Posts by John Price11

Merry Christmas, everyone!
Honestly, I’m just so sick of the constant verbal assault from people throwing around words like "family," "get-togethers," and "holiday feasts."
Look, when things are actually good, fine—it’s great. But when your family dynamic is anything but "normal," trying to survive these holidays can be a total nightmare...

1. Why is it that sometimes—and honestly, it feels like most of the time—the easiest choice is just to keep spinning in circles? It’s comfortable territory, right? You know exactly where you stand, even if you're going nowhere. Why do we choose that repetitive loop over actually breaking out, even if stepping outside means risking total failure?
2. And why is it that the second I started opening up about all this, especially after chewing on some of the answers from this forum, I felt this sudden, overwhelming urge to just shut down and stop talking about it entirely?
(Am I healed? Yay! 🎉) — Nope, definitely not.
3. Regarding what redharbor9 said: look, I’ve looked through some of those materials, and it’s not like it’s rocket science, BUT I DON'T LIVE IN WASHINGTON, D.C., I live in a small town with maybe 40,000 people.

redharbor9 said:I already gave you that bridge metaphor... let me break down what you just said using it. You’ve got all the building materials and the drive to build that bridge and get to the other side, but you need someone to show you how to actually put it together...

You're circling right back to where we started. Like I told you before... a therapist isn't going to do the work for you or take the fall if things go south. They're just there to teach you how to do what you want to do—how to handle that ball yourself...

Your only real choice now is to face facts and move toward your goal, or just keep spinning your wheels avoiding the very thing you already know the truth about...

If we were sitting in a therapy session right now, someone might try to tell you that a sense of empathy has finally blossomed between the therapist and the patient. But let’s be real—it hasn't happened. Not even close.
Congrats, redharbor9. You hit the nail right on the head.
Yeah, I’m just spinning my wheels here. I feel like I’m running in circles, and honestly? I’m missing that one crucial piece of the puzzle. It’s exactly what you said: I need a therapist.
To be blunt, I actually kind of love Tom’s little cheating scheme from this anonymous vantage point. It’s working out perfectly for me because I’m getting a massive influx of intel—valuable information that’s honestly worth its weight in gold. That being said, I have no idea how much patience you actually have in you, so I won't push my luck or nag you about it.
It just hit me—it finally clicked, and honestly, I feel like such an idiot for letting it slip my mind. It turns out I’m not actually losing my grip on reality or going crazy enough to need a therapist after all. Man, my own intuition is clearly way more fragile than I thought...
Thanks again.
And now I'm left staring at this massive blank space: therapist, who, what, where, when, how... honestly, I have absolutely no clue where to even begin. It’s all just one big question mark right now.

redharbor9 said:Honestly, you're missing the point by just focusing on what kind of therapy you tried. Like I said before, there's way more to the equation than that...

Why’d you quit that therapy, and what do you even mean by "energy fading"? Give me specifics.

1. It wasn't actually formal therapy; it was more of a practicum through a leadership and choice theory course at my university, plus an introductory seminar on reality therapy this past summer. Basically, I wanted to "catch the enemy off guard" (just kidding, mostly).
To be honest, my goal—and I think I actually managed to pull it off to some degree—was to define myself, my emotions, and my behaviors. My driving force (which I still follow, though sometimes I feel a bit weak about it) was to ensure that nobody else could make me feel furious, angry, or pathetic... instead, I want to be the one choosing. I want to pick from a spectrum of feelings—whether that's anger, rage, or misery, whatever.
The same logic applies to choosing happiness...
I’ve mastered the theory, but now comes the hard part: the practice. It’s being applied to me, and honestly, sometimes I feel like I’m struggling, while other times it flows a bit easier...
2. Regarding that "spirit" metaphor, it's just a way of describing those heavy, negative emotions and bad memories—that overall vibe. I don't know how else to put it. It’s mostly tied to the past. My mindset is: what happened, happened. Today is a new day, and the source of all that misery doesn't exist anymore, so, just be happy. (Man, isn't that easy to say?)
3. That’s why I feel like the ball is in my court, not someone else's, like a therapist's. I’m actually afraid that if I leaned too hard into professional help, I’d just spiral deeper into these mental games—trying to prove myself or perform, trying to explain everything to someone...
I guess I'm contradicting myself here. At the end of the day, I'm wondering why I even started this thread in the first place. Part of me wants to talk, and part of me just wants to shut up...
4. Is there any hope for me?🤷

