Perhaps its just me but it seems that any friend (or more than friend) I have who has some form of personal “issue” that requires the aid of a “professional” ends up removing most, if not all, contact with me. Now I could take this personally but from my somewhat larger than I care to admit exposure to the art of “shrinks” I know this to not be the case. Inevitably the person undergoing the therapy sessions ends up needing to focus their issues or problems on an external item. This usually is the nearest person to them. Ironically during the pre-therapy time the nearest person or persons also tend to experience the full effect of the individuals traumatic issues. So the end result is that the thanks you receive for supporting and encouraging your friend through their most difficult time in their life is their complete isolation and disassociation from you.
You would think this would be a good reason to avoid anyone who is in therapy. And at least on the surface I would agree. But for anyone that has seen the movie “When a Man Loves a Women” will know, the rewards for sticking around can on the rare occasion be worth it. Its just unfortunate that outside of Hollywood and in real life, the reality is that the majority of cases are going to end up in a somewhat predictable end. The individual in therapy will do the work or complete the “12-steps” and in the process rid themselves of their personal demons and anything that may remind them or even remotely posses the possibility of re-invigorating the formal desires or triggers. Which, inevitably, will be you – the closest, most supportive and encouraging person in their lives. So then we end up be ostracized from the closest person in our lives. All for their betterment. I guess, at times, I wonder if it wouldn’t be better from a personal perspective if we were less supportive of others and more focused on ourselves. In that situation at least it would be less traumatic when the inevitable occurs. As you can simply move what little attention you had for that person originally to another area of your life.
I guess the moral of the story is if you happen to have any friends or more than friends who are in therapy or thinking about entering some form of therapy that you have your own strong and external support network. So when you are eventually isolated from that person you will be able to focus more attention on the other support areas of your life and move on in a less damaged way.
