Having Fun

  Liam, https://shirahvollmermd.wordpress.com/2010/05/05/the-guilty-road/, comes in and says “over the weekend my wife asked me if I ever ask myself, how am I going to have fun today? I told her no, I never do. I think I have problems.” “What kind of problems, ” I ask. “I am constricted,” Liam replies. “Constipated,” I say, attempting to mirror his response. Liam looks at me, asking me  why I changed his word from constricted, which makes him think of a pipe, to constipated, which makes him think of fecal material. I said “well, constipated seems like a good word because you want to get it out, but you can’t, whereas constricted means that things get out, they just move at a slower rate than they could if there was a wider hole. In other words, I think you want to have fun, but you are fearful of ‘letting loose’ “. “What am I afraid of?” Liam asks. “I think you are afraid of having free-floating feelings which you cannot control. You seem to be afraid of new experiences which might change your mental state, either positively or negatively. As such, you live a life which is the same from day-to-day; five days a week you work and you have one routine, and then on the weekend you have another routine. Your life is  the same from day-to-day because you have a limited repertoire of activities. This repertoire has very few surprises; you know how they make you feel. The consistency of your routines is more important to you than finding ways to have fun.”

      I begin to wonder what having fun means. I think about the internal state where one feels excited, yet relaxed at the same time. https://shirahvollmermd.wordpress.com/2010/05/13/exciting-times/ Sailing, for instance, can be a relaxing way to spend time, while also being exciting and thrilling. The person’s taste for fun are also curious to me. The love of the outdoors, astronomy, food, exercise, reading are just a few ways that some people enjoy themselves while others find those activities oppressive. Finding partners who share a sense of fun can be easy or challenging. When couples agree, fun is shared and enhanced. When they disagree, maintaining a “fun life” can be a lot of work. The dimension of time further complicates the situation. Some people love the same fun activities throughout their lives, while others change their preferences.

     For Liam, fun is not important; consistency is. Yet, his wife asked him a question which made him think; which made him come to talk to me about fun. Liam wants to please his wife. He also is curious about why, in his forty-six years, the question of how to have fun never occurred to him. As a result, he labels himself as someone with “problems,” someone who is “constricted.” Liam wants to be less “constricted.” In order for him to do this, he has to become comfortable tolerating uncertain feeling states. He has to learn how to observe how he feels so that he can decide what feels fun for him. Liam has to open himself up to the idea that new adventures come with new feelings. I still like my word “constipated.” He has to get rid of the old feeling states,  waste material, so that new feeling states, new nutrients, can come in. Liam has to relax and ‘let loose’. Liam’s word “constricted” is also good. He has to allow for a new flow; a more rapid movement of activities. Liam has a lot to think about.

    Liam goes home to his wife, who eagerly asks him how his therapy went. “We did not talk about much,” he says. His wife, discouraged, says “oh, so you are still constricted.” “Yep” he says. “That is what we talked about.” Change is slow, his wife says to herself, and then she sighs. “I hope you talk about it again,” she says. “We will,” Liam responds.