Skip Navigation

how can I develop a thick skin?

today was supposed to be my first day of therapy and the therapist didn't show up. I'm pissed off. I wasted 2 hours for nothing.

I've sent her a polite message, asking if she's sick and hoping she is well, but in reality I wanted to yell at her. However, if I yell at her, chances are she won't treat me.

Before you suggest to find another therapist, finding a shrink where I live is very difficult and the other ones I contacted have either ignored me or are overbooked. I need therapy and it bothers me to be so dependent on one person.

For those of you who have experienced something similar, how doesn't it bother you?

60 comments
  • Lots of advice here, some of it good, some of it questionable.

    Two things I’ll amplify from other comments: there’s a reason your therapist missed. It’s could be anything from messing up in their calendar app to a pet or a family member being injured it passing unexpectedly. This falls into the “shit happens” category. You’re allowed to be angry, upset, disappointed, or any combination - your time was wasted. There are generally two outcomes - 1) the miss was unintentional or unavoidable or 2) the therapist is unreliable. Until you find out that it’s case 2, recognize that a couple of wasted hours - in the course of your life- is small potatoes (perspective).

    Another is the concept of “agency”. There are things you can affect in your life, in your relationships, and in the world. There are things you cannot. Nobody can force you to allow yourself to ignore the latter. They will always get under your skin. However, if you find yourself dwelling on those items, try and take a step back and identify things in your life you control or which you can alter/adjust. Finding those areas where you have agency allows you to impart your will, to be a positive force in your life trajectory.

    I won’t even begin to tell you this is easy. It is a process and a way of interacting. Here’s an example - recognize your disappointment with your therapist but take the initiative to reschedule. Taking it a step further, the day before your next meeting, confirm the appointment. It can be a text or email - simple, low contact. If you don’t get a response, escalate near the end if the work day (or first thing the morning of the appointment) with a call. These are things you can do to manage your therapist and your collective schedules. Most professionals (I am one fwiw) will not be offended in the least with good (but not excessive) communication. If they are, or if the therapist still flakes out on you - well, we’re back to case (2) above and you’re on the troublesome path of finding a new / another therapist. BUT - you’ve done all you can in your power to make this a success. Recognize your initiative as a positive, personal attribute you will continue to leverage in your life.

    I wish you the best!

  • I think you might be having the wrong takeaway, or at least an unhelpful one.

    The emotions you felt were normal to feel. And I totally understand not wanting to feel that way. But the path forward is learning how to process your emotions in a healthy way (note: this does not mean the same thing as "learn to stuff away your emotions").

    Anger is often a reaction to feeling wronged or misunderstood, it can be helpful once you have calmed down from the initial spurt of anger, to sit with it and try to think about what exactly the reason is you are angry. If this situation had happened to me, my anger would probably have been rooted in feeling rejected/abandoned (this is something I have a particular issue with, so that makes sense). For you, it might be the same, or something entirely different. Figuring out why you felt angry is the first step to being able to process what you're feeling. You can then try to turn whatever your findings are into a plan for the future, should a similar situation happen again, or if applicable, prevent/reduce the likelihood of it happening again.

    In a way, making this exact post you've made is actually you trying to take measures to prevent yourself feeling this way in the future. It's kind of meta, but helpful.

    Others have mentioned that you might broach this topic with your therapist, and I agree. Keep it to how it made you feel, don't say anything about your therapist. "I felt let down when you missed our appointment. I felt ever more helpless because I had no notice. Do you think it would be possible to have some notice in the future, if you must miss or reschedule a session?" that kind of thing. Others also touched on what to do if this is a routine thing for the therapist, and I'll leave that to them.

    I read most of the other comments and I didn't see this sentiment but: genuinely, give yourself props for noticing an issue, and seeking a way to fix it. And, give yourself props for seeking therapy. You are doing the right thing. Today wasn't your fault and you haven't "failed" at the first step. You deserve to feel proud of yourself. Keep going.

