[munificent]

Imagine you've lived in the same house your entire life. There's a big couch taking up half the living room, but one of the legs is broken. When you were really little, it tipped over when you sat in it, so you just learned to walk around the couch over to the not-very-comfortable armchair and sit there instead.

This was so long ago that you don't even remember learning not to sit in the couch. You don't think about how much room that couch is wasting or how much time you spend walking around the couch to get to the chair. Sometmies you stub your toe on the way around, but everyone trips every now and then. You've been doing this so long that it is completely unconscious. Hell, you can and do navigate the room in the dark.

Friends ask you about your living room furniture and you—completely honestly as far as you know—say it's all fine. You describe your chair in detail. It's not perfect, but it's serviceable. Certainly lots of other people have furniture that's in worse shape. At least you don't have any of those problems.

Then you sit down with a therapist for a few hours and they say, "Hey, what's up with that couch?"

[kimjongtrill]

this is such a good description of the process. i laughed and it also definitely stung a little bit :) therapy is 100% worth it

[munificent]

> also definitely stung a little bit :)

The sting is how you know it's working. :)

[dalmo3]

Great analogy for physical therapy too!

[geekraver]

Leave it to munificent to explain things clearly. Every time :-)