just so you know, i'm a proud 'f*cking pansy'

"My grandparents didn't take any pills, and they were fine. Just buck up and get over it. Stop being such a fucking pansy." — Bijou Phillips, actress and Scientologist, on treatment for depression.

A bit ago, I declared my intent to return to therapy and I just wanted to proudly declare that I made good on that. The hardest part, actually, was finding the right therapist. I may have found the one for me.

I assumed it would be hard to fill Dr. W's big shoes. I admired her so much. She was all sorts of smart with multiple degrees and was even a lawyer in a previous life (not sure how she made the transition from lawyer to shrink but it doesn't seem completely out of the realm of reason). Moreover, and likely the reason why we bonded, Dr. W was a proud feminist and liberal and she had no problem discussing politics with me whenever something political was bothering me or making my job difficult.

I had some misgivings about Dr. D, the new shrink (mostly because Dr. W was awesome and everyone else would probably just be a huge let down), but she was a female shrink practicing in Northern Virginia with evening hours so I thought I would give her a go. I found her through the match.com for shrinks, Psychology Today, and her profile indicated her various therapy techniques, all of which I was familiar with because of my job.

On paper, she seemed alright. But there seemed to be something missing...

While on the bus on my way to the visit, It occurred to me that I hadn't really googled her and maybe that was why I felt that I was forgetting something. After all, Google is the best way to gather dirt on someone and I wanted to know exactly what I was getting myself into. I used my phone to google her and after the first several hits yielded info on her practice (some user reviews would've been nice but were non-existant), the hits after that were particularly intriguing.

They were links to her political donations. And there were many.

With some trepidation, I checked out those links. One indicated that she had donated to Bill Clinton's campaign. Another link led to information about her donation to the Kerry campaign. Yet another link indicated she had supported Hillary at some point. And the final link I clicked on displayed all the information regarding her many donations to the Obama campaign.

So, my shrink is a liberal. JACKPOT!

Pre-therapy jitters aside, I walked into my appointment with Dr. D feeling pretty confident. I felt even more at ease when I saw both of Obama's books sitting on her extensive bookshelf (which took up the length of two walls). Dr. D and I chatted for over an hour during which we discussed the following in order:

• My issues, of which there are many so I gave her the Cliff Notes version as an intro
• Gay marriage and why it's wrong to deny them the right to marry
• Condoms and what the Catholic Church doesn't know about AIDS prevention
• The Church sex abuse scandal (and boy did she have some disturbing inside details)
• Being lapsed Catholics and how that affects our mothers
• My issues again (I told you there were many)

I never did come clean about my googling (so she had no idea that I already knew she tends to vote Dem) and she was the one who instigated the conversation about gay marriage. At some point in the middle of our politically heated conversation, she said, "You know, I don't usually talk politics with someone on their first visit. I eventually figure out whether someone is liberal or conservative down the line. But with you, I just knew..."

Yeah, that was a little bizarre. Maybe my body emits some kind of liberal pheromone.

Regardless, I feel that she gets me. She's no Dr. W, but I think that's ok.  Perhaps I lucked out and found the right therapist for me right off the bat. Only time will tell.