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"The Therapist Will Think I'm A Whiny Asshole!"
I've heard it said on numerous occasions that if one were to take a shit and not turn around and look at their turds before flushing, this is a clear indication that person is a psychopath. I'm not sure which giant of the psychological community first posited this flawless mental health diagnostic tool (Carl Jung perhaps? A random kid in my gym class?), but I'm pretty sure you won't find it in the DSM.
Still, it's hard to escape the idea that there are simple markers that would tell an expert I'm worthless. I imagined my hypothetical therapist recoiling in horror at every single thing I said. "Wow, that dude is way fucked up. What an asshole." Obviously it's a very bad therapist who would do that, but more importantly, it wouldn't matter if they did.
Jean Paul Sartre famously wrote in his famously misinterpreted play No Exit that "Hell is other people." The idea is that our perception of ourselves comes from how we think other people must see us. Think of it this way: If you were all alone in the Universe and had no image or concept of how you appeared or were regarded, would you still excuse yourself after you farted? Would you still wear a T-shirt in the swimming pool? Or wear a shirt at all? Would you eat with utensils? Would you comb your hair?
No. Everything we do, we do because we are capable of imagining ourselves through the eyes of other people. The problem is that our worst internal thoughts don't get exposed to others, so there's never that feedback system to give us a clear picture of what's going on. This is why people can follow the exact same cycle of anxiety-driven behaviors for years without recognizing it's even a pattern.
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