'It's a toxic relationship', 'they are so insecure', 'that's so co-dependent', 'you have to have more boundaries'. The language of psychotherapy has seeped into everyday conversations. Once confined to the therapy room, words such as 'insecure', 'toxic relationship', 'boundaries' and 'co-dependent' have become commonplace during discussions about all kinds of relationships: romantic, work-based, parent-child relationships and, of course, friendships.
The journal article 'Friendship, Intimacy, and the Contradictions of Therapy Culture' by Laura Eramian, Peter Mallory and Morgan Herbert elucidates this and more. Published in the Journal of Cultural Sociology, it articulates the tensions that I've been navigating– haphazardly– ever since I became 'a person with serious mental health problems'.
The kinds of questions that swim through my mind as 'a person with serious mental health problems' are:
How much can I say about my experience to people I love?
How much can others cope with hearing?
What is a safe amount of honesty and what topics are off-limits right now?
How can I live honestly and authentically with the above in mind?
How do I know where the boundaries are when I'm always in unchartered emotional territory; when I have few (zero?) role models?
Will someone tell me if I've crossed a boundary (or am I doomed to ruminate eternally, in a state of constant hypervigilance, about whether I've socially transgressed?)
In 'Friendship, Intimacy, and the Contradictions of Therapy Culture', the authors argue that 'therapy culture increasingly constitutes the dominant moral languages through which people orient to friendship'. The article also explores how therapeutic concepts function as 'cultural capital', connections between therapeutic culture and wider political culture and how accounts of friendship have changed since the mid-20th-century. (I don't have time to summarise it all here, but if you're interested the full article is currently open access.)
The authors describe that therapeutic ideals, words and idioms are no longer solely reserved for use by therapists and individuals engaging in therapy. In addition, they argue that these 'moral languages' of therapy culture are also, crucially, used to define what individuals 'value in friendship' and what they might find 'troublesome' about it. People are evaluating the dynamics and workings of their friendships using therapeutic language.
The authors describe that these 'dominant moral languages' create tensions sometimes, namely a push and pull between friends choosing to speak about facets of their inner lives or choosing to stay silent. Naturally, this intrigued me.
I've written and publicly spoken so extensively– relentlessly– on the themes of silence and speaking, shame and honesty, disconnection and connection that they have, arguably, become the central themes of my writing and my work. Amongst some of the most important of my life perhaps.
My sketchbooks from adolescence are crawling with drawings of people and animals who were unable to speak. My poetry from my twenties is brimming with birds with broken beaks, people who can't say 'taboo to a goose' and girls with their mouths sewn shut.
Since childhood I've experienced episodic jaw pain which I know is psychosomatic. Even my phobias, which I don't share publicly, could probably be seen as translations of these themes. My work as a teacher is no coincidence either.
The authors explain that:
On the one hand, therapy culture encourages people to seek out friends to whom they can disclose their most intimate feelings and experiences – friends who will offer support, understanding, and validation. On the other hand, therapy culture equally cautions that one must maintain ‘boundaries’ to protect oneself from friends’ personal revelations or ‘traumas.’
Whilst I negotiate this tension with far more confidence than I did in the past– a stormy sea makes a skilled sailor!– friendships still feel complicated for me at times. I have a need for honesty but also a desire to not make others feel uncomfortable or compromised in any way by what I say.
There are few maps for navigating adult friendships, but especially so for people like me. By people like me I mean people who sometimes feel like their very existence is a transgression: sobbing on the floor of a train station, panic attacks on the bus, saying things in throes of anxiety that nobody would ever say when calm, sending messages in hypomanic impulsive moments that nobody would ever send when on an even keel. In other words, people who feel that they are asking too much of the world simply for spilling their unruly emotions: see me, don't fear me, believe me, let me feel all the things I feel.
'Friendship, Intimacy, and the Contradictions of Therapy Culture' articulates:
[O]ne reason modern friendship can be difficult is that divulging one’s intimate feelings or experiences to a friend can be interpreted as either building intimacy or burdening others with one’s problems, or crucially, both at the same time.
