Therapy Speak is Ruining Relationships (before they even start)

As much as I love how progressive we are in the West, some concepts are destroying our ability to connect with others. Raw and real connection, not performative.

The other day I read about a man asking a woman out, then when she asked him to find a place to go to during the day, he tells her "I only want to go out at night and if I am going to pay for the date, it is only a fair division of labour if you find the place for us". Translation: If I am going to pay to take you out, I expect you to have sex with me at the end of the night. 

Who the heck speaks like that in real life? "Fair division of labour" so now asking someone out on a date, which they didnt ask you to do, is seen as labour? Then why even ask? How sexy and romantic. 

Another example, is when friends use this type of language with each other, which boils my blood. I read someone saying how their partnered friends expect so much "labour" while giving them no attention. And to this I say, you just have a shitty friend and there is no such thing as labour amongst friends. If you see helping your friend as labour, please never speak to me lol If you see your friend venting to you as trauma dumping, please never speak to me lol A stranger sharing their whole life with you when they never gave you the time of day? Yea that's strange and uncomfortable. But your actual friends? Since when did friendships come with conditions? It makes even connecting exhausting.

You know what I miss? As a milennial born in the 90s, I miss the days when you could just pick up the phone and talk to your friend for 3 hours and not feel like your time was wasted or that you are "crossing boundaries" by sharing things that hurt you or upset you. Or even the days when you say "girl I'm tired, I gotta go" and noone takes offense.

 I miss the days when you and your friends could just vent all day and then go grab a drink without using phrases like "do you have the capacity to hear my pain today?". I have so much trauma from a good friend in the past who just straight up ignored me when I texted them how I was feeling. No "hey I'm here for you I know you're struggling" or "hey I'll call you as soon as I can" or "hey you have been venting a lot recently, is there some way I can help or help you find help?". Just painful silence.

 I miss the days when your friends felt like family and you treated them as such, instead of abandoning them as soon as they are struggling. I can't even tell you the amount of times I have felt abandoned due to my mental health or women simply misunderstanding me. When all I needed was a friend who asked me "are you doing okay? And if you aren't, let's go do something take your mind off of it". Instead of people who saw me struggling and met me with silence, even when I was there for them through every hurdle. I realize now I just chose horrible people as friends, I chased emotionally unavailable people my whole life because I was raised by emotionally unavailable people. But I still yearn for unconditional love from friendships.

I miss the days you or your friends just invited each other over to your messy apartments or homes, just to gab and talk shit, watch TV, body double, eat good food and go for walks. Without the expectation of cleanliness, without the expectation of having activities planned out to avoid boredom, just enjoying each other's company. For example, I thought I made a new friend a couple years ago but within a year of meeting, she started talking badly about her best friend and her husband, how they are so messy. And that one year she gifted them a cleaning *where she and her partner cleaned their bffs house* and how they went right back to being messy. This turned me off the friendship completely. It made me wonder, so if I invite her over is she going to constantly judge my home that I love? Is she going to try to gift me a cleaning too then judge me when I act human and let it get messy? *This is a horrible judgemental gift by the way, unless your friends want this themselves, which clearly they did not if they went right back to being messy as she said*. Now do you understand why I am so traumatized of making new friends? This just sounds awful. And why was she talking negatively about her best friend? Who wants friends like that? Because if she can judge her BEST FRIEND for something so miniscule and unproblematic, how does she judge me someone she barely knows? More to come, on that...

This is why relationships these days feel so inauthentic and performative to me. How stressful it is to deal with how judgemental people are of everything you say or do. Don't you miss when human beings were allowed to make mistakes and be imperfect? (And I'm not talking deal breakers like racism, homophobia, abuse, misogyny..I mean regular ole flaws like being messy, being loud, being impatient) I wonder why, so many women especially, give horrible men 1000s of chances but don't offer their girl friends the same grace or patience? It boils down to male centeredness and misogyny.

And misogyny aside, this culture of abusing therapy speak to manipulate other people into conforming for you is disgusting. I had someone I considered a friend tell me last year (the same one who gifted their friend a cleaning) that me speaking about parenting in a negative way online makes her "uncomfortable" because she only wants "positive people" around her because she wants kids soon. And this got me thinking, why do certain women have such a need to uphold the very toxic idea of "good vibes only"? To never be questioned or held accountable?

