Free Candy (it’s a trap!)

I’m going to show you an amazing stress-coping technique that will change your life.  Please follow these instructions along with me where you are sitting.  Don’t feel silly.  I know it will seem a little strange, but professional therapists swear that it works.

1) First,  I need you to think about something that upsets you.  Really bring that feeling to mind.  Got it?   Okay.
2) Then, you need to karate chop your wrist over and over again while repeating the words "even though I am feeling [insert bad emotion here], I truly and deeply love and accept myself".
3)   After a few repeats of that, you begin to tap the top of your head and say "this [bad emotion]".  eg:  "this anger" or "this anxiety".  Keep tapping the crown of your head and saying that a few times.
4)  Then you need to tap above your left eyebrow, on the end of the eyebrow closest to your ear.   Tap that point and repeat "this [bad emotion]"
5)  Now tap the inside end of the same eyebrow, repeating the same mantra.
6) Now do the same while tapping just to the upper-right of your sternum.
7)  And repeat again while tapping the side of your rib cage about a hand-span below your right armpit.

How did that go?  Did that work for you?  Does it seem effective?  Or does it seem like total bullshit?

THAT’S BECAUSE IT IS.  This is called an "alternative therapy", meaning it’s an alternative to actual therapy.  It’s made for stupid people, by stupid people.  I’m not saying I’m not stupid at all, but I’m not that kind of stupid.

Oh no, wait, I retract that last statement.  Apparently I am that kind of stupid.  Because that’s what I did on Saturday.  I paid $90 to realise that the counsellor Jones and I have been seeing all this month believes in meridians and acupressure points and something that the internet told me is called the "Emotional Freedom Technique" or EFT.  It’s based on meridians and energy flow.  Kind of like the chakra network in Naruto, except that Naruto is fiction.  Yep, it’s on the same level as feng shui and homeopathy.  

If I was reading about this happening to someone else, I would find the mental image of them tapping their head while repeating absurd platitudes quite hilarious.  But it didn’t happen to someone else.

Anyway, I’m editing this to make it a lot LOT shorter, but I left the appointment feeling traumatised.  I can’t go back to her now.  But I sure can’t go to the trouble of finding someone else only to discover that the solution they have to my problems is to use reiki to realign my chakra points and talk to my dead ancestors.  Forget it, it’s done.  What a waste of time and money.  I can’t believe I forced myself to talk about stuff I really wasn’t comfortable in discussing, just because I thought it might help.  

The moral of the story is this:  I need to keep my damn mouth shut.  Drink some cement, blah blah blah.   Every time I open my trap, it ends badly.  So many bad decisions over the last year have dragged way too many unwelcome or useless interventions in.  Now I have the Department of Community Services offering "help".  That’s a whinge for another day.   The point is that if I want something fixed, I’m going to have to fix it myself.  I get it now, universe, I understand your message loud and clear.   Stay calm, and carry on – just like British.  Jolly good. 
ean, look where we are now.    

I expect this diary to become a whole lot more whiny now.  If not, it means I will have gone back to drinking.  Haha, just kidding.  I don’t have the money to drink anymore.  Although with the savings I’ll have by not paying idiots to re-align my chakra points….  

Instead of having lunch with the Palex, I went home, closed the blinds for the first time in months, went to sleep for a few hours. So much for not being dramatic and emo.  To be honest, I felt a lot better when I woke up, back to being all hyper-happy and pigtaily.   I just needed to stop thinking about it for a bit; shut down, re-boot then go socialise with fair-weather friends and keep it all light-hearted. 

And that’s the moral of the story, folks: if I try to fix things, I just make them worse. Mentally unstable person has a knife, call the cops, fail. Go to relationship counselling, try to talk things through, fail.  Department of Community Services offers its "help"….. oh wow, I’ll leave that for another day.    What I have now is my own Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy.  If I don’t make a fuss, the rest of the world usually obliges the "don’t ask" half, so I just need to learn to keep my big fucking mouth shut. Of course, I’ve had to learn the hard way – I always do – but I get it now, universe.  I get your fucking message:  stop trying.   Don’t think about it, don’t talk about it.  Stay calm, carry on.  Just like the British.   Jolly good.

Oh wow… sooooooo long.  Shit.  Well, where else am I going to say it all?   Back to writing poems about gelato, I guess.