, “I came for help in one area, but I’m loving what is happening in another area in my life that I haven’t even talked about.” The path becomes wider and things happen, even without deliberate effort.
◆◆◆
Picture this. You are in a lawn chair beside a large man-made lake. It’s pretty enough. There are children playing and laughing. It’s pleasant sitting there. But there is very little beach, and it’s got lots of sharp pebbles. The mosquitos are plentiful, so you are sticky from bug spray. There are algae in the water with a sign at water’s edge that some may have a skin reaction after swimming. But there you sit, enjoying the landscape.
Now pan out with a larger view, rather like a camera on a drone that flies above, seeing a much broader view of the landscape. Behind where you are sitting in a lawn chair is a steep hill. It rises sharply and has some boulders that make it intimidating. That man-made lake now looks small, but it is nestled in that valley, making it pleasurable enough.
The drone rises higher, with a still yet larger panoramic view of the larger vista. On the other face of that steep, rocky hill is the ocean. Beautiful, blue-green ocean with a sandy coastline that stret
ches as far as the eye can see. The water is transparent, giving a clear view to the sandy bottom and of the fish who swam magically in schools. White, padded lounging chairs are scattered along the expansive smooth sand, with beautiful thick beach towels hanging over the top of each. The scene is exquisite.
◆◆◆
How many of us settle for sitting by a pond when the vast ocean is just over a hill? To be sure, a difficult hill is challenging to traverse. But it is possible to climb with a guide who knows the path.
Ready for a hike?
Section V Special Interest: The Counseling Conundrum
I like the key fob I have for my car that has me lock the car from the outside of the vehicle. After I am out of it. With the keys in my hand.
Scatterbrained people like me really appreciate that the very device that will let me lock the door is in my hand when I lock it.
Before door locks became electronic, we manually locked the door before we left the vehicle. When I locked the car door from the inside as I was getting out of the car, I needed to remember to take my keys with me.
I remember on one occasion, as I was juggling cranky children out of car seats as well as a diaper bag and grocery sacks, I swung the door shut. Before the door closed, but after I put my shoulder into shutting it, I saw my keys on the front seat of the car.
It was like one of those movies—things seemed to happen in slow motion. There was this split second when my keys were not yet locked in the car. However, I didn’t have hands available that could stop the door from closing.
It was inevitable. I locked my keys in the car.
This then is the predicament:
I require the keys to unlock the door
I can’t get to my keys because the door was locked.
A conundrum if there ever was one.
◆◆◆
This is the part of therapy that no one talks much about.
Therapy often is such a riddle. The very symptom which your family is encouraging you to address in the therapy is the one that makes it hard to book and show up for the counseling session.
The lethargy and low energy make it hard to do anything. How can therapy help if it feels as if getting out of bed is such a chore that getting to the appointment seems impossible?
If your stomach turns and roils anytime you do something out of your small and familiar routine, how can you do something brand new and terrifying like therapy?
When you spend your days making sure you “never” think about the worst moments in your life, why would you go to a counselor to actually talk about those experiences and their impact? Those moments may well control the way you move through your day, but you intentionally avoid every contemplating them directly—so talking to a therapist is out of the question.
One of the symptoms of addiction is denial. How is anybody supposed to say, “I need help,” when the hallmark of their life is, “I’m fine—I don’t know why you are so upset!”
If talking about challenges is impossible with your spouse on your own, how can you talk about those same challenges with your spouse and a total stranger? If you can’t agree on much, how are you supposed to agree to go see a therapist?
◆◆◆
One of my favorite quotes of all time comes from a book called The Shack. The author writes: “I suppose since most of our hurts come through relationship, so will our healing.”[7]
And there’s the rub.
How can it be possible to let a relationship with a therapist give you the possibility of healing when it is likely that it was a relationship that created the pain in the first place?
Fair question.
◆◆◆
We got into the car, despite the fact the keys were in the car. I called the local Automobile Association. The guy had a tool he slid up and over the closed window and used it to push on the lock to unlock it.
Let me just say I’m glad he works for the good guys, because he had the ability to get into the car in less than a minute. We found a way.
It wasn’t easy, but there was a way.
◆◆◆
Let’s identify a way to get you the help you need.
