Comedian, musician, host of Chris Crofton's Advice King Podcast and former Nashvillian Chris Crofton asked the Scene for an advice column, so we gave him one. Crowning himself the “Advice King,” Crofton will share his hard-won wisdom with whosoever seeks it. Follow Crofton on Facebook and Twitter, and to submit a question for the Advice King, email bestofbread[at]gmail[dot]com or editor[at]nashvillescene[dot]com.
Dear Advice King,I’ve tried everything I can think of to deal with my stress and anxiety. I can’t seem to figure out a way to feel good. I have never been to a therapist, because I was raised to believe that therapy was only for weak and insane people. I’m at my wits' end! Should I try therapy?
—Crazy in Alabama
You can yell all you want, Randy, but YOU are the reason the Jet Ski doesn’t work anymore. It’s not Lenore’s fault.
How did I do? I’m still doing that thing where I try to answer the question without reading it.
Fuck! This question has nothing to do with personal watercraft, and there’s no one named Lenore in it.
I encourage you to try therapy, “Crazy.” Everybody is “crazy,” by the way. Human existence is a recipe for madness. In the end, we all die. If that doesn’t make you slightly anxious, you are a moron.
Therapy is a service humans provide for other humans. One human (the therapist) listens to another human (the client) talk in exchange for money. The therapist offers advice to the client, because that’s part of the service. And that’s it! In case you are confused, here are some other examples of services: shoe repair, haircutting, pest control and dance lessons.
So why are people so reluctant to go to therapy, but not reluctant to get their shoes repaired? Here are a couple of reasons.
1) Parents. Parents often discourage their children from seeing therapists. It’s because those parents’ parents discouraged THEM from seeing a therapist. THOSE parents’ parents definitely discouraged THEM from seeing a therapist, because it was like 1910, and coal mines outnumbered therapists 5 million to one. Before that, nobody encouraged anybody to see a therapist — everybody died of consumption before they could even get their shoes repaired.
Parents hate therapy because they are pretty sure that THEY are the ones that fucked up their kids, and they are terrified that if their kids go to therapy they might figure this out and turn on them. Without therapy, they hope, the kids will blame themselves for their problems and become alcoholics or something.
2) Capitalism. Capitalism has successfully reduced all the beauty and mystery of human experience to a dreary, simplistic cycle of work and death. An essential component in this reductive process has been to demean introspection. “Thinking too much” was long ago branded a sign of weakness, rather than a sign of intelligence and humanity. When psychotherapy began to gain popularity in America, capitalist bullies called therapists “shrinks” — short for “headshrinkers.” The intent was to associate mental health care with Voodoo, i.e. something “crazy.”
Corporate advertising made — and makes — it perfectly clear what behaviors are acceptable and “normal” in capitalist America: working, buying shit, driving, buying shit, drinking alcohol, buying shit, dying and buying shit. Well-adjusted people spend less money.
Don’t listen to your parents, and don’t let yourself be bullied by the capitalists. Go to a therapist. It’s fun!
One more thing. There are good therapists and bad therapists, just like there are good barbers and bad barbers. If you don’t vibe with your therapist, find another one! If I talk to one more person who says they “saw a therapist once” and they “didn’t like it” so they never went again — instead deciding to just bitch to their friends for the rest of their (and their friends’, because they have to listen to them bitch) miserable lives — I WILL GO ACTUALLY CRAZY.
When you get a bad haircut, do you just cut your own hair for the rest of your life? If you don’t like your therapist, TRY A DIFFERENT FUCKING THERAPIST. If you are afraid to go to a therapist because you are afraid of what you will find out ... GO FIND IT OUT ANYWAY! WE ONLY GET ONE SHOT AT THIS.
