Twelve doors
Twelve conversations I have most often
Different men, different weeks, and the same handful of situations. Find the one that sounds like your house.
These aren't real clients. They're the twelve conversations I have most often.
Nobody calls a counselor because of a diagnosis. They call because of a Tuesday. So instead of a list of conditions, here are the twelve situations men actually arrive with, written out the way they get described to me.
Read the one that fits. If two of them fit, that is normal, and it is usually the same problem wearing two coats. The clinical words are on each page, further down, where they belong.
- Mark
“I got asked how I was doing. I said fine. Then somebody asked if fine was good enough, and I couldn't breathe.”
You said fine because fine has worked so far - Ray
“I was tired of feeling like an idiot in my marriage. Always apologizing, telling her she was right and I'd try harder. Or blowing up and not knowing why. I just wanted to feel like a grown-ass man in my own house.”
Apologize, or blow up. There is a third option - Dale
“My dad had a temper. I swore I'd never be him. Then I watched my kid flinch.”
You saw it. That is the part you cannot undo - Wes
“My dad died two years ago. I handled it. Everybody said so.”
You handled it. That is not the same as being done - Curt
“It is two, sometimes three. It is not a problem. I just noticed I start thinking about it around four in the afternoon.”
The question is not how much. It is what the drink is doing - Nolan
“The last one moved out in August. We ate dinner on Tuesday and I could hear the clock. Nineteen years and I don't know what we talk about.”
The house got quiet and you could hear what was already there - Glenn
“They gave it to somebody I trained. I congratulated him and meant it, and then I sat in my truck in the parking lot for twenty minutes.”
The title went somewhere else and the floor went with it - Tom
“It was his sentence. Word for word, same tone. And my daughter's face did the thing my face used to do.”
You heard him come out of your mouth - Vic
“I'm fine all day. Then the lights go off and my head starts its meeting. Same agenda. Every night.”
You function all day. Then the lights go off - Hank
“Something happened a long time ago. I dealt with it at the time. I have never said it out loud.”
You handled it at the time. It is still steering - Russ
“Thirty-one years. Everybody shook my hand. Now it's Tuesday and there is nothing in it.”
Thirty-one years of being the one who handles it. Then Tuesday - Eli
“I said yes again. Then I slammed a cabinet door at my wife, who had nothing to do with any of it.”
You said yes again, and it came out sideways at home