The Only Therapy that Clicked with my Man-Brain

'Narrative Therapy' got me unstuck. What the hell is it?

I didn’t want to go to therapy. It was a non-starter for me. I mean, the idea of sitting on a sofa and telling a total stranger all the dark, shameful stuff in my life that I couldn’t even tell my closest friends? That was a big old hell no. Uh-uh. No way. I’d always been able to pull myself out of my problems on my own, without anyone’s help. So why would I start now?

Well, my marriage was about to end. That’s why.

Let me take you back a few years...

And don’t worry, this Substack’s not going to be weekly posts about therapy, I swear. This is probably the only one, I just thought it would be a good introduction.

So.

When I was in my early thirties, before we had kids, my career fell into the shitter and I was forced to give it up. The one thing I felt good at, that gave me a sense of purpose, was no longer available to me and I didn’t know how to recover. I was hit with a massive uppercut of depression, even though I’d never call it that, no, I just needed to ‘figure some shit out’. But the truth was, I’d lost all my confidence and happiness, and my self-esteem was evaporating from my body. Sound a little dramatic? What do you expect, my job was being an actor. We’re dramatic.

I didn’t talk about my depression with anyone because that’s not what a man does. No, I bottled it up and pretended everything was fine. It was a super fun time for everyone involved— I’d mope through my days, sucking the joy from any room I’d enter, and quietly resent anyone who seemed the least bit happy or content, especially my wife, whose career was taking off like a rocket ship at the time. I don’t think I was ever, like, outright mean to her, but I honed a special sort of withholding that was just as hurtful. Like I would fail to comment on her big accomplishments or refuse to be grateful for things she was doing for our family. It was some real Darth Vader shit and I knew, like, logically and rationally I knew what I was doing was wrong, that it made no sense: I loved my wife, we were soulmates, best friends, we’d always had always had each other’s backs. But I wasn’t in a logical or rational state. It was like I’d been swallowed into a dark cloud and couldn’t see out. Instead of being the support system or cheerleader for her, I had become a black hole. I was just so down and didn’t know how to get myself unstuck, and all that negativity toward myself got turned outward.

It was like that for the better part of a year (this is all pre-kids, by the way although some of the problems persisted). Poor Emily did everything she could to pull me out of it but nothing worked. Until one night— things got so bad that she hit her breaking point and basically gave me an off-the-cuff ultimatum. Through a sheet of tears, she informed me that I wasn’t the same man she married, that I was so negative all the time, and if I didn’t get help and find a way to change, she couldn’t keep going in our marriage. That stopped me cold. She’d never threatened before, always consoled or encouraged. This was different. This was an ice-bath of a wake up call. I either needed to go to therapy or she would leave. And she meant it. Did I blame her? No, I was ruining her life and she deserved to be happy. Did I act like a petulant child? Of course! I negotiated, I pleaded: I just needed more time to work it out, I could fix my own problems. Like I said up top— I didn’t want to go to therapy.

Here’s what I always imagined therapy to be like: