The Lie That Almost Broke Me: Why I Hated the Idea of Therapy (Until It Saved Me) - Ernest Usher
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We need to talk about the "Strong Silent Type." You know the guy. He handles his business. He doesn’t complain. He bottles it up until he has a heart attack at 55.
We talk a lot about how men deal with internal issues—usually by not dealing with them. I was almost that statistic. I almost let my pride win.
Let me take you back to the sandbox.
The Kuwait Isolation
I deployed to Kuwait for eight or nine months. On paper, I was doing everything right. I was volunteering with the Red Cross, I was active with the USO, and I was showing face. My online presence was solid; if you looked at my social media, you’d think I was thriving.
But in person? I was rotting.
A few months in, the isolation hit like a physical weight. Relationships back home were ending. I was thousands of miles from my family. The silence in my head got louder than the noise on the base. I started retreating into myself. That is when the Self-Doubt crept in. It’s a nasty little voice. It started whispering, "Are you actually good at this? Does anyone actually care? Who are you, really?"
I was surrounded by people, yet I was completely alone. I was sinking, and I refused to grab a life raft because I thought treading water was what "real men" did.
The Controversial Truth: Why We Don't Go
Here is the controversial part: I didn't want to go to therapy because I thought I was better than that. I thought therapy was for "broken" people. I thought admitting I was struggling meant I had failed at being a soldier and a man. We are taught to fix the truck, fix the house, and fix the problem. But when we can't fix our own heads, we feel like frauds. So, we suffer. We let the "deployment" of our minds—whether you are actually overseas or just lonely in your apartment—destroy us.
The Pivot
When I got back from deployment, I made the scariest decision of my life. Scarier than the deployment itself.
I made an appointment.
I found a therapist—an amazing guy—and I sat down. I expected him to tell me I was crazy. Instead, he did something radical: He reaffirmed me.
He didn't treat me like a patient; he treated me like a man who needed a strategy. He gave me a battle plan that saved my life:
The Rule of "Yes": He told me that anytime someone invited me to a social event, I had to say "Yes." No excuses. No "I'm tired." Just go.
Find the Sanctuary: He told me to get my butt back in Church. To find grounding in something bigger than my problems.
Redefine Family: He told me to hang around my friends until they became my family.
The Truth Mandate: He told me to stop faking it. To have honest, hard, truthful conversations with the people I cared about.
Call Out Your Own Problems
Listen to me. I don’t care if you are in a barracks in the Middle East or sitting in a studio apartment in Ohio feeling like the walls are closing in.
If you feel like your life is taking a turn down a road you don't want to travel, pull the emergency brake. Call out your own problems. Look in the mirror and say, "I am not okay, and that is unacceptable to me."
The Challenge
I am a military man. I have endured the desert. I have endured the distance. And I am telling you right now: Therapy is not weakness. It is strategy. If I can walk into that office, sit on that couch, and tell a stranger that I am hurting, so can you.
You want to be better? Then stop trying to be "tough" and start being smart. Take the first step. Say "Yes" to your life again.
Get a copy of this amazing book today! It will help set you FREE!
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