the paladin paradigm
trigger warning: mentions of self-harm, suicidal ideation
i need to make it a habit to blog immediately after each therapy session, to share about how it went and what i learned. normally, i'd stay after-session at the 24-hour mcdonald's across my therapist's office and journal. but i haven't written down anything for probably a month now, and i have no idea when that's going to change. so for the mean time, here we are.
before we get to the main event, may i just quickly complain about the cursed ride that i had on my way. my therapist's office is around 10 km away from home, which in manila terms should be around 2 hours of travel. the ride that i booked took the worst possible route (i'm not saying it's the driver's fault, it could be waze's), and when he tried to circumvent, we got stuck in traffic right behind three concrete mixers, got rained on for a while, and had to stop for gas twice.
i was a little stressed out when i (barely on time) reached the office1 which made me more nervous than usual. before we started, i had to excuse myself for a sec to take my goodie xanny.
anyway, for this session, i was weirdly put-together despite the crazy month i had since our last session. i was on the verge of breaking my 1 year and 2 months of soberity, had planned to catch the bus, and at one point broke down in public2. i think i'm starting to be a bit more comfortable with dr. j3 that i could freely talk to him almost without filter.
we talked about my reflex to cater to and regulate the emotional needs of those around me all the time, which causes my mental overload, my people-pleasing tendencies, and my allergy in accepting help from others. we digged deeper, assessed possible persons or events that might have (accidentally or not) ingrained this idea to my system from childhood. ultimately, i told him, "it's a bit vain, don't you think? like i have a hero complex."
"honestly, it's more of what i personally call the paladin paradigm," he answered. "someone with a hero complex is happy to be solving everyone's problems. you feel obligated."
he suggested to use the stoplight colors when assessing situations that i feel the need to intervene in.
- green for mostly day to day issues. even if i could provide a more 'efficient' way to solve it, if the world still moves on without my direct intervention, let them solve it on their own
- yellow for things that may be a little more pressing. but it's important to facilitate rather than solve it myself. point them to the door, but DO NOT OPEN THE DOOR AND ENTER (or lay out a red carpet and hold their hands and ask, "may i offer you water? wine? juice? coffee? do you want me to die for you because that is an option too.")
- red for critical things that i truly am needed, like emergencies and time-sensitive situations where literally no one else can help
that's all i'm comfortable to share for now, but i hope you can find the stoplight method as a helpful guide for setting boundaries too.
i know i too am at fault here for not going earlier. but in my defense, i have been hyperfixated on my blog since i woke up that it didn't cross my mind to eat lunch↩
i've written about how the last one went. i kind of just forgot about it, but it's already around 90% finished↩
i think in my past mentions of him he was dr. r. but then i remembered my psychiatrist is also a dr. r. so to avoid confusion, we'll use his second name and call him dr. j lol↩