On the Couch

The following is a summarized, paraphrased, internalized dialogue from some of the time I spent at the Counseling Center last Spring.

"You take certain people in your life and build them up into some sort of superhero status. It's always easy for us to tell who they are, because you rearrange your whole life around them. Back in high school, we knew for a fact that you would never have done anything to cross Mr. C. In fact, you were willing to overlook his flaws entirely, practice hours upon hours a day for him, defend him in any conversation, and I bet if he'd asked, you would have laid down in traffic for him. He was one of your superheroes.

So that's what you do. I'll bet at Lehigh you've got the same relationship with certain professors, don't you? How about over at- what's your company's name, Air Products? You haven't talked to any of the Cadets staff in years, but if Marc Sylvester called I have no doubt you'd fly over to J. Birney Crum or whatever midwest high school he named.

Now, all that's fine- to an extent. But what you do next is where the problems come in. You get your motivation from these people because they give you the praise that validates you. And whatever validates you is where your focus goes. Science. Like I said, you build everything you do around these heroic archetypes of people that you create. Academically and professionally, this has benefited you quite well. You build a hero, you kill yourself for them, they praise you, and you're beloved as the worker and achiever you are. I'm not saying this entirely out of derision, either- I'm saying this out of respect and admiration, too. Sure, you fuck up all the time, but you know that you've crafted quite a little resume for yourself in the last decade.

So why are you so unhappy, you ask? For exactly the reasons I've already described- you get your validation from being a wunderkind for your heroes. The thing is that that takes a toll on you. No one can sustain 20 hour workdays and a downright debilitating number of commitments. Where do you get release, then? Certainly not another hero, god no. That's where the stress came from in the first place. So you look to other aspects of your life, your friends and relationships. Your friends, being typically busy and motivated themselves, are often able to overlook or forgive your incessant cancellations, delays, and apologies. They know the score- if there's work, M. Jeremy's gonna do it. The fact that they love you anyway is what makes them so good to you.

Now your relationships ... you gotta know that's where you fuck up the most, right? You don't want more stress, especially if it's not where you get your validation, so you never regard the girls you date as the heroes you live for. Because of this, they never even stand a chance. If they no longer serve entirely as the escape you're looking for, you don't want to put in the time anymore. The moment they ask something back from you that you aren't immediately willing to give, they become superfluous to you. Cold, maybe, but mostly true.

Your hope lies, I think, in finding a way to get some sense of that accomplished validation from the women you love. You get your motivation from acknowledgment of accomplishment. Think about this- you come home from work, you tell her you did good that day. In a perfect world where you would be happy, her reaction would mean more to you than anyone else's that day. Her recognition of who you are would make the whole of your existence. She'd be your hero, the one you'd want to lay down in traffic for. That can never happen, though, if you don't open yourself up. You need to be willing to acknowledge the fact that someone else knows you're not perfect but they love you anyway.

I think that's where the disconnect comes from, really. There's always a barrier between you and your current heroes that keeps them out, keeps you shining. The women you loved wanted and needed that barrier to come down. In a lot of ways, they just wanted you. But you wouldn't let it- that notion frightened you- so you retreated back to your heroes, walked away, and let them be the escape hatch that became too stressful. Either that, or you tried to open up, and maybe things just didn't go your way.

Does any of this make sense? What do you think?"