A friend of mine has been dealing with a lot of usual life challenges: a stressful job, the job layoff her husband has recently experienced, a judgmental, critical, and cold relationship with her mother-in-law, a passive aggressive relationship with her sister-in-law (who she has been actively trying to get closer to, but said sister-in-law keeps rejecting), the stress of raising two strong-willed young children (one of whom has become, in her words, “a little monster,” and the second who is an entitled brat who seemingly wants every new toy that comes out ASAP). So it was kind of like the cherry-on-top of all her stressors when she discovered, earlier this year, that the house she owns and once lived in, which has been rented out, a place she hoped to move back to some day… the tenant occupying it hanged himself in it. He was discovered by his ex-girlfriend. And my friend and her husband had to deal with the aftermath and clean-up of it. This was really the incident that tipped her over the edge.

My friend and her family are superstitious, so they hired a Buddhist to do a cleansing ceremony of the house. But it wasn’t enough. My friend said the house would always be ruined for her. She had so many happy memories in the home, especially since her first child was born while she lived there, and she just could never imagine that something so awful would happen in the same space.

For the first time in her life, she sought therapy. But the person who saw her was the epitome of why a lot of people avoid therapy: they think most therapists are idiots who will just give them trite advice. That’s what this therapist did until she finally phased her out. She told her things like, “carve out some time for yourself during the day… even ten minutes,” “go on walks alone,” “meditate,” “hire a babysitter to make time for yourself.” No one wants to hear this crap, especially given the high rates that therapists charge (and even when your health insurance is fully covering it).

Later on, she saw someone who was recommended by a relative for a massage, but the appointment time for the massage ended up becoming a talk therapy session, as when the massage therapist asked her how she was doing as she entered the space, my friend just broke down crying. The massage therapist lightly suggested she didn’t need a massage and it seemed clear to her that she needed to talk it out. So they did just that for an hour. And my friend said that one 60-minute session, which was never intended to be talk therapy, was better than all of the many sessions (over a few months) combined she did with that idiot Kaiser therapist she saw and then dropped.

As it is always stated and known by most of us who have had challenging upbringings, she said that it all “goes back to childhood.” She takes on all the burdens because she once tried her best not to be a burden to her mom when her dad died unexpectedly when she and her younger brother were young. She always wants to have the front that she’s put together, can handle everything and more… even if she cannot. But this was really becoming all too much.

I suggested she try seeing another therapist, as it was clear that talk therapy could help her as long as she found the right person who asked the right questions. I think talk therapy could benefit the majority of people as long as a) the person is open-minded enough to pursue it, even if just for a little while, and b) they have a competent therapist who can ask the right (and oftentimes challenging) questions.