Problems

The problem with therapy is that it's either too short or too long--either it ends before you've hit the moment of breakthrough or it ends long afterwards. Today it was too short. When the 50-minute mark arrived, I was about five minutes away from the complete and total breakdown--the eruption of weeping out the pain and frustration I've been carrying around for the better part of a year. But then it ended, and I walked out, and my male ego reasserted itself, and now all that's left is a small choking sensation in my throat as I shove it all back down into the dark corner I keep such things in.

Because the problem with pain is that it's embarassing. Embarassing for those who feel it, and doubly so for those with whom it's 'shared.' Crying in front of another person--collapsing in front of another person--these things just make you feel worse. "A trouble shared is a trouble halved"--what a crock. A trouble shared is a trouble doubled--because you've just made another person party to suffering he/she can't do anything to alleviate, and who therefore feels embarassed and inadequate and awkward. So what the hell--why bother to express such pain? Why bother to make someone else's day worse and your own no better? All you can really do with pain is feel it until you stop feeling it. And no one can help with that.

Which is a problem.