Armchair Therapist: Celebrity Fit Club, Shar Jackson Edition

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One of the benefits of long-term therapy is being able to see yourself very clearly.  Another benefit is seeing others as they are, and I must say that I’m getting really good at spotting the mote in my brother’s eye, so to speak.  But I don’t judge;  I just call it as I see it, and today I’m calling Shar Jackson for not kicking Kevin Federline‘s ASS on Celebrity Fit Club.  You heard it here, from the Armchair Therapist.

Seriously, Shar needs to cuss ole dude OUT like you wouldn’t believe.  Every week she’s talking about “my past” and “these last 5 years” while everyone in the room gives K-Fed the side eye like she’s not talking about him.  I’m sure some of that is done to make the show more dramatic, but the fact that she cries every time she talks about Kevin (though not by name) shows that while she may be over the man, she is not over the hurt.

Think about it:  if your man, your baby daddy left you for another woman while you were pregnant with #2, you would be mad as all get out.  Some of y’all have keyed a car or two in your day, which is a form of expression I understand but do not endorse.  Destruction of property followed by arrest is not a good look.  However, at least “acting out” puts your anger where it belongs:  out of your mind, out of your psyche, onto the person who really hurt you.  Shar Jackson represents a lot of mothers who want to lash out at an ex but keep the feelings inside for the sake of the kids.  Shar has the added pressure of staying out of the tabloids; for the rest of us that first Post-Breakup Sunday in church – surrounded by gossipy whispers – can feel like the front cover of The Enquirer.  But still we press on, pressing our feelings down and believing that they’re gone until we realize that we’ve been eating/drinking/working past them instead of addressing the pain.

The thing about “for the kids” is, you’re not really protecting them from anything by taking the “high road” all the time.  I know a woman whose ex-husband is a first-class jackass; she is a saint because he’s not dead yet, and she should’ve killed him at least 5 times for the way he treated her.  She didn’t ask for alimony.  She doesn’t talk badly about the bastard.  She’s also pretty nice to the man’s new wife who, if there is any justice in the world, will someday treat him in a manner appropriate for such a low-class individual.  But I digress. . .  This woman’s children are now in double-digits and they already know what an asshole their father is because they can see it for themselves, no matter what their mother says.  As old Southern women are wont to say, the chickens have come home to roost; that man’s children will end up despising him one day, or at the very least completely ignoring him.  I’m not saying that Federline is a jackass of epic proportion, but his kids know that daddy’s gone and mommy is unhappy, and that’s all they really need to know to form an opinion.  On last week’s Celebrity Fit Club episode, Shar’s daughter told her to be happy and start dating and “beat daddy”.  “Nuff said.

So here’s the Armchair Therapist‘s advice to Shar Jackson and Any Other Woman Who’s Still Crying About What Some Man Did to Her:  LET IT OUT!  Write a letter, send an e-mail, call old dude on the phone and tell him how much he hurt you.  Call him outta his name.  Tell him what he did to make you so angry.  Admit that you feel embarrassed, or rejected, or ugly, or whatever and tell the frigging truth about your emotions.  Get closure, but don’t expect anything in return.  Exhale, dammit!  Then go be the dope-girl-fresh you were always supposed to be before you let some jerk steal your swag.

This has been the first installment in the “Armchair Therapist” series, where I’ll give a little virtual couch time to some deserving public figure.  Stay tuned, and prepare to be enlightened