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Thirteen Things Right Now
Composting vs. purifying, bears eating fish all day, a really good book, are we already over boundaries before we even got them, solitude as a superower, loneliness as a mental illness, engaging vs. numbing, weight health vs. weight loss, a good Netflix show.
The Brooks Falls live feed of brown bears catching fish all day is back
- ‘s book, The Bigger Picture: How Psychedelics Can Help Us Make Sense of the World, which I read in three days (a wild speed for this kind of non-fiction). Though it’s absolutely a book on psychedelics, which I think feels incredibly niche to some, I found it to be one of the best books I’ve read in a while on navigating current culture/this time in history. I couldn’t recommend it more.
Boundaries boundaries boundaries. By now, I’m assuming you know that therapy evangelist Johah Hill allegedly sent text messages to his (then- now ex-)girlfriend where he used therapy speak in an obviously controlling and abusive manner (for instance, he invoked his boundaries being crossed by her wearing of bikinis). Since, there’s been a tsunami of response by the media and everyone else — many op-eds, posts, articles (here, here, here, here, everywhere).
Most of what I’ve read on it has oriented around a theme everyone’s already been discussing for a while, which is how therapy-speak, or the invocation of therapeutic concepts into everyday conversation, is problematic. (I’ve written about this a little bit here.)
As someone who absolutely agrees that therapy speak is so ubiquitous and upon us it’s rendered certain terms meaningless and/or exhausting, this swinging to the other side of the pendulum — where we all agree therapy speak has gone too far and all resources dedicated to the establishment and upholding of boundaries are now silly and overreaching and Nedra Tawwab or Melissa Urban are painted as some reductive opportunists capitalizing on a moment — has me reacting in the opposite direction, especially after reading this piece on boundaries (which was great in places).
One of my favorite developmental models, the Loevinger scales, indicates that boundaries come only after the stage/level of conformity — typically during the level of self-awareness (where we start to question norms and develop more nuanced conceptions of ourselves) or even later, during the stage of conscientiousness. Applied singularly, a person learning the term boundaries but not actually having reached the level of maturity to embody boundaries (someone moving from conformity to conscientiousness) might do what a lot of us are doing, which is use the word excessively, incorrectly, and in a way that works to reinforce/defend less developed behaviors or stages of awareness. We learn the words before we embody them, and we embody them once we’ve had enough experience and integration. In my own personal experience, I have used words I have not yet embodied as a means to uphold, protect and excuse more immature beliefs and practices. I still do.
My point is, of course Jonah Hill used a therapeutic term to gaslight, oppress and control another individual — that’s half the history of mental illness and addiction treatment, the American medical system, and also how half of my dates with men in recovery end. It’s not a surprise that a man with that much wealth, influence and fame — even if he did that documentary on therapy — did something that fucked up. My bigger point is, perhaps the therapy-speak or boundary zeitgeist isn’t a sign that things have gone wayward, maybe it’s more of an indicator of where we are collectively are in our general development, using the fancy words before we know what they actually mean.
Related: A talk that I thoroughly enjoyed on the urgency of planetary and social change to heal the mental health crisis (to be sure, it is long and at times felt reductive and groaning, but if you’re into this kind of thing, it’s a treat).
Related: That we live in a time where there are ministers of loneliness, borax tonics, gourmet water bars, a store called Sporty and Rich [that people will covet owning things from and aspire to the image it projects!] IN THIS CLIMATE feels wild. I’ve plugged Rina’s newsletter a few times for good reason: because there is something so revelatory (and almost relieving) to see all this bullshit rounded up and stacked together, week after week.
The Black Mirror season 6 finale, Demon 79, was terrible and perfect
I haven’t written about relationships in a long time (though I have been working on an unwritable essay titled Calling in the None about the narrative of partnership as the one legitimate reward and visible marker of success for the terminally single lady who has done the right kind of healing), but it’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot the past six months as I’ve navigated for the first time in a mostly single decade a dominant feeling of flourishing and abundance in solitude vs. a feeling of lack or deficiency or pathology, which brings me to: Louisa May Alcott on the creative rewards of being single (which like any good Maria Popova article, takes you down a rabbit hole to everything ever said on the subject, like this.)
“I do see this as the end of diet culture. The focus has shifted from weight loss to weight health…I want to be clear that the way you achieve it is through weight loss.” The CEO of Weight Watchers, who recently acquired a telehealth startup that allows it to prescribe drugs like Ozempic, saying the end of diet culture is nigh, because we are now focused on weight health and not weight loss, which is achieved through weight loss.
“After decades of needing to look away from myself and the world more often than not in order to simply live, I now know I feel most alive when I look straight at everything.” Lisa Olivera on looking directly at the pain. I felt this piece so, so much because like Lisa — who often writes what’s in my very heart — I have had to spend the last few years looking away/numbing/escaping/sleeping/etc., which felt so necessary, and now feels not only unnecessary but painful. I finally want to see it all and feel it all and be here for it all, and that’s, I think, only because the opposite was true. As a reminder: It is okay to look away. It’s okay to numb. It’s okay to escape. It’s okay to stay asleep. It’s not a morally or spiritually or psychologically superior position to engage directly with the difficult or impossible or excruciating. We have to trust ourselves to know what the right thing is.
Taylor Gage on how limits beget freedom: “It is the ending of all that is good and precious in our lives that make any of it Good, at all.”
Four tick bites and counting this year. The fourth one is currently in me, and it’s become so normalized to have a bloodsucking parasite attached to me that may or may not transmit a debilitating chronic illness that I actually am sending this prior to going to urgent care.
Still absolutely enthralled with lazy anything
Recommendation of the week:
I will not be purified by Sophie Strand. I’ve shared this here before, but then I met her this week at a friend’s for dinner which brought me back to its genius — very much worth the listen or watch.
Question:
I’m working on a podcast with an addiction psychiatrist who researches the intersection of hormones, alcohol, addiction, and recovery — Dr. Schmidt will be answering questions about how hormones impact recovery from addiction (to alcohol mostly). If you have a question you want answered, please put it in the comments below.
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Love your honesty as always! Lyme disease damn near ruined my life! Definitely was part of the reason I ended up becoming addicted to alcohol (drinking due to physical discomfort). 10 specialists told me I didn't have it. Hopefully the testing and Dr.'s knowledge has improved but doubtful. Please insist on Doxycycline even if the test is negative or inconclusive.
Snort laughed about “No Barbie in here” :-D Xoxo you’re the best.