Humans being humans, vol. 6
The monthly long essay for supporters, with some recent things overheard, either loud or soft
I’m heading off to backpack in the woods, somewhere near the Canadian border, so no newsletter next week. Many high-summer good wishes to all.
This winter, I tried Betterhelp, a service that matches clients with therapists for online work.
For three weeks, I spoke to a woman in her fifties, who lived in rural Idaho. She talked a lot, with high-pitched enthusiasm, about TED Talks. She watched a lot of TED Talks, and her thoughts of my issues was often based on TED Talks she found inspiring, which she would send me and strongly encourage me to watch, study, and find inspiring.
The next person I spoke to was an older man, who lived in southern Alabama. Ten minutes before our first and only appointment, he asked if we could talk by phone, not video. I said sure. It turned out he was in line at his local Wal-Mart, picking up medication to treat a back injury incurred when his hunting stand collapsed thanks to his doofus son, who lived with him and whom he supported financially, and who was crap at carpentry and generally no good – though that was nothing compared to his other son, a lazy ass whom he also supported, which was why he’d started doing “this app therapy thing,” in order to supplant his income at a teaching hospital, where he already worked a 60-hour week.
This was the first 10 minutes of our session. “But sir, I got no complaints, to be honest, and I apologize again, this no-video thing,” he said loudly. (He may have needed hearing aids.) “I’m an old dog, I’m still figuring this out.”
We spent the next 15 minutes – when he wasn’t arguing with the pharmacist about the cost of his prescriptions – talking about his wife, who also didn’t appreciate him, who loved him less than she loved shopping for new clothes. In 25 minutes of conversation, my new therapist didn’t ask me a single question, he had too much to share, and he politely refused three times to get off the phone when I suggested we reschedule.
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