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I recently began publishing on Substack,
and this is the Welcome I posted there.
Come follow me.
https://substack.com/@stevehauptman
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Welcome to Monkeytraps
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My name is Steve, and there’s someone else
you should meet before we go any further.
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His name is Bert.
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Bert is my inner monkey — the part of me
that worries constantly, avoids feelings, replays
conversations at 2 am, and is absolutely convinced
that if he just thinks hard enough, plans carefully
enough, and controls enough of what happens
around him, everything will finally be okay.
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He’s been with me for seventy years. I only
started noticing him about ten years ago.
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He did not appreciate that.
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He prefers to remain unnoticed.
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If you’re in therapy, or in recovery, or just
quietly exhausted by the effort it takes to
manage everything, then you probably
have a Bert too.
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Maybe yours is louder. Maybe quieter.
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Maybe yours shows up as people-pleasing,
or rage, or a to-do list that never ends, or
a glass of wine at the end of every day
because that’s the only thing that makes
the noise stop.
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Whatever form it takes, I’d guess you
recognize the feeling underneath it:
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I need to get this under control.
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That feeling is what Monkeytraps is about.
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I’m a therapist who spent thirty-plus
years sitting with people in pain,
and who slowly came to believe
that nearly everything they bring
into therapy — anxiety, depression,
frustrating relationships, broken
communication, addiction,
the chronic low-grade sense that
something is wrong with us —
has a common root:
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We are addicted to control.
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I’m not talking metaphorically here.
We’re addicted in the same way
someone is addicted to alcohol or
drugs or food or work: we chase it
compulsively, automatically,
mostly unconsciously, and with
the absolute conviction that we
can’t survive without it.
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I wrote a book about this called
Monkeytraps.
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Here I plan to continue
thinking out loud about what I found,
and keep finding, in my clients,
in myself, and in the ordinary disasters
of being human.
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What you’ll find here
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Essays — longer pieces that follow an
idea somewhere uncomfortable. Personal,
clinical, occasionally funny.
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Bert’s Therapy — a serialized comic strip
following Bert’s reluctant, resistant progress
through psychotherapy. He arrives weekly,
grumpy and skeptical, slowly beginning to
understand himself. Despite his best efforts.
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In the Dark — sequential image pieces that
enact the experience of monkeymind in real time.
These appear twice a month on Saturdays.
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Bert’s Life — single images containing one
idea, fully rendered. These show up in your
Notes feed, along with brief daily thoughts
on control, recovery, and what it means
to be human.
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Everything here is free. All I ask is that if
something lands, you share it with someone
who might need it.
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And if you want to know whether this is
the right place for you, try this:
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Think of something you’ve been trying to
fix — about yourself, about someone you
love, about a situation that won’t resolve.
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Notice how long you’ve been trying.
Notice how much energy it takes. Notice
whether it’s working.
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If something in you just got a little uncomfortable
— welcome.
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You’re in the right place.
Subscribe below, and I’ll show up in
your inbox. Bert will try to talk me
out of it. It’s a thing he does.
