Only Crazy People Go To Therapy" (Part 2)
If you read The Things He Said, you already know how words like that were used. This was one of them.
Somewhere along the way, I was taught therapy was for broken people.
Not struggling.
Not overwhelmed.
Not carrying too much.
Broken.
"Only crazy people go to therapy."
That's what an ex used to say.
He also had a name for medication.
"Blues and pinks."
People out there taking handfuls of blues and pinks. That's what crazy people do.
When you hear that enough, it doesn't stay outside of you.
It settles in. It becomes a belief before you realize it.
Here's what I understand now that I didn't then. He didn't say those things casually.
He said them because if I'd gone to therapy...
a good therapist would have started asking questions.
They would have pointed out patterns. Named things.
The manipulation.
The control.
The emotional abuse.
The mental abuse.
Once something is named, you can't unsee it.
So I didn't go.
Not because I didn't need it.
Not because I was strong.
Because I'd been taught going meant something was wrong with me.
Years later, my life looked different.
I was married.
We had children.
We were deep in foster care.
And it was hard.
Not surface-level hard.
Not "we'll figure it out" hard.
The kind that tests everything.
Your patience. Your marriage. Your capacity to keep showing up.
That's when my husband suggested marriage counseling.
Around the same time, my doctor mentioned medication.
And just like that, those old words came back.
Loud. Immediate. Automatic.
Therapy = something wrong with me.
Medication = something wrong with me.
Blues and pinks.
Crazy people.
Only for people who can't handle life.
All of it rushed back at once.
But this time, something was different.
What we were facing wasn't about avoidance or denial.
We were struggling.
Not because we were broken...but because we were carrying more than most people ever have to.
Foster care doesn't just test your parenting. It tests your relationship. Your communication. Your emotional capacity.
Everything.
So we went.
And what I found wasn't what I'd been taught to expect.
No one called me crazy.
No one tried to fix me.
They helped us see what was actually happening.
They gave us language for behaviors, ours and the kids'. Tools for what we were already living. Therapy didn't confirm something was wrong with me. It showed us how to carry what we were carrying.
That's when something shifted. Therapy was never the problem.
The lie was.
Sometimes we avoid therapy thinking we're broken. Sometimes we avoid it because someone taught us that seeing clearly would cost us something. And sometimes... it does.
But staying in something unnamed costs more.
