It Is Trish

Did I learn to ask deeply personal questions when I became a counsellor, or did I become a counsellor so that I could ask deeply personal questions? Yes!

Most of the time, I am so proud of this habit of mine. I will ask people about their experience with menopause (it looms and I want to know!), what it’s going to take for them to leave their not-good relationship, or what their experience of shame was like growing up. Most of the time I find that people like it! “You’re the first person who’s asked me that,” is something I hear not infrequently. And, like, with awe, not annoyance. Rachel said she learned more about her friends three months after introducing me to them than she had learned in the years they’d hung out before I arrived.

BUT IT’S NOT ALWAYS GOOD.

Once a friend of mine told me to stop asking about whether she and her husband wanted kids, because they’d been trying and miscarrying and my questions caused her to spiral for days. DULY NOTED. Which, in case others (like me) need this tidbit: people in their 30s generally know whether they want kids or not. If they don’t have them, they either chose that or they are dealing with not getting what they want. I still give myself a pass to ask people one time (because I want to knoooooow) but I no longer repeat myself.

Sometimes my invasive questions are more harmful to me than to others. A while ago I met my brother’s new girlfriend. They were self-admittedly “disgusting” and oozing adoration at each other. So I asked, “So have you said ‘I love you’ yet?” Some part of me must have known this was inappropriate because I waited until Rachel was in the bathroom. Roy looked at me for a moment and then said, “No, because we’ve only been dating for a month.” I laughed over-loud and turned the situation into a personal anecdote while mentally screaming at myself.

When Rachel and I drove back to Roy’s apartment (alone), I waited 15 minutes into the drive before saying, “I did something bad.” Rachel laughed at me, and phew, resolved! NOT SO. Later that night, I was getting ready for bed in Roy’s bathroom and I heard Roy and Rachel talking about me. Talking about… oh no. I flew out of the bathroom like a bat out of hell, shrieking in embarrassment. They laughed at me (which is one of my love languages, when people I love bond over laughing at me, so that’s fine) while I moaned about my shame.

Roy put me in my place, “You had been telling all these stories about being my little sister, and that’s not really how I think of you. But in that moment, wow. That was a real Little Sister move.”

Anyway, believe it or not, but the point of this is to say: ask people personal questions! It leads to interesting conversations!