Maybe I’m your friend, and I sent you this link. Maybe you’re someone who doesn’t know me at all. Whoever you are, you should probably go to therapy.
Let’s say you are my friend. We were probably having a conversation in which it sounded like you were stuck on the exact same thing you’d been stuck on three times before. Was it that a person you’re dating just happens to bring out in you the exact same pattern of behaviour you find to be really troubling, and you’re just unsure of why you can’t leave the relationship?
Probably.
Again, I’m not sure who you are. But let’s imagine that yes, you’ve got some understanding that you’re doing something you feel helpless to stop. You might describe it as being stuck, or afflicted by weakness of the will, or who knows.
The answer to your dilemma is simple, but also really hard and weird. Here it is:
Go to therapy.
It’s that easy!
But it’s not easy to find a therapist that fits with you, nor to carve out the money to afford it. It’s not easy. But it’s the only thing that could help you break your impasse and understand why you’re stuck.
It’s not easy to go to a therapist, discover that it’s not a fit, and then go find another and start over again. But that’s what you’ve gotta do, because you keep demonstrating you’re not making progress on your own. The roots of your issue remain stuck deeply in the ground, and so you feel stuck, still.
It’s not easy to discover that CBT does nothing for you, and that the alternative that does seem to kinda work takes years. But that’s how it goes. Psychodynamic therapy and analysis works, if it works for you.
It’s also not easy to show up and make progress, when therapists don’t tell you to do much, and when it’s so fun to just get caught up in all your oldest, baddest patterns and dwell on the most superficial results of that work. But therapy’s the only place where you stand a chance at taking responsibility for your actions, your behaviour, your patterns, your life.
I don’t know why. But it’s how it is.
Thank you for reading this. I will never bring this up again to you. It’s on you to do something with it. It always has been.