Bert arrives
.
(Continued from The Red Thread, part 1.)
.
After the workshop I go back to doing
therapy with clinic clients.
.
Mine is a typical outpatient caseload,
filled with the sorts of problems every
therapist faces: anxiety, depression,
addictions, bad relationships, parenting
problems.
.
But something’s different now.
.
Have you ever bought a new car —
say, a Honda — and take it out on the
road, and wherever you drive you
see other Hondas? Suddenly the
world is filled with Hondas you
never noticed before.
.
This is happening to me. Suddenly
my caseload is filled with control addicts.
.
The clients haven’t changed, I have.
.
It’s like I put on new eyeglasses. My
vision has refocused or sharpened
or something, and now I can’t help
seeing how relentlessly, compulsively
and self-destructively controlling
they all are.
.
They? I mean We.
.
Everyone.
.
Controlling, I find, is the universal
addiction. It’s everywhere I look.
Not just in my codependent clients,
but every client.
.
Not just in clients, but in colleagues,
and friends, and family, and on the
nightly news, and in whatever I read
or watch on tv or in the movies.
.
And, of course, in myself. (I’ve discovered
Bert.)
.
Like a red thread in a carpet, the idea of
control snakes through every problem,
every motive, every personality, every life.
.
Why is this?
.
Originally I’d assumed that dysfunctional
families create codependency. But now I
find the red thread running everywhere,
which must mean either that (a) all families
are dysfunctional (which is arguable) or
(b) the urge to control is hardwired into
us, rooted in some deep part of our brain
that can’t help rejecting what life hands
us and trying to replace it with what
we prefer.
.
Or (c) both. Or (d) something else entirely.
.
I don’t know.
*
I spend the next fifteen years studying
the idea of control.
.
I hunt for books on control (there aren’t
many), then for books on related ideas
like desire and addiction and power.
.
I buy lots of books.
.
I start reading everything with a highlighter
in my hand, scribbling big yellow Cs
alongside the parts that relate to control.
.
Half my books start to look pee-stained.
.
I buy more books. I start typing out control-
related passages I like and collect them
in a computer file which as of today runs
to more than 200 pages.
.
I become interested in Buddhism, which
turns out to be all about control addiction.
(Buddhists call it attachment.)
.
I try meditating. I hate it. Well, not hate it
exactly, but I resist it like hell, to the
point I’m unable to sustain a regular practice.
(Thanks, Bert.)
.
I buy books on discipline. Also more
highlighters.
.
I reshape my approach to therapy
around the idea of control. I teach
my clients to notice when they’re
monkeytrapped and how to escape.
.
I write articles for them about
control addiction and ways to recover
from it. (We teach what we want
to learn.)
.
The therapy seems to work, for some
at least. I am struck by how many
clients tell me, as they become less
controlling, “It’s so much easier.”
.
I decide to write a book.
*
Immediately I get blocked. My
own control addiction prevents
me from writing about addiction
to control. (Thanks again, Bert.)
.
The block lasts for months, then years.
.
I buy books about writing and the
creative process, which turns out to
have lots to do with (surprise)
surrendering control. Some of
the books are wonderful. I learn
a lot.
.
The block persists.
.
But I am able to use what I’m
learning to help my clients,
parent my kids, manage my
marriage, cope with a monkey-
driven culture, and understand
myself a bit better.
.
I’m not always thrilled with
what I learn, or what it shows
me about myself.
.
Still. Better to know
than not know, I figure.
.
I still project and worry, but now the
worrier in me has an Off switch which
actually works, oh, maybe half the time.
.
Unfortunately that half is not the time
I spend writing.
.
I finally start a blog in hopes that daily
writing and feedback from readers will
jump-start the book.
.
I call the blog Monkeytraps.
.
And I ask Bert to help write it.
*
He agrees.
.
So some of my early posts are from Bert’s point of view.
And I find that letting him write changes the writing.
.
Hiding Bert had kept me ashamed of him.
.
It was the shame that was blocking me.
.
Letting him speak was like what happens in
AA meetings when members introduce
themselves by saying, “Hi, my name is X,
and I’m an alcoholic.”
.
Letting Bert speak was my first step
into recovery.
.
Coming soon: Bert Life
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