when i met jason back in fall of 2008, it felt like i had met a long lost brother.  i was a nervous resident assistant with 54 college students to look after and i was pretty much a baby myself.  somehow, jason made that job seem easier and 11 years later, i have an extended member of my family.  part of why our relationship is one that i value so much is because we can keep things light like having salads at an outdoor spot with his two dogs during a summer day, we can be adventurous and conquer various music festivals together, we enjoy the same movies (john wick is a grossly underrated movie – i will go down to my grave fighting for keanu) but we can also talk about the heavy shit. another thing we realized we had in common early on was how few people we talked to about the heavy shit.

why was that?

for both of us, it was layered but after a ton of reflection, i think it became pretty obvious that it was less about appearing to be weak and more about not knowing who to trust with the heavy shit paired with not wanting to burden those around us.  we are both viewed as “the stable ones” in many of the relationships in our lives but something we had to recognize is that stability is not synonymous with lacking feeling or emotion.

in sessions with clients, i often talk about unsuccessful compartmentalization of emotions like putting trash in trash can with a lid.  if you are like me and taking out the trash is your least favorite household chore, you might be one of those people who puts trash in and continues to smoosh it down over and over again.  then one day, when you go to smoosh it down, the lid just won’t stay closed.  if it is not addressed, trash will inevitably start to spill out.  once it starts to spill out, there is no way to control what spills out, what odors seep into the air, etc.  it simply has to be addressed or it gets out of control.  i do not do well when things are out of control.  i like structure.  i like a plan.  i like being reasonable.  i like being rational.

coming across this quote last week made me think of me and jason at our worst and served as a much needed reminder to not simply stuff our emotions.  unfortunately, i could not find the author but this was beyond brilliant and i will be using it in session with clients this upcoming academic year.

“stuffing our emotions is like putting them into a pressure cooker.  it’s only a matter of time until they explode, causing an emotional outburst that feels big, messy and disproportionate to the situation we are in.  this experience reinforces that emotions are terrible causing us to return to stuffing.  it’s a vicious cycle.”

a pressure cooker.  how had i not thought of that?

one of the things that used to upset me most about my own unsuccessful compartmentalization of emotions was the outburst that followed.  the outburst would often make it impossible for the recipient to take what i was saying seriously because i could be compared to a child throwing a tantrum.  it was coming out that way because of the build up – the build up that i was allowing to happen.  for longer than i care to admit, i continued that same process because i convinced myself that expressing my emotions only resulted in me looking (and feeling) crazy.  i don’t even know if jason realized how he was part of me breaking this cycle.

it is like i have my own accountability partner to encourage me to do something other than stuff my emotions in a pressure cooker.

have you experienced the emotional outburst after stuffing your emotions in a pressure cooker?  do you have an accountability partner (a friend, family member, partner, etc.) that encourages and/ors inspires you to address emotions as they come up?

xoxo,

k. tap

the word therapy often has a negative stigma associated with it.  i would say there is even more of one with men and people of color.  while the thoughts about therapy are not as negative or easily dismissed as they were 10 or 20 years ago, there is still a lot of work to be done.

when i think about many of my clients i see weekly or even every other week, many of them share a common thread: they are the first person in their family or friend group to go to therapy to unearth or discuss issues in their lives that (no matter how hard they try) seem impossible to work through or find a solution for.  that brings me to my thought of the week i came across on instagram courtesy of shannon downey – the creator of badass cross stitch.

“people in therapy are often in therapy to deal with the people in their lives who won’t go to therapy”

y’all.  listen.  this is some of the realest shit i have ever read.

not only did i think of so many of my clients, when i really thought about it, this even applied to me.  i remember as a child, when i asked to go to therapy, it was met with resistance from some members of my family.  i was told that i did not have any “real problems” and that i “didn’t know what stress was” which is laughable now as someone who both works as a therapist and as a person who has had a few anxiety attacks.

once i got to therapy, it became glaringly evident that one of my biggest stressors was with an immediate family member who (you guessed it) did not believe in therapy, despite the countless number of issues that were unaddressed in their lives.  so much of my time spent in therapy was spent discussing how to deal with unsupportive family members and how to break generational issues.  now, i do that same type of work with the teenage girls i work with daily.

if you are in therapy to deal with someone in your life who refuses to go to therapy, what has that been like for you?

xoxo,

k. tap

over the last month, i have had more conversations than i could count with friends and family about what a healthy and happy relationship looks like.  while i do not think there is only one version of a healthy and happy relationship, there are some basic prerequisites in mind that are truly nonnegotiable.  respect. both bringing something of substance to the table. independence. trust. loyalty. honesty. being secure as an individual.  i am sure there are more that i could add but these are the ones at the forefront of my mind.

with every single conversation, there was this theme.  all of the relationships had happy memories.  and with that came some confusion – some happy memories is not synonymous with a healthy and happy relationship.  when i came across this quote from billy chapata, it perfectly captured my thoughts and feelings on the matter.

“memories are a dangerous thing to be in love with.  i hope you learn to discern the difference between the love you have for someone, and the love you have for the moments you spent together.” -billy chapata

i have seen friends and family do this and i have definitely been guilty of it – staying in relationships longer than we should have because of the memories we are in love with.  great memories are not strong enough to be the glue or backbone of any relationship whether it be with a significant other, a family member or a friend.

are you able to differentiate between the love you have for someone versus the love you have for the moments you’ve spent together?

xoxo,

k. tap