You're Not A Therapist

“Those who escape hell, however, never talk about it and nothing much bothers them after that” -Charles Bukowski

We live in a world of self diagnosis and half baked therapy. Your best friend has binged a few podcasts and now realizes they have trauma, your neighbor decided they have autism because they have trouble in crowds of people, and you’re not sure why your dog isn’t eating but you have a creeping suspicion it’s because he’s depressed.

He did after all lose his favorite ball the other week.

Therapy Speak is a popularized term that describes this phenomena. A few of us went to therapy, learned some new lingo, and suddenly we have mass adopted and over subscribed these words to everything around us.

Anecdotally, the people I know who have endured the most talk about it the least. If you’ve experienced a near death experience, you’re far less likely to think of your boss yelling at you as trauma. I cited this last month but the John Steinbeck quote applies here as much as ever:

“You can boast about anything if it’s all you have. Maybe the less you have, the more you are required to boast.” -John Steinbeck