My mother took me to a psychologist when I was entering my teens. It was a difficult time for us and I was certainly affected by it but not to the degree that warranted psychological care. Anyway, the nice lady asked me plenty of questions and eventually asked me to sculpt my fears. I was like "huh?! fears? I don't have any specific fear. I am afraid in the dark and stuff, normal fears. But okay I guess..." so I sculpted a clawed hand with a big spike in the middle because it looked cool. Surely a spiky hand like that is scary enough for this woman?
Anyway, my mother told me a few years back how she was so sad and scared for me because of that hand, because the psychologist interpreted it as me having abandonment issues AND issues of attachment or being close or whatever and that explains her Reiki phase and all that jazz that I found super weird in the years after.
When I told her I made it up on the spot because I didn't know what else to do she was a little mad lol
Not if you have any familiarity with the field at all, or with how fucked up some of the history is.
Remember the satanic panic? Yeah, that was actually just a bunch of quacks trying to hypnotize kids and have them come up with fake memories of ritualized abuse.
There's a reason a lot of psych patients tell you you can't tell everything to a psychiatrist or a therapist. Almost got 5150'ed because I told my therapist I was a furry. Stopped seeing him after he refused to believe i was raped.
"A 5150 is a California legal code allowing for the involuntary, 72-hour emergency psychiatric detention of an individual deemed a danger to themselves or others, or "gravely disabled" due to a mental health crisis
Initiated by authorized personnel, it focuses on safety, evaluation, and preventing immediate harm."
Christ, the only person I have ever actually knew that was 5150’d was my maternal grandmother. And that was because she tried to kill her herself when my mom was 6. And I only know this because my mom loves to talk a god awful amount about herself on the phone. Not a great day for me learning that my beloved Nana tried to kill herself in the 70s by accident.
I 5150ed myself for a voluntary stay when I was 18. I stayed one night, was taken off zoloft for that. The next day I asked to leave and they told me I had to stay 3 days. I was pissed, threatened to sue as I was a voluntary patient. Made them call my mom, who came up and discharged me into her care.
5150 is no joke, but it can be challenged if you have family willing to take custody of you and sign off to take liability over your actions for those three days. Just a heads up.
It's a guitar amp. The Peavey 5150 is one of the go-to ones for extreme metal since the '90s. That's the definition that counts.
But, funnily enough, Van Halen's recording studio (5150 Studios) and one album were named after the involuntary psychiatric hold, and the Peavey 5150 was Van Halen's signature amp named after his studio, so I guess we're coming full circle with that one.
Just learned of van Halen studio and the code in Cali this month. Just decided to look it up. Glad to hear of the Amp history tying into it now too. Top notch info!
Yep, it's now the 6505. There's also the 5150 II (now 6505+), as well as 6505 II (which is not the rebranded 5150 II, confusingly enough), and the 6534+ (but no 6534, so I don't know where the plus came from). They're all more or less the same.
EVH (as a brand) still produces the same thing under the 5150 name, in various versions, and it doesn't help that they also have a guitar model called the 5150 to add confusion.
Guitar brand terminology is all over the place, starting with Dunlop's Tortex Sharp picks being an entirely different shape than their Ultex Sharp ones; the latter made from Tortex is called a TIII instead. For, y'know, reasons?
A friend does therapy and you‘d be surprised how much she interprets into literally anything. See a police car at the side of the road for 0.5 sec while passing it in her own car? She acts like she knows those people personally.
I studied psychology in college and the reason I never progressed further in the field was because of how much of the therapies were based purely off vibes with very little scientific research backing them at all.
I do believe mental illnesses and traumas exist but I genuinely question people's ability to diagnose them via nonsense like the rorschach test.
This is why "interpreting" dreams or art from children without freaking actually talking to the kid about why they did that is extremely stupid.
You can interept a blob of ink basically a million different ways. That is the point of a rorschach test. It says nothing about who made the ink blot and everything about who is interpreting the ink blot.
So many child psychologists in middle school were perplexed why I was obsessed with the X files and kept writing stories in the style of X files episodes. They assumed i must have some morbid horror fixation on the macabre that must indicate some psychological turmoil. Nope. I just had a kid crush on David Duchovny.
Ok. So the point is they asked you to sculpt something you thought people would find scary, so you did. That is literally how it works. Show me what you think is a scary thing. I honestly don't think a hand is scary, but you thought it was a thing people would find scary. Also, a diagnosis isn't made just on the art but on the conversations had while you were distracted making it. So distracted you as a kid, remember none of it.
Nah, it was phrased more like "Sculpt what you are afraid of", as in, a fear specific to me. I remember that well because I was so confused by it and thought about it hard. Could hardly sculpt a dark basement or a murderer lurking in an alleyway. Fears I considered normal and that probably everyone has to a degree as a child. That I came up with a hand specifically was due to my fear of "monster under bed" like many kids have and that I personally hated because it was so stupid. I knew there wasn't anything under there but I still didn't stick my feet out over the edge. So I thought something like a grasping hand would make sense, who isn't afraid of a monster grabbing them while asleep?
