Mine or yours?

When I was a sophomore in college, back in 2004, I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety. I started having panic attacks, and struggled with explaining this to family and friends. I started talk therapy, for the first time. I say the first time, because I’ve gone back multiple times since, with varying results. It depends heavily on the therapist – some were helpful, but some, especially the one I’m going to talk about today, were not.

Some therapists have a mantra for their practice. In this case, I was in group therapy, the first and only time I’ve done that, and her mantra could best be paraphrased as “take responsibility for your own shit”. This was a group therapy setting for Ivy League college students who were struggling with depression. At least, I think that was what we were all supposedly working on. Truthfully, I don’t remember much about the rest of the group. I remember a total of three things from that experience: I was convinced the therapist disliked me, I was discouraged from ending a toxic friendship, and she never addressed the other side of her mantra.

I don’t remember a specific reason that I thought the therapist disliked me. I just remember an overwhelming belief that she thought I was annoying. Maybe it was true, maybe it wasn’t, and I don’t suppose I will ever know now. Looking back, that was quite a failure on her part. If she did have a problem with me, she never mentioned it, so I couldn’t learn and change. If she didn’t, her behaviors caused me greater difficulties by setting up a situation where I felt myself unsafe. At 19, though, I didn’t understand that, and blamed myself for being unlikeable.

That belief leads to my second clear memory. I was friends with a girl, call her Ruby, who was dealing with difficulties in her own life. Her younger sister was pregnant, and the family church was reacting in ways that called all her loyalty to the congregation into question. From what I heard, the pastor really was awful, and her sister deserved better. However, her struggles at home led to changing dynamics in our friendship circle. There was a lot of drama, none of it caused by me, and all messing with my head. Whatever her reason, my relationship with Ruby died fast and hard. I was clinging to trying to fix it until I finally decided that it was not my problem. She wanted me gone, so goodbye to her. When I announced that in group as a decision to celebrate and move forward – I was letting go of someone who was hurting me – the therapist tried to get me to see how it was my fault and what I should do to fix the dynamics. This was, as you might imagine, another reason for me to see myself as unlikeable and at fault.

That leads me to the last clear memory – the other side of the mantra that was never discussed. You see, while it is important for people to take responsibility for their own issues, that was rarely difficult for me. In fact, I was too good at it. I would take responsibility for my mistakes, and those of anyone who tried to blame me. I hadn’t learned to give back the, if you will pardon the term, shit they were shoveling on me. I was a walking, talking punching bag for some people. Not everyone, and not physically, but emotionally. Without the understanding to give back to other people their own issues, and stop carrying them around, you become a pit filling up with all the emotional baggage dumped on you. Your boyfriend is abusive? It’s because you make him want you so much, you’re such a tease. It’s all your fault. When your mom tells you that she was afraid this would happen when you say your ex boyfriend raped you? You missed the red flags that she saw. It’s all your fault. Your dad has an unpredictable and incompatible view of who you should be? Well, clearly that’s because you’re just not good enough. You need to be both a strong, independent woman and a good, respectful daughter who never argues with him. It’s all your fault.

When written in black and white, it sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? No matter how sexy you are, you don’t deserve to have your agency taken from you. No matter how many red flags you missed, you don’t deserve to get raped. And no matter how much you fail to live up to an impossible standard, you don’t deserve to be punished for standing up for yourself. But if you don’t teach people to reject the emotional weight of other people’s expectations and lives, the pit stays open, and people just keep dumping.

This is one of the two most destructive errors a therapist made with me. The second is a story for another time.

Why do I write this? Why bare my soul before an audience of strangers? Because that therapist learned somewhere to do this, which means there are others out there doing the same thing. If I can tell one person that no, it’s not your fault – your therapist is wrong – then it’s worth baring my soul. If I can encourage one person to shove away the weight of everyone else’s problems – it’s worth the risk of being read by someone who isn’t a stranger.

So, I will end with a single reminder – be as kind to yourself as you are to others. You deserve grace just as much as anyone else.