22
Counseling for Depression: The hardest part is just getting there
Imagine a person interested in driving a car. She lives in a city where getting around is hard with lots of freeways and poor public transit. Her budget is limited, and a vehicle is not in the budget. She works at a business close to her home and doesn’t pursue career development because other jobs in her field aren’t realistic to travel to each workday. The woman is often home alone on the weekends. When friends invite her to events she declines. It’s too much hassle to attend given the complexity of getting there and home without her own vehicle. She has trouble saving for a vehicle because she buys groceries from the local deli rather than the big box store miles away and so has an exorbitant grocery bill. The lack of a vehicle at her disposal shapes her life every day. She is home more than she’d like to be and feels trapped.
One day, her grandma passes away. In her will, grandma has bequeathed this woman her little car! This car is hers to drive as her own, but it five hundred miles away, in a small remote rural town.
As soon as she can get to it, she can drive wherever and whenever she wants. This is the ticket to emerge out of her isolation! The path out of too-expensive groceries! Potentials for career development! A whole new life!!
However, the dilemma is this: how to obtain the car? How does she go get a vehicle in a remote location without her own transportation? When she doesn’t have a car, she can’t get to the car! It could make her want to scream and cry and explode with anger—simultaneously! She collapses on the floor of her apartment in a hopeless, helpless heap.
◆◆◆
Therapy for depression is a lot like this scenario. Painfully so.
A mother with a colicky two-month-old that screams for hours in a stretch is exhausted. She hasn’t slept more than three hours at a time for weeks. This new mom sees no way out. She hasn’t showered in days. It seems to her the enormous pile of laundry to be folded is exceeded by the humongous pile that has yet to be washed—and all of it overwhelming—so why even start? The family has been living on heated soup from a can and peanut butter sandwiches because she has no energy to make meals. She knows she is a failure as a mother and as a human being. This mom hasn’t been out of the house for weeks, and won’t let anybody in. She’s ignoring calls from others, even those that are asking to come by to hold her crying infant to give her a break. Her husband, who seeks to be helpful in all of this, is beside himself. When he suggests she go talk to someone because this is hard, and maybe postpartum depression could be a part of all this—well, she goes off on him. She gives him the litany of things that need doing before she could possibly leave the house in a tone that is clear: Do not bring this up again. Deep down, this mother believes that nothing could help. It’s all hopeless to her. Talking to someone would just make clear how pathetic she is and then they might take the baby away. This terrifies her even though there is a part of her that wonders if this baby would be better off without her as a mother.
A young adult sits in his basement, playing hour after hour of mind-numbing video games. He loves gaming—and the interaction with others online gives him a semblance of friendships with people, or so he tells himself. He graduated from high school last year—barely. If he’s honest, he hated high school because he was lonely—deeply lonely. No one knew of his isolation, even though he was going to bed later and missing too much school. He learned that when he drank, the lonely feeling went away—for an evening. Sometimes, he hung out with the guys that drank too much. And he wasn’t as lonely—except the only thing they did together was hang out and drink. Now, he doesn’t even see them. His mother has asked him what’s wrong, but he snarls at her, and she has learned to stay away. He can tell she worries about him and makes periodic suggestions—but he has no idea what to say to her. The truth is, if h
e told her how hopeless it all feels, she’d probably freak out and he doesn’t want to worry her any more than she already does. The world of video games is the one place he feels safe, but it also feels incredibly empty and hollow. When his mother tells him she has made an appointment to see a therapist, he knows he won’t go. He isn’t capable of anything. He doesn’t have the words to describe what he feels and even if he did, what could anyone say to make him feel better?
A successful engineer has now worked up to senior management of his firm. His kids are in high school, involved in many sports and artistic endeavors. His wife is happy in her career, and their mortgage is almost paid off. His head knows that everything he has ever dreamed of is now a reality. He is living his dream. But he wakes up leaden and forces himself out of bed. He watches himself take part in meetings, laughing at his colleagues’ stories of the weekend as they expect him to and goes through the motions of his work to meet the deadlines. But it feels hollow. He isn’t enjoying the work. His tasks take longer to complete than it used to, perhaps because he spends a lot of time staring off into space wondering if it is all worth it. He sleeps in on the weekends and only gets up when his family needs him. He snaps at his family with irritation in a way that part of him knows is unfair, but he is helpless to hold back. They just drive him to anger so often. When his wife suggests he go talk to someone because of how unhappy he is, he retorts that he has everything he has ever wanted! He’s blissfully happy. Only he knows that he has just shut her down in a way she doesn’t deserve. He can’t look at her for the rest of the evening because he is both enraged and ashamed. But he can’t be depressed—can he?
Hell No to Hmmm, Maybe Page 16