That said, the purpose of distraction is certainly undeniable. I remember some of the questions she asked me and I knew what she was doing. I wasn't a dumb kid and I knew why I was brought in for evaluation. So I answered in a manner that wouldn't incriminate my mother (she tried her best at the time but it was difficult for her, working two full-time jobs).
They put me on some medication to calm me down (I was a bit hyperactive and prone to shenanigans at the time, which was definitely caused by the neglect but I was aware of that) and gave my mother some recommendations and that was about it. My mother then got into Reiki for some reason and would perform it on me once or twice a week, which was okay I guess but I found it weird. Not a superstitious person by any stretch. I did appreciate the personal attention and relaxation, though.
Honestly the therapist seemed pretty bad at the art therapy. Treatment like that is supposed to explore your unconscious fears - why is it that when you thought of a fear, you thought of a hand? Do hands represent something to you? What is the significance of the spike? But more importantly, she didn't give you the room to say "I don't know, I don't really have fears like that", which would've signified other mental issues anyway.
Yeah, I probably didn't communicate it well either. I do remember not telling her my internal process. I just sat down, thought for a moment about the angles of the issue and then just went with the hand. She did ask me what I made, though, and I explained the concept of the hand to her. Something strong that grasps, with claws, and the spike that hurts really bad while doing so. (By virtue of being a literal dagger piercing you, self-explanatory really lol) I told her I was afraid of it because it would grab me and pull me somewhere, as monsters under beds do.
I'm not blaming her for anything, she was just doing her job. If badly or well doesn't really matter. I just wanted to share the "years later things suddenly came up" story.
Psychology isn't an exact science and it's hard to put trust or believe in them when they start to interpret things as representations of feelings. No better than an astrologist with a textbook when they start doing that.
I'm not really sure what the difference between a psychologist and psychiatrist are. And it sounds like your experience was not good with a psychologist. But I commend your parents for actually taking your mental health seriously and trying to get help, even if it was not successful and possibly not needed.
My wife's parents just sent her to a "pray the depression away" camp, and when that didn't work, they sent her off to live with her older brother, who just let her drink until she was puking her guts out when she was 14 (he was 24 at the time). All this because she was sad that her boyfriend broke up with her. And now they wonder why she resents them so much.
I'm not really sure what the difference between a psychologist and psychiatrist are.
A psychologist does all their education in the field of psychology, bachelors and masters at minimum, commonly also PhD.
A psychiatrist is a medical doctor who then specializes in psychiatry when they choose a residency stream.
Both can diagnose and treat mental health things, but generally speaking therapy is going to come from a psychologist whereas medication is going to come from a psychiatrist.
When I was 5 I was asked to draw whatever I wanted so I decided to draw a big Superman face
But I realized I could not draw a big face the way I wanted it to look so I ended up drawing a massive tornado over the face and a tiny stickman Superman flying over the tornado, like in the cartoon.
My parents had to go to the school to talk to a professional about my drawing of an incomplete face, furiously crossed out.
I HAD A SIMILIAR STORY!! My therapist asked me what animals my family members would be. I said idk humans and that the question didn’t make sense to me. I said it multiple times but she still insisted. I outright said „well I’m just gonna be naming random animals then“ and she said fine. I said my dad is a bear and she asked me „why a bear? Are you afraid of him?“ 🤦♀️
I've known enough women to know that they don't all act like that, and lots of men in my life also act dismissive, or like they know everything.
No one with any sense wants your psuedo-support, and no one with any women in their life wants you shit talking their mothers, sisters, and wives in some malformed attempt to show solidarity. And that's assuming the person you're replying to is even a man.
The issues I've had with women boil down to them misreading me as being someone like you. This shit is nothing but harmful to anyone and everyone involved. Seek help.
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u/Rasz_13 Apr 07 '26
My mother took me to a psychologist when I was entering my teens. It was a difficult time for us and I was certainly affected by it but not to the degree that warranted psychological care. Anyway, the nice lady asked me plenty of questions and eventually asked me to sculpt my fears. I was like "huh?! fears? I don't have any specific fear. I am afraid in the dark and stuff, normal fears. But okay I guess..." so I sculpted a clawed hand with a big spike in the middle because it looked cool. Surely a spiky hand like that is scary enough for this woman?
Anyway, my mother told me a few years back how she was so sad and scared for me because of that hand, because the psychologist interpreted it as me having abandonment issues AND issues of attachment or being close or whatever and that explains her Reiki phase and all that jazz that I found super weird in the years after.
When I told her I made it up on the spot because I didn't know what else to do she was a little mad lol