27-01-2021 Run the dishwasher twice

Eigent­lich wollte ich davon schrei­ben, dass ich heute eine Ent­schei­dung getrof­fen hab für einen der Punkte auf mei­ner Liste, aber das erzähl ich mor­gen, denn mir ist grade auf Twit­ter etwas über den Weg gelau­fen, das ist so gut und wich­tig, dass es hier alleine ste­hen muss. Es hat ganz viel mit mei­ner neuen Erkennt­nis zu tun, dass ich ich bin und nie­man­des Ansprü­chen gerecht wer­den muss, nicht ein­mal mei­nen eige­nen. Weil es nicht darum geht.

Ursprüng­lich ist die Geschichte eine Ant­wort von Katie Scott auf die Frage “Hat ein The­ra­peut dir jemals etwas völ­lig Uner­war­te­tes gesagt?“
Ich kopiere mal das Ori­gi­nal hier her, Über­set­zer wie DeepL fin­den sich ja im Internet.

Run the Dishwasher Twice

When I was at one of my (men­tally) lowest points in life, I couldn’t get out of bed some days. I had no energy or moti­va­tion and was barely get­ting by.

I had the­rapy once per week, and on this par­ti­cu­lar week I didn’t have much to ‘bring’ to the ses­sion. He asked how my week was and I really had not­hing to say.

“What are you strugg­ling with?” he asked.
I ges­tu­red around me and said “I dunno man. Life.”

Not satis­fied with my ans­wer, he said “No, what exactly are you worried about right now? What feels over­whel­ming? When you go home after this ses­sion, what issue will be sta­ring at you?”

I knew the ans­wer, but it was so ridi­cu­lous that I didn’t want to say it.
I wan­ted to have some­thing more sub­stan­tial.
Some­thing more pro­found.

But I didn’t.

So I told him, “Honestly? The dis­hes. It’s stu­pid, I know, but the more I look at them the more I CAN’T do them because I’ll have to scrub them before I put them in the dish­wa­sher, because the dish­wa­sher sucks, and I just can’t stand and scrub the dis­hes.”

I felt like an idiot even say­ing it.

What kind of grown ass woman is undone by a stack of dis­hes? There are peo­ple out there with actual pro­blems, and I’m whi­ning to my the­ra­pist about dis­hes?

But he nod­ded in under­stan­ding and then said:
“Run the dish­wa­sher twice.”

I began to tell him that you’re not sup­po­sed to, but he stop­ped me.

“Why the hell aren’t you sup­po­sed to? If you don’t want to scrub the dis­hes and your dish­wa­sher sucks, run it twice. Run it three times, who cares?! Rules do not exist.”

It blew my mind in a way that I don’t think I can pro­perly express.

That day, I went home and tos­sed my smelly dis­hes hapha­zardly into the dish­wa­sher and ran it three times.
I felt like I had con­que­red a dra­gon.

The next day, I took a shower lying down.
A few days later, I folded my laun­dry and put them whe­re­ver the fuck they fit.

There were no lon­ger arbi­trary rules I had to fol­low, and it gave me the free­dom to make accom­plish­ments again.

Now that I’m in a healt­hier place, I rinse off my dis­hes and put them in the dish­wa­sher pro­perly. I shower stan­ding up. I sort my laun­dry.

But at a time when living was a struggle ins­tead of a bles­sing, I lear­ned an incre­di­bly important les­son:

There are no rules.
Run the dish­wa­sher twice.