Override

"Don't listen to your gut," my therapist tells me. "Listen to his words and accept them."

She's not really a therapist, more a coach who works for some app my employer gave us access to as a benefit—12 coaching sessions per year, for professional or personal use. I grabbed the chance for free therapy earlier this year when shit went sideways.

"But I did that already," I remind her. "I didn't trust my gut all summer, and you know what happened."

"Yes, well, give it a chance," she says. "It's different now. And if your gut tells you something, just put that aside and maybe in a month take a look and see if you notice a pattern."

Lady. Come on. 

I've been trying to do this, to trust the words and not my gut feeling. 

IT IS NOT EASY. I feel like I'm gaslighting myself—convincing myself that what I know is real is not. 

Friends have mixed takes on this approach. I listen to their perspectives. 

It is not, in some respects, a terrible approach: When my gut clenches up, I sit with it, think about it, give it time. And this is mostly serving me well, to be honest, but there are a couple of things that nag at me, dissonance that steps out of the rest of the flow and catches me later. Things that, frankly, don't add up. Is it a different perspective on details and timeframe, or are indeed some things missing or twisted? 

I don't want to always interrogate, which is how I come across. But I'd feel more secure with these loose bits in place. 

What we need is to find the line between my need for neat organization of facts and his need for...not sharing? Not being quizzed? Between my need for—let's just say it—honesty and his need for...the caginess a friend warned is unavoidable for him, the shapeshifting of truth, an essential need to lie so common with addicts. 

Again and again, the warning lights come on and I ignore them, like the lights flashing across the dashboard of my ten-year-old Outback. Sometimes when I restart the car, they're gone, and I'm calmer. 

The red and yellow words and symbols don't always mean the engine's about to blow; sometimes the sensor is tweaky. 

Right?