Occasionally, conversations around the dinner table turn to psychotherapy — someone knows a co-worker, or a friend, or a relative who sees a shrink — and my family would talk about it so disparagingly.
They’d say there’s something wrong with people who go to therapy; not the fact that they have mental health issues, but the fact that anyone who needs to pay someone else to feel better is foolish. They think psychologists are bad, or of no use. That you only need to go to therapy if you don’t know how to “find a hobby” or “blow off steam”, or don’t have any friends to talk to. Their ideas about it are so naïve, simplistic, and stereotypical; a perfect reflection of their minds and the way they see the world.
I’d always stay quiet. How could I explain the damage done, when it was some of them who damaged me in the first place?
But when the conversation turned to me, I mentioned that I had a therapist. Perhaps to change their minds about it, to defend something that has helped me so much. After all, I might not even be here talking to them if it wasn’t for my therapy.
Now they know.
But they still don’t understand.
I’m glad you said something. Say more if you dare. They’re really all in the 1950s over there when it comes to anything psychological. I had to explain to my friend’s family members that their former daughter-in-law was bipolar and that’s why things didn’t work out in the marriage. They just didn’t get it. They kept thinking it was just something she’d get past. They have virtually no information on it because the approach to medicine over there is so holistic (which is good, but… kind of doesn’t apply there).
There isn’t any reason to say any more, and I’m not sure if I should have said anything in the first place. It’s just too complex for them to understand.
Good on ya for when asked saying you go. It would have been easy to keep head down and bite tongue. You wouldn’t even need to argue why or why not. That practice sits as a counterpoint to their talking.
When someone’s mind took years to get to one idea, the journey to go to another idea won’t be by transporter beam to another point of view.
I don’t even think it took years to get such ideas, it’s just the result of being born into a culture that doesn’t understand psychology, as Xibee says. And that probably makes it even harder for them to change their opinions about it.
each person is born without knowledge and encultured into ways of thinking about something according to the people they know. the first in-the-flesh gay person, other-colored-person, divorcee, person who bucks trend and does nonsense of running for fun, or has funny diet ideas, or whatever is new to someone’s experience. It takes a while for the weird way to weight an idea to wear off. Exposure to someone for who it is normal can do that. Whether the momentum of the culture norms it or not.
Pearl, I can totally understand your feeling that the breach of a new idea needs to happen; but what you run into in Asian culture is that elders particularly don’t accept anyone younger knowing more than they do. And when you’re a family member it’s doubly difficult. I’ve found the only way is to keep living (rather than saying) the idea.
I’d have to agree with this assessment. Part of the great thing about Chinese culture is the way elders are treated and respected, but sometimes, this is too blind, and goes too far.