Like all good millennials, I decided that it was time for me to find a romantic partner and a therapist to share my life with. Coincidentally, the respective searches for these two special people have a lot in common. I feel particularly qualified to make this parallel because in the last year or so, I’ve had at least 10 first dates, a handful of 3-6 month long relationships as well as 6 15-minute consultations and 3 intake sessions with potential new therapists.
Just like using dating apps, finding a therapist using all the fancy new therapy search engines requires assessing a small picture (must look nice but not too pretty), reading a short but revealing bio (must not mention “connecting to your inner self”), and filtering by various deal-breakers (must be a woman). Maybe you find one or two that look appealing to you and you make contact via a flirty email or phone message – Hi, I saw your profile on HelpMeNow and thought you might be a good fit for me. Any chance you’re taking new patients and would like to set up a consultation?
Then, you have your initial meeting: a 15 minute phone call where you have to figure out how to condense 20-something years of troubles into a few sentences that make you look good so they think it will be fun to have you as their patient, somehow. If that goes well, you move to the natural next step and schedule an appointment. You think, great! I’m already working towards fixing myself. It’s just like any first date, where your hopes and expectations for finding true love are dashed by your panic that grows each time you impulsively fill an awkward silence with unsolicited details about yourself.
In an intake session with a therapist, you cover all manner of issues in just enough depth that you feel raw and tearful, but not enough that you feel that you’ve actually understood your problems or are any closer to fixing them. If you’re lucky, you may have even uncovered childhood trauma you didn’t even know you had. In a first in-person date, you’ve also covered all manner of topics — from the semester you spent abroad (because it makes you look cool) to maybe a choice few of your exes (because you had the extra beer)— but have yet to really know if you like this person or find them attractive.
Against all odds, I met someone (a therapist — still working on the romantic partner). We made it past the 15-minute phone consultation, the intake session, and our first actual therapy session. This may or may not be because she reminds me of my ex because she has ADHD, blonde hair, and curses a lot. My ex was in school to be a therapist, so this all checks out.
Similarities to my ex notwithstanding, my new therapist and I have explored how I tend to thought-spiral. She found out about this because I told her that I feel too overstimulated to listen to anything on my commute, so I’m spending at least an hour in the car, every day, in complete silence and near tears the entire time because my mind takes the opportunity to be completely unhinged. After my intake session, my homework had been to try a few different “bilateral stimulation” techniques, of which, my favorite was to write “stop” with my non-dominant hand on my opposite leg any time I was spiraling. I chose this mostly because it was the most discrete of the soothing technique options and felt pretty edgy. I told her at our next session that I liked this technique, but it’s helpfulness in distracting me from spiraling was short-lived. So, she took our relationship to the next level.
Her new technique was to say “stop” in my mind, and then sing an entire song in my head (or out loud if I could). She suggested happy songs like “Happy”, which I absolutely could not abide because it would ruin my street credibility, even if it was just being sung in my head. I said “stop” a few times, and the natural progression is to finish your sentence with “…collaborate and listen”. Once I said it out loud, my therapist was tickled by the idea of a rap battle at our next session (do I have to pay for that?) and decided that when I’m going down a rabbit hole of negative or anxious thoughts, “Ice Ice Baby” is what I have to sing to myself.
A Series of Awkward Events 