Or you’ll just sink in your feelings and spin in your head
Relationships can be like an addiction. Like the twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, there are necessary steps to take after a break up. Or you can just sink in feelings and spin in your head which will prevent you from healing. I’m a licensed therapist but also someone who has had his heart broken many times.
Here are 6 steps I learned, both in my professional as well as personal life, to help you move through your break up so you can start healing.
Step 1: Accept That Your Relationship Has Expired
I know this sounds cold. Relationships are not…
A client’s story
There are some clients you just don’t like. They annoy the shit out of you. Sometimes you can’t really put your finger on why. Yes, they’re defensive, argumentative, and don’t want to do the work. But that’s not why you don’t like them. The problem is not where they’re at. It’s who they are. They’re people you probably wouldn’t hang out with in “real life.” And they keep coming back, which is what annoys you the most, because as a therapist you can’t tell your clients to not come back because they annoy the shit out of you. I mean…
An except from my new book, “Single. On Purpose.”
I remember watching the movie Weird Science when I was twelve. If you don’t know, it’s about two nerdy teens who create their perfect woman, “Lisa,” after hooking up wires to a Barbie doll and wearing bras on their heads. The ’80s were a weird time with weird movies. Any- way, the doll comes to life and teaches them about love and life. The first time I remember desiring a woman was while I was watching this movie.
I literally sat in my parents’ room (where I watched movies), mouth open, eyes shut tight, wishing for some weird science to…
It’s time to redefine everything
I’ve been single. Many times. I’ve struggled with loneliness. Rejection. Not believing I was desirable. I’ve tried “dating myself” many times and it was bullshit. The truth is we’re humans and we’re not meant to do life alone. We want to love someone. And that’s okay. We’re biologically built that way. What’s not okay is losing ourselves because we don’t have someone to love. Or losing ourselves in the person we’ve chosen to love.
I have struggled with singlehood, and also lost myself in relationships. I have jumped into things way too fast after a breakup was still fresh. Within…
I’m not as vulnerable as a blogger as I thought I was, 90’s hair, and a new podcast that terrifies the shit out of me
11.13.20. 4:30am.
I just clentched my nose circulation-stopping tight to prevent a sneeze that would have surely woke up Vanessa, if the punching of these keys hasn’t already. She can hear a mouse thinking. Her hearing is so good it’s almost a handicap. I never want to hear that well. The world is too noisy. I need to be able to close some doors. Anyway, I may be stretching here but I think it’s proof that I have grown. I sacrificed something that feels amazing for someone else. I know it’s just a sneeze. But my sneezes measure on the…
Being a witness
10.28.20. 4:10am
I miss when blogs didn’t have to have a point. Before we discovered that adding a picture got more clicks. I miss waking up in coffee shops. I noticed I’m very particular about the mug I use for my coffee these days. They have to be one of those thick $30 dollar mugs or the small tin ones you hook to a backpack, the kind that people post on Instagram when they go glamping so we think they’re cool and rugged. I have two. Not sure why I’ve become so picky with mugs all of the sudden. Maybe…
The client I couldn’t help
Oct 5th. 7:45am
Warning: This is not a blog. This is personal writing. For me. Not you. It may or may not have a point. Most likely the latter.
I am tired. My hair is jacked. Didn’t sleep well again. I go through stretches of semi good sleep and shitty sleep. But it’s a lot better than the two years of FML no sleep I went through a few years ago. I was a human exhaust pipe, Edward Norton, before he met Brad Pitt. I’m also a lot less afraid of when the crash will hit. Usually in the afternoon. And if I’m…
A new dating app, rowing, and a bear.
September 4, 2020
It’s 3:33am Friday morning. I technically woke up at 2:47am when I got up to pee. Then I just laid in bed wide awake, thinking about life and where I’m at these days. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from years of insomnia, it’s that if you can’t sleep just get up. If you lay there, you’re just going to spin and get frustrated that you can’t sleep. I forget when you’re supposed to use lay and lie. It’s too early to judge myself. Anyway, Mark Wahlberg works out at 2am sometimes. …
The 30,000ft View Exercise
6:21am. While nursing my morning coffee and staring out at the uncertainty of the world today, I decided to text my guy friends a few hard life questions you don’t usually think about this early at the risk of them thinking “Oh, here’s our therapist friend trying to be our therapist.” Which they have no problem saying out loud. And they usually do. But this morning, I didn’t get pushback or purposely hurtful jokes that don’t really hurt. It’s our way of connecting and I can dish them out as well. Instead, I got “Okay cool. …
Finding love, getting married, buying a house, and having 2.2 kids where mom wears an apron and dad clenches a briefcase is an outdated advertisement for people still on AOL.
I am forty seven years old. I am not married. My girlfriend is thirty six. Our daughter is five months old. She was born into a pandemic. She hasn’t seen many faces other than ours. We are both therapists. We work from home.
And we’re one and done. 1.0. No 2.2. Not interested in The Brady Bunch life. Now that we’re out of the first few months of survival mode…
The Angry Therapist
Author of “I Used To Be A Miserable F*CK” . IG: theangrytherapist.
