on being seen differently

than you see yourself

My father used to call me Frasier - as in the character played by Kelsey Grammer. For those of you who missed the 80’s / 90’s Frasier was a character on the television shows Cheers, and Frasier.

Frasier was a psychaitrist with a call in radio show. Though I was training to be a psychotherapist, this was puzzling to me. I did not look like Kelsey Grammer. And, I was training to be a psychotherapist, not a psychiatrist. And the fact that I’m insisting on the difference is all you really need to know about what my father saw.

Frasier is described as:

witty and urbane, but also pompous, snobby and pretentious. Frasier is notorious among his friends for being uptight and haughty. He often finds it difficult to spend time with people of different tastes and temperaments, and does not suffer fools gladly.

At the time, I didn’t get it. I missed his observation. I thought he was making a moderately temperate observation about me and my new profession: Therapist. I think my dad actually saw me in…