26, 30, and 34!
90 loaded questions | Accepting!
Red's Journal - 7/20/2022
I am online-shopping for therapists again. This is wishful thinking; manifestation, even, as the likelihood that I will find a therapist worth trusting is lower than that of Focus Blast connecting. I understand that my distrust of therapeutic connection is rooted in old data at this point, but it's easier to tend to a fresh wound than it is to remove a stain.
The dialectics are as follows: My mother and my younger self were both tired of hearing therapists beg me to speak, socialize, or surrender the habits and behaviors that my mother saw as essential to me. Her exhaustion grew with each visitation until she decided to call it quits. Then, back in 2021, I had my first therapist visit in thirteen years. I knew the moment that I walked in that I was doing something for which I wasn't ready, though the journal entry following our meeting places the blame unfairly on the therapist rather than myself, a stance which I now retract. But I stand by the fact that I don't feel valued by any professional that sees my characteristics as quirks to be overcome. That same therapist—who lasted one visit before I declined further meetings—couldn't help but ask why I haven't made more concerted efforts to change.
The truth is that I feel like I know myself a little too well to need a therapist at this point. My mother and my Pokémon provide enough support as they are. Even more importantly, I feel that my life is more comfortable the less that people try to decipher it: People are more likely to accept me at face value if all they know is my reputation. My mother would say I've accomplished so much because of who I am; the professionals would counter "in spite of"; and everyone else would say nothing at all, because they have no reason to interject. I like a lack of interjection, intervention—interaction, even. Though I still wonder at times if I'm doing things right. I just want the validation that I'm normal, that I can exist in this world without requisite reform. The sad truth is that only within the confines of my own fame do I really feel realized.
This is not to say that I truly care for pushback, however. I've had incidents in which my needs for accommodation or understanding have been rejected—whether incidentally or explicitly—and it hurts. It hurts to have your movement through the world be violently ruptured and demeaned. But beyond these incidental moments of ableist impact, I can't say I've ever been robbed of the experiences that matter. I simply need the world to support and understand me. If the world does and still says no to my desires, I have no choice but to listen. (This is me convincing myself to close the tab on the telecom-therapist list.)
Now that I'm reading these paragraphs back an hour later, I've come to the conclusion that there is more to life than either contemplating my faults or hearing that "the world isn't a silent film" (to paraphrase). And any incidental moments of insensitivity to my so-called quirks barely tip the brim-filled bucket I call my self-confidence. These are the kinds of things you supposedly learn in therapy, dressed up in takes about how you're holding yourself back by avoiding verbal communication. But perhaps I should abide by my own rules, and let the life I've led do the talking after all.