  • Rather-than developing a thick-skin,

    which requires enduring progressive hazing, as male-culture realized, oh, millions of years ago...

    instead develop equanimity:

    take-up whichever subset of yoga it is, that heals your metabolism right, see?


    Frawley's "Ayurvedic Healing" helps you identify which metabolism/dosha you are in, and once you've found that ( & you can do the foods-pacifying that metabolism vs foods-aggravating that metabolism experiment, too, using that book's ingredients-list ),

    then you use Frawley & Kozak's "Yoga for Your TYPE" book, to find the subset of yoga asanas suited to your metabolism,

    and you practice those, as a means of getting-past the inner/unconscious obstacles, until yoga becomes a natural habit, then you concentrate on piercing the unconscious-obstacles, while your habit of yoga takes care of which asanas you need, and are doing...


    I've replicated both the undermethylated-DNA treatment & the pyrrol-disorder treatment in William J. Walsh's "Nutrient Power", and verify that they objectively work, but he left-out a couple key informations...

    ( there are 3 epigenetic disorders which underly about 90% of psychiatric-conditions, but the hatred in psychiatry when an Australian researcher gutted "ulcers are a psychiatric-condition" is NOTHING compared with what'd happen if the evidence that Walsh's research is replicable were to pierce authority-based-medicine. The 3rd is overmethylated-DNA.

    He also identified that some people's biology accumulates lead or cadmium, as-in you can have several boys in the same family, in the same house, and 1 of 'em'll be accumulating high blood-lead or high blood-cadmium, and they tend to end up in prison.

    He also identified that there is an opposite-to-pyrrol-disorder with too-high-zinc, instead of too-high-copper, which also creates specific "psychiatric" disorder. )


    I discovered that treating undermethylated-DNA disorder requires enteric-coated SAMe, taken with clear-water ( ZERO carbs or sweeteners of any kind ), 40-ish mins before breakfast.

    Once the nausea hits, then you can eat, but it must get past the stomach, still sealed, for it to work.

    It took 3 months to treat my undermethylated-DNA disorder, & then I discovered what ZERO-stress felt-like, for the 1st time in my life.

    Never imagined anything like that, before...

    It also removed my academic-drive, though, so I didn't continue ( I could have lowered the dosage, instead )

    I've also used Methionine to treat undermethylated-DNA disorder.

    It works, I never had the dosage high-enough, and it took 4 months.

    Each of those I'd done 2x, and all 4 of the experiments produced the same effect.


    Pyrrol-disorder requires arachidonic-acid-precursor, which is why he mentions Evening Primrose Oil, but he doesn't explain that that's why he mentions it.

    ( assuming that people already know that is .. stupid )

    So, the components of pyrrol-disorder treatment are evening-primrose oil, P5P, I think it's called, one of the B-vitamins, & zinc.

    I found that a 50%/50% mix of zinc gluconate & zinc picolinate was best.

    Do NOT use zinc citrate, which hits so fast, that it produces a savage emotional-roller-coaster & can lock one ( who has pyrrol-disorder ) in RAGE intermittently during the 1/2h to 4h after taking the zinc citrate..

    ( that is, itself, a perfect diagnostic for pyrrol-disorder, btw:

    get a person with PTSD-style RAGEs on the P5P & evg primrose oil for a couple of days, then put 'em in a padded room, & give 'em either a zinc citrate or a placebo, & watch & wait...

    IF the placebo doesn't, but the zinc-citrate does, make 'em deranged, then that IS pyrrol-disorder.

    No debate: that is as evidence-based as medicine can be, for anybody who accepts objectivity & scientific-method. )


    Anyways, now I know to use methionine to "take the edge off", whenever life's crushing me, & I supplement zinc, to help my body keep .. saner.

    Mostly I'm using meditations to counter it all, though.


    These work, I cannot test the overmethylated-DNA disorder treatment ( niacinimide & folate ), because I simply don't have that condition.


    May something in this hand you the leverage to keep a more-even keel when life's smashing-you-up...

    This stuff does work for me.

    _ /\ _

60 comments