 It makes it difficult to be friends with people who never want to be around sadness or anger or frustration...all of which are the most common human emotions. You deserve to feel safe being sad or angry and expressing that to your friends, without them judging you for it. In fact why are friends judging you at all, unless you deeply hurt someone?

I'm gonna take a second to be human and vent my sadness about this fallout with someone I thought would be my friend for a long time. It bothered me that my posts online had nothing to do with her, she doesn't even have a kid! They were just my shit opinions, god! Can't we just express our negative thoughts online anymore without someone basing our whole personality on fleeting feelings? Sorry I am a moody bitch, and I don't need friends who take issue with that or make me feel like crap about being moody or depressed or just processing my own way.

So what is expected of me, of people like us? To like everything our friends like, never call them in for bad behaviour, and always love everything about life and never complain? Sorry that's not realistic. Especially not for someone like me who lives with Audhd, anxiety, depression and bipolar tendencies (with no money for medication or therapy at that!). 

The guilt I already feel for not being bubbly or likable enough outside of my work is tremendous. I don't need friends who try to control my actions or my words or expect me to always be in a good mood. Especially white women telling me how to behave or what to say online on my own page? Hell no.

And this is where I struggle with other people when it comes to weaponizing therapy speak. Tiptoeing around everyones feelings and capacities (or ignoring them altogether) while simultaneously destroying authentic connection all in the name of what? Comfortability and coddling your own ego and pride? Fuck your boundaries, because you never cared about my feelings, only your own.

 Of course we should feel comfortable and safe around our loved ones, but why assume your friends aren't safe just because they have their own way of processing their emotions? Or why assume your friends won't love you wholly just because they have flaws and opinions of their own? Of course we deserve to feel seen and heard, but friends are supposed to do that anyway without seeing it as labour.

Friends are supposed to be there for you, no matter what, and accept every side of you: the one who is joyous and capable and the one who struggles and falls short sometimes. Friends aren't supposed to bitch and moan about you being too much or not enough, they are supposed to love you as you are. For WHO you are, your character, not what you post online or how you act out of anxiety. And this woman who hurt me, she barely spent time with me in person and didn't even know who I really was. So her making assumptions about me because of my online presence was jarring and disturbing to me.

And social media does not help, everything becomes parasocial and all we see are people using therapy speak to justify being a shitty person and a horrible friend. Isn't it something when you feel alive when you are online, but you go offline and realize noone texts you? Noone calls you? The "friendships" you thought you cultivated only existed online (the parasocial of it all). Because have we hung out in person enough? Have we shared our sorrows and dreams enough? Can it even be called a real friendship if shit hits the fan and you can't even call that person freely to ask for help or comfort? I don't think so. Was it right for that woman to judge me when we hung out in person maybe once? I don't think so. She felt closer to me because of the parasocialness and vice verse but she didn't know who I actually was and I clearly didn't know who she was because her judgements were surprising to me.

I envy those who cultivated real friendships and were able to keep them their whole life. I thought the friends I made in highschool and university, even after, would last forever. Not a single one has survived. And to this day, all I know is once I stopped being the one making plans and asking to hang out...noone was left. I was the one doing said "labour" which I had no issue doing but when it isn't reciprocated...it isn't a friendship anymore. The day I stopped coddling one of my best friends obsession with a toxic man, I was seen as disposable. Because I no longer was serving her, she was no longer the centre of my attention and that struck a cord. The day I showed up as myself, even on my bad days of shit posting online, I was told I wasn't positive enough to be friends with. 

All I wanted were friends who just loved me enough, to be around for me like I was for them, without conditions or judgement.

And trust me when I say, I have a select few people I consider friends in my life but I am no longer begging anyone to stay in my life or making all the plans. I will continue to seek authentic, honest and kind relationships. Friends that understand what sacrifice and unconditional love means. Friends who revel in our conversations instead of feeling exhausted by them. Friends who don't expect performance in the way of always being positive and put together. Friends who love you even when you say things like "i dont like when parents complain too much because they chose that life" and understand that perhaps that thinking is fuelled by me having parents who never wanted to be parents. And the pain I feel for every unborn child who will be subjected to neglect and insecurity. You and I deserve friends who ask questions and try to understand us instead of just leaving. Real effort, real love.

Noone wants to put real EFFORT into friendships and relationships anymore and until we let go of our expectation of friends and partners being perfect and self actualized, until we let go of therapy speak to project our insecurities and stroke our egos, we will never know what real love and connection is.

 

Image credit: https://assembly.malala.org/stories/brown-is-beautiful