Psychotherapy isn’t the solution for loneliness

I’m pissed. 

I wish people would stop suggesting I go to psychotherapy — or ask whether I have “someone to support mental health” — when I say I’m lonely. 

This type of response is inappropriate, especially because most of the time it comes from people who have almost all the privileges: mostly non-queer persons, often white, and always in amatonormative relationships. 

I don’t care how well-meaning this type of response is. It is offensive. Offensive and painful. It causes a “second” or even “third arrow” to the pain I already experience. It’s offensive because it only reinforces their privilege(s) and their amatonormativity and thus my painful condition as queer & non-normative person. And I’m sick of it.

No matter how well-meaning the suggestion of seeing a psychotherapist is, in reality it reinforces toxic, normative, and pathologizing attitudes. It sounds — or is supposed to sound — like caring advice but really it stinks of “go get fixed” type of advice or “pay to get what you need” type of solution. 

Love, companionship, community aren’t something you can get by simply paying for them: you can’t get those from a therapist or counselor. 

If I feel lonely because one of my oldest & dearest friends has gone back to Europe and I live by myself and don’t have amatonormative relationships, it is not me who needs to be fixed. It is society that needs to change so that everyone — including people like me, and not only non-queer and/or amatonormative persons — can feel welcome and happy and fulfilled in their relationships. And people who have the privilege to be in situations that lead them to not experience as much loneliness as I do should have the decency to refrain from their normative, narrow-minded advice. Instead, they should learn to understand that solutions to such deep issues do not lie simply within the individual(s) — and especially not within those who are already marginalized and/or oppressed — but within society at large. And they should use their privilege to actively help change society for everyone’s wellbeing.