Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Free Therapy

It is good to be you.

About 3 years or so ago my dear friends went to marital counseling. They had been married for about 5 years and needed some maintenance; a 60,000 mile tune-up of sorts. For anonymity I will call them Brew and Frannon.

Hot Jeff and I loved Thursday afternoons when Frannon would call and tell me all about her session with the doc and what her and Brew's homework for the week was. I would relay the information to Hot Jeff and bam, Bob's your uncle we had some free marital counseling. Without the couch. Without the dimmed lighting.

As The Shrink and I were talking today and I was having a big breakthrough (that's shrink talk) I was thinking, "I can't wait to tell the internet about this" I'm under the belief that we could all use a little therapy and that anti-depressants should be added to the water just like fluoride. And as you saw yesterday, when I get really excited about something I just assume you'll be excited too and that it will equally rock your world. Please don't ever tell me different, it will burst my bubble and I already have enough to discuss with The Shrink that I will be in therapy for like the better portion of the REST OF MY LIFE. My co-pay is $31.50 a visit. So I figure if I see The Shrink twice a month for the next 40 years that will be roughly $30,000 in co-pays I will have paid. I would just like to take a minute and thank my Dad for that.

So anyway, back to your free therapy. Turns out I have a low self-esteem. I took a quiz in The Shrink's office (sorta like those teeny-bopper quizzes I took in high school that told me if I should break up with my boyfriend or not but different) and I scored really high in the "Extremely Low Self-Esteem" category. I made myself feel better about his by exclaiming "well at least I got the highest of scores". My Mom said she was surprised at this because I seem confident. I would agree, I am pretty self-assured but apparently things like being a people pleaser, making decisions based on what others will think of me, etc. qualifies you as a person with low self-esteem.

Its important here to interject that your free therapy will, by nature, be a really crappy, watered down version of what I'm getting. Sorry about that. If you would like $30,000 in co-pays over the next 40 years then I'll give you The Shrink's phone number and you can get good therapy. Until then, no complaining on the free-but-kind-of-crappy-therapy you get second hand from me. Ok?

The book The Shrink suggested I begin working through is very cleverly called, Breaking the Chain of Low Self-Esteem. I had it over-nighted to me. It will be here on Wednesday and I firmly expect to be a brand new person by Friday morning.

Oh one more thing: The Shrink thinks my expectations are too high.

5 comments:

Amber said...

Well. I need to get me a Shrink. Because I'm one of those people pleasing folks, too.

Keep the free therapy coming, girly.

Oh...and I'm with you. I'll take an Ice Tea and a Prozac, please.

Peggy said...

You are too clever lady! I've been following you for awhile (well, your blog, not in real life. That would be creepy, and over the line. So, if you see someone lurking next to your garbage can, it's totally not me), but just added your blog to my list, so everyone else (ok, the two people who read my blog) can also appreciate you. :0)

Traci Piltz said...

Brew an Frannon. I am LOLing.

Anonymous said...

We must see the same therapist. I'm reading the same book and battling very similar issues. Too cool to read your blog, good timing!
Jessica Griffin

Jen said...

I'm all for a good Christian Shrink - - AND, those are very similar to the issues I dealt with in STEPS, for $5.00 a term. Think about it. Maybe in conjunction with your Shrink?