I just started watching the Apple TV show Shrinking, and it is really good so far. I think one of my relatives recommended it to me, and I was excited that Brett Goldstein, who starred as Roy Kent in Ted Lasso, was a writer on Shrinking, so I partly wanted to watch the show because of that.
The show is about a therapist named Jimmy (played by Jason Segel) who is grieving the death of his wife and a strained relationship with his daughter, Alice. He is trying his best as a therapist, but he is experiencing serious burnout, and it seems like his advice doesn't get through to them, so he decides to tell them honestly what he thinks they should do. He himself is struggling with his mental health, and in the first episode we see him drinking and his neighbor has to check on him to make sure he is alright. Alice doesn't want to talk to him, and Jimmy doesn't know how to have a better relationship with her. His colleagues, Paul and Gaby, are doing their best to support him but also, they are tired of him bringing his personal problems to his professional life, and Paul tells him he needs to stop bringing up his own problems because that is not what he is supposed to do as a therapist. Jimmy often gives out advice that seems promising at first but gets him in a lot of trouble. One of his patients, Grace, constantly talks about how her boyfriend talks down to her but thinks her breasts are great, and Jimmy finally gets fed up and tells Grace that her boyfriend is emotionally abusive, and she needs to leave him. Grace is taken aback but she accepts his advice, and she leaves her boyfriend and moves in with her sister. At first, I thought that was the end of it, but then when at Alice's soccer game, Grace's ex-boyfriend approaches Jimmy and attempts to beat him up for telling his girlfriend to leave him. Sean, who is one of Jimmy's patients, ends up beating the shit out of Grace's ex-boyfriend, but then the police arrest him, and he ends up in jail.
I thought Sean and Jimmy's patient-therapist relationship was interesting. Sean has gotten in a lot of trouble over many years for getting into fights and beating people up badly. The first few visits don't go well. Jimmy has to take a phone call during the session, and Sean ends up leaving. But then Jimmy takes Sean to a boxing club so that Sean can work out his anger there, and Sean ends up being pummeled badly by the other boxers. However, Sean had a moment where he did overcome his anger. While walking down the street, someone bumped into him and threatened him, and Sean didn't actually beat him up. He just imagined beating him up and then he walked away from the guy. However, he ends up beating up Grace's ex-boyfriend to defend Jimmy. This reminded me that therapy isn't a one-and-done thing. It's a process and it requires a lot of honest self-reflection. I remember going to therapy for the first time in my junior year of college, and it wasn't a great experience, so I gave up on going to therapy. What that experience taught me, though, is that you can't give up. Even if the therapist isn't a good fit, keep searching. When I got back to my second semester of that year, I really thought I could tough it out and just keep the depression and anxiety to myself, but it was really, really hard and I ended up suffering in silence. I'm glad I had chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo during that time because man, I was about to lose it. After moving back home, I finally got therapy after dealing with a pretty awful depressive episode, and it really helped. It wasn't an overnight thing where I changed my behavior and thinking patterns in one go; it has taken a long time, and it is still an ongoing process. Seeing therapy helped me learn how to deal with stressful situations at work. When I left my job in June 2022, seeing a therapist helped me deal with the stress of finding a new job. Seeing a therapist now is really helping. Again, it's not an overnight magic cure, but I have found therapy a helpful tool to help me work through these personal issues that I had been dealing with. It's easy for me to walk around and pretend like I'm okay, and to keep my problems to myself, but it's helpful to have a professional to talk to so that I don't just have to keep these problems to myself. There were periods where I felt, Oh, I'm better, I don't need therapy, but then some stressful thing would happen, and I would find myself not being able to navigate it, so contacting a therapist has been helpful.
I really appreciate the scene where Alice goes over to Paul's instead of going out drinking with the girls at school. During gym class, Alice's classmate invites her over for drinks under the bridge, where a bunch of teenage girls get drunk under a bridge. Alice doesn't want to go, but she doesn't know what else to do, especially because she can't really relate to the girls at school. At first, Jimmy wants to eat dinner with Alice, but she says she has plans that evening, and he feels hurt. But then his friend asks him out to pickleball that evening and so Jimmy accepts his invitation. Alice picks up chicken sandwiches and goes home to eat dinner with Jimmy, but Jimmy tells her he is going out to play pickleball. At first, I thought Alice was going to decide to go to drinks under the bridge because she wasn't going to get to spend time with her dad, but then she ends up going to Paul's and they eat the sandwiches and watch TV together. This scene reminded me this movie I saw called The Edge of Seventeen because in the movie, Nadine doesn't relate to kids her age and like Alice, she is grieving the death of a parent (Nadine's father died of a heart attack when she was 13) and also doesn't have any true genuine friends, so she often eats lunch with her history teacher, Mr. Bruner. Nadine has depression and often feels alone, but Mr. Bruner ends up being someone she can trust. He doesn't tell her to cheer up or get over her depression, but instead gives her a space where she can talk about what she is going through. He also refuses to bullshit her and often gives her honest advice, even if it's not the advice she wants to hear. Like when she is telling him she is an "old soul" and doesn't relate to her peers, who seem to be focused on social media and acting silly, Mr. Bruner tells her that maybe no one likes her. Growing up I found myself relating to Nadine a lot because I usually gravitated towards older people because I struggled to relate to my peers, but I also began to realize that I wasn't the only 20-something dealing with insecurities. Once I opened up to people about what I was going through, I found a lot of other young people who were struggling with depression, anxiety, insecurities, loneliness and other issues. It is so easy for me to think I'm the only one going through problems and to be honest, it's still hard for me to open up about what I am going through with people because I feel a lot of shame and guilt and worry people are going to judge me, but I've learned that problems are just a part of life and that sometimes talking them out with a trusted friend helps. It may not take lots and lots of friends to form a genuine connection with someone. Sometimes you just need that one person in your life who you can trust and lean on.
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