Things I Have Learned in Therapy

By CL Bledsoe — NOT ANOTHER TV DAD

I’ve been to a lot of therapists — and iterations of that — over the years. My first foray was in college. I went to a community college near my home town and took a psychology class because it fulfilled a requirement. The instructor had written the book we used — a red flag I hadn’t encountered yet.

I was raised by a man who didn’t believe in healthcare, so much. He thought all medicine were placebos and doctors were conmen. Anything — especially seemingly abstract issues like mental illness — could be solved by fresh air and a long walk.

I hemmed and hawed for weeks, but one day, I asked my instructor about therapy and what it cost. He was confused and started pontificating about the psychological cost he bore, doing the work of a therapist.

“No,” I said. “Per hour. What do you charge?”

His eyes glazed over. “I don’t think you need therapy,” he said.

He was wrong, of course. He knew a little about my family-that my mother was in an institution with Huntington’s Disease, an incurable genetic disease that attacks the nervous system, progressively destroying its victim’s personality and ability to control their body. But I was high-functioning — though I didn’t know what that meant at the time — and I’d annoyed him by not being…