redharbor9 said:That assumption is trash if you think psychotherapy is just some ten-minute pit stop where you grab a prescription or a manual on how to live your life. That's dead wrong...

Therapy is a process. Period. Maybe the issue you’re tackling gets crushed in one session, maybe it takes a hundred. Maybe the root cause turns out to be something you didn't even realize was there. Maybe it just shifts your perspective so much that you figure it out yourself. The possibilities are endless.

It all boils down to a bunch of variables. The therapist's style, who they are as a human being, and you—your resources, your readiness, everything. It’s a massive, complex interaction that dictates everything.

But here’s the bottom line: you have to actually like your therapist. If you sit down with someone and the vibe is off—if you don't feel comfortable talking to them as a person—you move on. Find someone else.

None of them are going to bark orders at you about what to do or how to do it. They work through it *with* you.

I had a client once tell me he was blown away that we solved years of baggage in just a few sessions after he'd struggled with other therapists for ages. I told him straight up: I just built the bridge, he's the one who had to walk across it. He shot back that walking across my bridges is easy. That’s how it works every single time. You and the therapist build that bridge together. Your job is to figure out which "bridge" works best for you—the way that hits your goals without being a total nightmare or exhausting you.

I gave reality therapy a shot recently, but let’s be honest—it only seemed to work while the contractors were still on-site. Once they packed up their tools and cleared out, the whole thing just fell apart.
I was actually feeling pretty good about things for a while. It felt like that whole chaotic energy was finally starting to settle down—almost like it was retreating into a small, contained space—but I still couldn't see a definitive finish line. Honestly, this feels less like a quick fix and more like one of those long, drawn-out processes, similar to how people talk about undergoing a hundred therapy sessions just to find some peace.
Is there actually an alternative out there?

Keith Jones76 said:Yeah, psychotherapy. And let’s be real—it’s a process for a reason. There isn’t some magic wand or a single "eureka" moment that fixes everything overnight. While I totally get why you're feeling impatient, you're allowed to feel that way. That’s exactly why you need an empathetic therapist more than you need a list of clinical techniques.

Here is my (admittedly biased) take on the whole situation:
I feel like I'm just going to run into the same wall over and over. Someone is inevitably going to tell me I need to "stop overthinking," or "just live in the moment." If the therapist leans too heavily into religious-style coping, they'll probably tell me I just need to practice forgiveness... and so on and so forth.
Will they eventually suggest that *I* am the actual problem?

Please, set me straight if I'm being stubborn or if I've completely missed the mark here!😕

I’m fully grown now, but I still can't shake these memories from my childhood home.
My father was an absolute emotional vampire, while my mother was basically a bystander—completely passive. Together, they turned us kids into the perfect punching bag for his... well, I don't even know what word to use for his need for control.
Even as an adult, looking back on things through a mature lens, I just feel cheated. Neither of them had any right to do that to me—to wreck my childhood memories, strip away my self-confidence, and warp my entire worldview.
Look, I’ll say it again: I am a functioning adult. I navigate the world just fine, and honestly, I’ve turned out pretty well considering what I went through, but there’s always this nagging pull that drags me back into that headspace.
Logically, I know dwelling on it is pointless because, in a way, I’m letting the past hold me hostage.
I know the "correct" thing to do is forgive everything, lock it all away, and just move on...
But that's the problem: there's no clear line between those old memories and my actual life right now. The two are bleeding together, and it’s poisoning my present reality.
Is there some kind of magic formula to finally leave the past where it belongs?