By Francesca
I feel like I’m the last of my friends to try two things: online dating and therapy.
I think I need both.
Or more specifically, I think I need one for the other.
I’m just not sure in which order.
There are times in everyone’s life when you have a tough season. Mine was this winter, when I ended things with my long-term boyfriend and my grandmother passed away, within the span of a month. I knew why I was sad about my grandmother, that part was easy to understand. But within my sadness over the breakup, there was something else—fear.
As in, that was a close one.
I’m entering the Era of Big Decisions when it comes to love and life partners. What if I’m choosing the wrong partners for my needs and hopes?
All of my exes have been great people, just ultimately not great for me. But I’m at an age where my next unsuitable boyfriend could easily become my unsuitable husband.
Or my first ex-husband.
And I want to nip that in the bud. Whatever I have within me, genetic or emotional, that could sow the seeds of a divorce, I want to pull out by the roots, now.
Basically, I want couple’s therapy before I’m in a couple.
One thing I’d want to fix in therapy is I want to dump dudes faster. Some people need help keeping a relationship together, I need help busting them apart.
This is why it’s such a misconception that children of divorce don’t respect marriage as much as children from “intact” families. If anything, I’ve overcompensated. In a relationship, I’m a fixer, a helper. I expect to struggle and sacrifice more than I expect to have fun and be happy. I’m not a doormat, but I can be too forgiving for my own good.
I need that inner referee to shout YERRRROUTT! after three strikes.
Instead of thirteen.
And in general, I feel like I could use an emotional tune-up, a fifty-thousand-mile checkup before the age-ometer clicks to thirty.
So my quest to be and to find a good partner has led me to my next question:
How do you find a good therapist?
Sure, I could ask my GP for a referral, but this is an important relationship. I don’t just need a phone number and a PhD.
I need a match.
I’ll be entrusting this person with my most intimate, vulnerable thoughts. And part of the bargain is I’d be privileging their opinion above my own. I’m entrusting them with my emotional health.
What if my therapist has daddy issues?
That would be the blind leading the blind.
I’ve heard horror stories of bad therapists. Therapists who over-prescribe medication, therapists who only want to burn incense and analyze dreams, therapists who drive wedges where they’re supposed to build bridges.
Friends tell me I should meet with a therapist and see how I like him or her, and that I’ll know if it’s a good fit or not.
But if I knew who was a good fit for me, I wouldn’t need therapy.
Because I recognize the ways my personality could make this evaluation process hard. One, I have too much respect for authority. I’m a Goody-two-shoes, a teacher’s pet, or, what they call in therapy-speak: a people-pleaser.
See, I already learned the lingo. In case there’s a pop quiz.
So it would be hard for me to trust my own opinion of a psychologist over a psychologist’s. That framed Latinate degree would look down on me from the wall, saying “whose name is on here, hmm?” They’re the experts.
I just have to remember that I’m the foremost expert on Francesca Serritella. My life’s work is in the field.
I can also see the ways in which I could be downright obstructionist to good therapy. I think upon first meeting, I’d be hell-bent on showing him or her how sane I am, how well adjusted, how insightful.
I’d do anything to convince my shrink I don’t need a shrink.
I’d try to be one step ahead of them. Already, when discussing relationships with my friends, I’m always prefacing my feelings:
“I know this is the codependent in me speaking…”
“I know I probably get this from my dad, but…”
“I know…” “I know…” “I know, but…”
But I don’t know.
I’m just not sure I can admit that to a complete stranger yet.
Other than you, that is.
And if I did have some doubts about a psychologist I was seeing, how do I know when to jump ship? How much discomfort during therapy is part of the path to personal growth, versus just a dud therapist?
What if there’s not a better one out there? What if the next one is worse?
See this is already sounding like my problem with dating.
In both cases, I’m afraid of making myself vulnerable to the wrong person.
So I need OK Cupid for therapists.
OK Freud.