As a person with a diagnosis semantically tied to a boundary– borderline!– I can't help but feel like I tread two sides of a tightrope. It makes sense to me when the authors describe 'modern day friendship' as involving both 'intimacy' and 'burdening' simultaneously. The 'encouragement' and the 'caution' both feel electrifyingly real for me. And I don't always know which is which.
This week I read Hanna Kiener's article '20 Ways to Neuroqueer Friendship' on her 'Purposeful Connection' Substack. The article hit me like a blow to the chest. It complemented my reading of 'Friendship, Intimacy, and the Contradictions of Therapy Culture'.
Kiener's article reifies friendship dynamics and workings which previously felt too abstract for me to put words to. She borrows the words of Nick Walker– psychologist and author of Neuroqueer Heresies– on 'neuroqueering' inviting her readers to '[R]eclaim your capacity to give more full expression to your uniquely weird potentials and inclinations'.
Ooh. Don't mind if I do, thank you. 'Reclaim'. Own. Take hold of them. I need more of that in my life because I often feel ashamed of my 'weird potentials and inclinations'.
I'm talking about my desire for in-depth introspective conversations about somewhat niche and nerdy topics. My struggle to feel like anything other than the last interaction I have with someone is the barometer of the entire relationship. My intense anxiety about 'oversharing' (even though I think that word is a horribly judgemental word and I wish it would get out of the dictionary). The shame and embarrassment I feel when I talk about my life.
My unique friendship with my much-loved friend– artist, researcher and all around gem of a human Kathryn. She gives me one of the most mutually-supportive and fulfilling relationships of my entire life. We met on Twitter many moons ago and brought our friendship off the internet into the tangible, endlessly delicious world of coffee and cake. Our relationship was forged in shared understanding of life with similar mental health problems and took on its own wings until it became a fully-fledged friendship in multiple ways.
For a while, I've felt that I 'do' my relationships (all kinds of relationships) a bit differently, but struggled to pin down what I was doing that was 'a bit different'. Maybe it's no wonder that one of my all-time favourite TV shows is Catfish. I can't help but love watching people's deep-seated, entirely human needs for connection and acceptance–and the lengths some individuals will go to to get these emotional needs met– play out on screen.
It made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside to read '20 Ways to Neuroqueer Friendship'. It made me feel like maybe it's okay after all to 'do' my friendships and relationships 'a bit differently'. The follow from her list resonated particularly with me, either as things I currently do or things I wish I could do:
'Value asynchronous friendships.' (I do this)
'Rethink friendship types. Instead of friendship types based on social interactions (work friend, gym buddy), embrace neurodivergent friendship types like Interest-Based Friends, Transactional Friends, Emotional Safety Friends, Routine Friends, Long-Distance Friends, etc.' (I do this).
'Celebrate interests: Share each other’s passions, even if it’s just by listening or asking questions. This also includes embracing neurodivergent communication norms. For example, it’s okay to share from your own experience or share a connection you’ve drawn to your own special interest.' (I do this)
'Ask for clarity instead of trying to rely on social cues.' (I wish I could do more of this, it would make my life so much easier. I don't often feel able to though.)
'Unmask. Show more of yourself, be weird, intense, unpredictable, and inconsistent. Be courageous and if you’re lucky, you’ll find someone who thinks those are some of your best qualities.' (I do this, but with all bar one or two friends it scares me).
'Giving each other grace.[...] We need to build trust with each other and that takes time. That also means making mistakes and repairing any breaks.' (I wish I could have more of this. Maybe my friendships have this potential, but I don't know.)
This last one feels particularly important to me this weekend. It's been a lot.
I'm going to leave this post here for now. Do you relate? What do think about the ideas in this post? I would love to hear from you.
Rosie x
References
'Friendship, Intimacy, and the Contradictions of Therapy Culture' Laura Eramian, Peter Mallory, and Morgan Herbert, Volume 18, Issue 4, Journal of Cultural Sociology
Hanna Kiener '20 Ways to Neuroqueer Friendship' on 'Purposeful Connection' on Substack
Nick Walker, Neuroqueer Heresies: Notes on the Neurodiversity Paradigm, Autistic Empowerment, and Postnormal Possibilities, Autonomous Press, 2021.