The Vine: July 30, 2010
Sars,
I just had a seriously depressing epiphany about myself, and, as a result, went spelunking in your archives, unsuccessfully. I seem to recall a Vine within the last couple of years where folks went off in the comments with suggestions for psychologists/counselors in the DC area. I don’t know if the old comments came over with the site switch or not, and that’s what I was hoping you could tell me.
I am pretty sure the answer is no, checking through the Vine history. Because of Donors Choose, and the ensuing trip to DC, I’m having a hard time narrowing the field.
If the comments are gone, here’s the central issue I’m needing help with.
I am in my mid-thirties and have never been in a romantic relationship. I have friends and a life and lots of interests and a job I’m good at and keep pretty busy. But I’m also lonely and want a relationship and am terribly insecure about my lack of any. Never mind that I would like to eventually get married and have kids.
There have been multiple guys I’ve been interested in over the years, but oh, the ones I fall for: the unavailable, the non-communicative, the alcoholic who hasn’t managed to stay sober a year yet, the probably-severely-closeted (the latter twice, per friends with better gaydar).
The latest one is not only unavailable, but has gotten himself better entrenched than I into the network I introduced him to, and in a very visible way. This is not the sort of high school drama I particularly wanted to revisit. I am tired and discouraged and I think I’m finally in a (although very depressing) place where I know I need help, or at the very least, an impartial perspective.
But who? I’ve done some poking around before about different types of therapy, and think behavioral cognitive looks like a structure that would work for me. I have some family craziness, but I don’t think anything extreme, and I’ve never been sexually abused, thank heavens, nor suffered any sort of severe trauma. I also am in pretty good health otherwise, other than the standard “I should floss more and bake less.”
This is where I was hoping the Vine readership could chime in. I live in the DC area — the closer in, the easier for me. Any suggestions would be most welcome.
Not the sort of referral I want to ask of my coworkers
Dear Ref,
I hunted through the archives too, and while I’m positive I remember the letter you mean — I think the author lived in Maryland? — I can’t find it either. Perhaps the readers will turn it up, or suggest a good counselor for you locally.
If that doesn’t work out, reread the Vines addressing good and bad therapist “fits,” and start calling around. It sounds to me like you need some short- to medium-term help getting out of an identified pattern; it shouldn’t be too terribly hard to find a therapist to address that, if you do a little thinking beforehand about what kind of relationship you want to have with him/her.
Dear Sars and Tomato Nationeers:
I am an inner-city English teacher who is looking for a school-appropriate synonym for “sucks.”
One of my standard pep talks consists of explaining the connection between ability and attitude towards reading or writing, i.e. “I swear to you that if you practice, you will get better, and then it won’t suck anymore.” For the past couple of years, I’ve been at a campus where the students (and parents) were sufficiently foul-mouthed that I could just say it that way and not have a problem.
Now, however, I’m looking to move elsewhere — anywhere else. I could end up at a campus where minor swear words are again a big deal. Wherever I go, I’ll still have kids who need to hear that message.
Any ideas?
Love My Ghetto Babies
Dear Baby,
“Bites”? Some people consider that nearly as bad. “Blows” is definitely out, and “stinks” is a little Gallant of Highlights for my taste.
…”Eats a bowl of bees”? I’m sorry I’m so unhelpful, but I’m so foul-mouthed myself that “sucks” is practically church lingo for me.
“Sucks” has gotten a lot less shocking since I was that age, though, as far as its presence in the wider culture. Of course, when I was that age, nobody had said the word “bitch” on TV yet either, and dinosaurs grazed in my family’s back yard, so what do I know — but if you can’t find an ideal synonym and/or you let an S-bomb slip now and again, I don’t think most parents would even notice.
Tags: Ask The Readers grammar health and beauty
For what it’s worth… I teach at a small-town West Texas high school. This part of the country is about as conservative and Baptist/Church of Christ “follow the rules and fit in” as you get.
I use “sucks” all the time at my school. I think I even did it in front of the principal once. No one cares.
I may start using “eats a bowl of bees” though if for no other reason than to make the kids laugh…
My favorite dubbed-for-basic-cable curse word replacement is “melon farmer.” Which should be uttered with the same level of vehemence as “motherfucker” for the full effect. Pretend you’re Bruce Willis! It’s awesome!
I think I was 12 before I heard the word “sucks,” in a non-suction-based context, and I was in high school before anyone told me it was a minor swear word. Then again, my parents have the filthiest mouths of anyone I know over the age of 27, and they made little more than a half-hearted attempt at telling me to be more polite than they are. Not that they’re not polite in public, but there’s a line that’s crossed when they’re yelling, “NO, FUCK YOUR BOWLING BALL!” over a game of Wii Sports that can never be un-crossed.
Anyway, @Baby, I wouldn’t stress over the word choice too hard. But creative phrases are definitely memorable, if wordier. I mean, who here hasn’t formed a lasting mental picture of someone eating a bowl of bees? Hee. Bees are inherently funny.
@Ref: when I was in need of therapy, my general practitioner gave me a list of LCSWs and the like in town based on what they specialized in. I don’t know if my GP is more informed or connected than most, but the first name on the list turned out to be the ideal counselor for me — and I had a tangled mess of problems ranging from work fail to parental homophobia, so finding someone who could wrangle all that seemed like it would be impossible at the time. If all other recommendations fail, talking to your regular doctor might help get you pointed in the right direction (and if you do see an LCSW, your doc can handle the prescription side as long as she’s in the loop).
@Ref, I saw Dr. Wanna Prommart for a while, and she’s very good with on-the-ground solutions to problems and identifying harmful behavioral patterns. (Also, she has a heavy Thai accent that always made me feel a bit like I was getting advice from Margaret Cho’s mother. I considered that a fun bonus, myself.) I’ve stopped seeing her and am considering looking for somebody else for deeper-seated psychological stuff — her strength is definitely “you have this problem, let’s consider solutions” — but she helped me dig out of a crisis. She’s in the Landmark area of Alexandria, which may be further out than is convenient. But I figured I’d mention it, just in case it’s helpful.
[I know Margaret Cho is Korean. The auditory resemblance was still uncanny.]
Fun fact, “Brother Trucker” is a song in the musical Working, adapted from the Studs Terkel book. When we performed it at my high school we changed all the rhyming Mother fuckers in it to Brother Truckers, so it became incredibly, awfully repetitive to the point of incomprehensibility.