I know. I just told you about how Lisa drank and screwed up her life and set herself back two to ten years or forever.
But I don't want you to think that this is just a thankless job, like the Myth of Sisyphus, where I'm always pushing rocks uphill just to watch them roll down again.
No, it's a great job.
All I have to do is sit here and people come in and tell me all kinds of shit that they have never told another living soul. They tell me they have cheated, lied, stole money, been raped, molested, beaten with brooms, brushes or wires. They tell me that their wives believe they are married to Satan or Jesus or both, and they know that these proclamations are all just to avoid engaging in sexual activity, or an excuse to having had sex with the wrong person.
It's my job to accept it. To reassure everyone that they are all human and that this is what happens to humans.
And this is helpful. I am not a priest or a shaman, but people like to know that their sins are forgiven.
And they are.
For all of you, whatever you did. I know you meant well. Sometimes we just misread, or misjudge, or we fuck up a little.
That's part of being human.
We will do better next time.
Unless we are Dick Cheney, and how many Dick Cheney's do we need.
None.
Otherwise, do the best you can. That's all we can expect. O tpp wil struggle along, hoping that the few words I have to offer will make enough difference so that someone's life will pull back from the precipice and be able to go on it's merry way.
That's the best we can ask, but when it happens, which is does, it is very gratifying.
7 comments:
Great post, Therapist. LOL @ the Dick Cheny line...
Any job that doesn't involve being a certain politician's therapist must be a great job. :)
well, if you say so, but NO WAY MAN would i ever have your job. not a chance. the only person i know of whose job i would want even less is my best friend, who specializes in adolescent, in-home, whole-family therapy. seriously, i'd rather be tortured for a living. i know that you learn to compartmentalize, to separate their problems from your problems, all of that. but i'd have to develop multiple personalities to get enough distance from that stuff. when lorelei was a baby, i was working as a home nurse. i had a terminally ill small child and i nursed her until she died. apparently i handled that "well" according to my supervisors, so suddenly they started giving me all the terminally ill children. i was a superstar, i guess for not becoming a basket case over it. but seriously, i DID become a basket case over it - i just didn't do it in front of the children or their families. i'd go home at night and instead of sleeping with my husband, i would crunch myself up into my daughter's toddler bed and monitor her breathing all night long, taking occasional breaks to check her pulse, poking her if she took too long between breaths. i just don't know how people deal with watching others' lives fall apart over and over again.
Diversity is a wonderful thing! As much as melanie would rather be tortured for a living, I feel more and more strongly about training as a therapist. Can I say what I'm gonna say??? anyway I'll say it... it's not so much to help people, but because I am fascinated by the way the human mind works. So yes, if I can help people doing something I love, even better!
I take back my comment.
Lol...So True!
One of the girls I work with asked me last week how I became so wise (who knew?) and I laughed and told her that it was simple.... I fucked up a lot.
One question:
Do you really listen all the time or is your mind wandering to what you will have for something, whether to buy that new car or not, or if this patient is a "plant" for some type of insurance investigation?
I've been lucky with therapist...except for two. One thought of himself as a "LADIES MAN'. Just imagine the rest. The next one had narcolepsy and kept falling asleep in the middle of our conversations.
UM
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