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In what seems to me like a previous lifetime, I once spent the majority of my working hours providing low cost counseling for “the people” of Los Angeles. By “the people,” I mean anyone who had the fortitude to continue leaving messages with the agency of my employment until someone finally returned the call to schedule an intake appointment. For those not familiar with the therapist’s lingo (a.k.a. psychobabble), an “intake” is a procedure wherein it lies entirely in the hands of the counselor to accurately assess both the situation and the personal nature of the client asking for assistance, usually in a matter of moments and without the aid of knowing what it was that really sent the client over the edge and onto the therapy couch.

Our program had no budget, but in the way of all dedicated (and wayward) non-profit agencies, that didn’t stop us from responding to the pleas of clients who could sometimes neither afford, nor necessarily meet any of the basic minimum requirements for, our services. We simply cut our rates until we couldn’t afford to pay our therapists anymore. Though my entrepreneurial spirit clashed more than once with this policy as a matter of sheer administrative lunacy if not outright masochism, my natural tendency to respond to an obvious plea for assistance from another recognizable human being kept me at the agency in question for a number of years. During those years I saw, heard, and felt more in any given week than I have at any time before or since. One day I hope to be able to really dedicate as much time and attention to the stories of our clients as they deserve. Between now and that day, I find myself ruminating on what it means to be someone’s counselor - their “go to” gal in case of emergency, unexpected joy or loss, boredom, illness, grief, danger, or any of a thousand other situations which are neither entirely unique, nor wholly meaningful without the perspective that can only be gained at the expense of sharing one’s experience with another person. It is a bearing of witness that somehow validates the existence, if not always the importance, of what occurs when we momentarily cease the eternal struggle to maintain control over our lives and just let the proverbial chips fall where they may.

Following is a list of some of the things I learned while trying to absorb and make useful sense of the traumas and triumphs of the human spirit. This list is incomplete; indeed, I expect I will be revising it for an entire lifetime. But it is representative of my overall experience as a mental health therapist, which in retrospect is a position I would classify more as an honor than a respectable career. I was honored to be invited into the inner sanctum of my clients’ lives, and to be allowed to share their most vulnerable moments. An older (if not necessarily wiser) woman today, I do not know how I could ever have truly prepared for or lived up to that honor, especially as an early-20’s post-grad idealist postmodernist feminist socialist (the list of -ists could go on forever). I hope that at worst I did not make anyone’s life more difficult than it needed to be, and at best I helped a few souls stranded in the superficial isolation of Los Angeles society to know that they were never really all alone. If anything on this list is of use to you, rest assured that it is a lesson I was taught by one of my clients rather than the other way around. They were, in various unexpected ways, the wisest of fools, the truest of liars, the most debauched of saints, and the bravest of cowards. In short, they were human. If the years I spent trying to help them roll boulders uphill and teach fish to ride bicycles taught me anything, it is this; none of us is any more or any less than human, and none of us ever needs to be. Humanity is its own punishment, its own reward, and the one thing that we all have in common. We need each other. And ultimately, it is good to be needed.

Lessons I Learned In The Therapist’s Chair

• It is always easier to solve someone else’s problems.
• If you can listen without giving advice, make people laugh when they are sad, and admit when you are wrong, you are ahead of 90% of the people you will run across on a daily basis. But the percentage might be lower outside of Los Angeles.
• Just because you can’t keep a plant alive doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t have fulfilling personal relationships. It does however mean that you are not cut out to be a gardener.
• The day when we cease to see our parents as authority figures and begin to see them as human beings is at once the most freeing and most frightening day of our lives.
• When people’s words do not match their actions, it is always safer to believe their actions.
• A good pet is worth its weight in gold; a good friend has no price tag.
• Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.
• Young children may not be smarter than you, but they are more honest.
• Be careful about judging others; the majority of their mistakes were probably caused by the situation they were in, not the soul they possess, and you never know when you might end up in the exact same situation yourself.
• It is never a mistake to consider someone else’s feelings.
• Don’t wait to say what you need to say to the important people in your life; there is always a chance you won’t get to say it later.
• If love doesn’t scare you at least a little bit, you’re not doing it right.
• Everyone should get dumped, get fired, and get hit on once, just to know how it feels.
• You can, in fact, be too rich, too thin, or too pretty. Envy is generally a wasted emotion.
• If you don’t ask for what you need, don’t be surprised if you don’t get it.
• People who tell the truth are rarely rewarded for it.
• Everyone is afraid of something; some people just don’t let it stop them.
• If your instincts are telling you not to trust someone, listen to them. If they’re telling you not to trust anyone, it’s probably time to go talk to a professional.
• Suicide is the one mistake that you can never fix.
• Just because life isn’t always fair doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be.
• Ultimately, it’s not the number of people who care about you that matters. It’s which ones.

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