Tom Duvall, Clinical Therapist

01/05/2026

https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-real-reason-my-uncle-renamed-the-kennedy-center-mary-trump/

Mary Trump

This is probably the most succinct way of describing Donald Trump's inner experience and his approach to all aspects of life, including governing. The perpetual pain, the constant search to be loved, the fear of looking inside himself and addressing the root of it all ensuring the search likely* never ends.

This makes sense for his supporters as well. By this I mean his most avid supporters, the ones who will, like his Cabinet members and those in Congress and the judiciary, choose enabling Trump's insecurities over what is best for America. They, like Trump, are experiencing immense inner hurt, feeling unloved and unworthy, desperately searching for ways to heal those wounds and only ever able to temporarily nurse it. Like Trump, while not responsible for their pain, they are now as adults responsible for addressing it, but are too afraid to look inside themselves to heal the hurt residing there. In Trump, it's likely they see a way to have their hurt nursed without ever having to find the courage to look inside themselves. As he tries to mold society and culture in a way that revolves around enabling him, because of their own pain, they see hope for it in a way that doesn't require them to find the courage to face their greatest fear: their own inner pain. In that, he really can do no wrong, not because they are awful people devoid of compassion or integrity, but in their minds, fault in Trump equates to their last, best hope for an end to pain that has plagued them for most of their lives. From such a perspective, while not endorsed, one can understand the “choice” they believe they face, and why they choose as they do.

This, I believe, leads to two very important conclusions:

Trump and his enablers are absolutely deserving of love, understanding, and compassion. They will never find any of that beyond fleeting moments in trying to shape society so that it enables them to never have to look inward or take personal responsibility, but they deserve it all by virtue of being born into this world and living on this planet. Even if everything they have ever been accused of is true, all of it, no matter how egregious, this still holds true. They are deserving of love, compassion, and understanding, not because of their actions, but because they are. Their actions did not make them deserving of it, and their actions likewise cannot take that they deserve it away from them.
Love, compassion, and understanding does not mean endorsing. When the focus of Trump and his enablers is to ensure the rest of society and indeed, the world, enables their own insecurities at the expense of personal responsibility, compassionately loving and understanding them and the pain and fear they face daily means not demonizing them for their efforts to nurse it, but also recognizing that they cannot and will not be enabled. Doing so ensures the pain continues indefinitely, for those experiencing it directly and those caught up in enabling efforts to nurse it, whether that enabling occurs willingly or not. Though loved without agenda, the hope in refusing to enable is that personal responsibility will win out, and the courage to face the inner pain and fear will be found. It's the only way their pain, Trump's and his most avid supporters, will ever end.

*Likely because, while at 79 it is in no way too late to find the courage to take personal responsibility to address his inner pain and fear, he's surrounded with people who will choose enabling him over any other option, pretty much every time, and so the idea of having the courage to go where he needs to in order to be free of his pain will likely never occur to him long enough to actually follow through with it.

The president’s niece says his psychological decline is rooted in a childhood defined by cruelty, fear, and a ban on showing weakness.

12/31/2025

Tomorrow means a new year, but it doesn't mean a new you unless you put in the work needed toward becoming that new you, whatever that means for you. Starting tomorrow is good, but starting today is even better.

Happy New Year all! Have fun, be safe, and get to it!

12/26/2025

Edit: This actually is called the Platinum Rule. I was not aware of this, but it means the only originality from me in this is that I made the meme.

A twist on the Golden Rule that I think actually better aligns with the spirit of the Golden Rule. Maybe this could be called the Platinum Rule?

I did not invent this idea and only take credit for spreading it because I think it's important.

12/25/2025

Merry Christmas to all, especially those of you that use the idea of God as a way to avoid taking personal responsibility for your own inner pain and fear. It's not your fault it's there, but as an adult it's your responsibility to now address it. Your fear of doing so and using the idea of a relationship with God keeps you in perpetual suffering.

You deserve healing, peace, taking responsibility for your life over the expectation that the rest of the world will enable the insecurities rooted in your pain and fear, and most of all you deserve a real relationship with God beyond reading and quoting a book you interpret through the lens of that same pain and fear. Merriest of Christmases to all, but especially you!

12/15/2025

Last day! Please vote!

https://toledocitypaper.com/best-of/best-of-toledo-2025/ #/gallery?group=523248

It's that time of year again! Time to vote everyday for Best of Toledo. This year there are a lot of things to vote for, but they've made it super easy!

Everything is under the Professionals tab, so you just need to go there first, then scroll on down, voting for each person as you come to their category. The nominees I'd love for you to vote for are as follows:

Lexe Wooten, Nurse
Alexis Wooten, Nurse Practitioner
Kayla Spradley, Doctor
The Willow Center, Therapist/Counselor
Michelle Ruelke, Life Coach
Tallie Carter Designs, Interior Designer

HomeBest of Toledo Best of Toledo 2025: Vote Now! By Digital Media July 25, 2025 FacebookTwitterPinterestWhatsAppLinkedinReddIt The Toledo City Paper depends on readers like you! Become a friend today. See membership options Share FacebookTwitterPinterestWhatsAppLinkedinReddIt Previous articleChop M...

12/13/2025

Repeal the 19th Amendment

Tell me you're an insecure man whose driving force in his life is his trauma that he is too afraid to take personal responsibility for (not his fault it happened, but his responsibility to address it now as an adult) without outright telling me you're an insecure man who's driving force in his life is his trauma for which he is too afraid to take personal responsibility.

My daughter will not lose the right to vote before she has it, particularly not because insecure men in positions of power want to make it official public policy that the rest of society has to enable their insecurities because they are too afraid to deal with their own issues and their own trauma.

There's nothing Christ-like about making other people responsible for carrying your own emotional pain because you're too scared to do it yourself. Any pastor who supports something like this is not speaking for God, regardless of their title or the size of their following.

There's nothing patriotic about expecting the rest of society to take responsibility for one's own insecurities. Anyone who proposes doing so is not because of love of country, but fear of personal responsibility.

The far right takes losses at the ballot box as evidence that women do not deserve their rights.

12/09/2025

I get why adults in their mid to late 20s or early 30s are often cast as teenagers in movies and tv shows - because actual 15, 16, and 17 year olds look like children. Even a lot of 18 and 19 year olds look like children.

When you're watching a horror movie where a bunch of teenagers are stalked by a serial killer, I think part of what makes it palatable is that, while the characters are teenagers, and therefore children, you can clearly tell the actors are adults. It's easier to suspend your disbelief watching an actual adult, pretending to be a child, get stalked and murdered on screen than an actual child.

It’s the same for teenagers doing drugs or partying, engaging in sexual relations, or another adult themed activity. It’s possible to suspend disbelief and watch it happen, even think in terms of “I did some of those things as a teenager” when the people doing them on screen are actual adults who look like adults, not teenagers who look like children. For most of us that would likely be too uncomfortable and that discomfort would overshadow whatever is being portrayed onscreen.

It’s the same for 15, 16 and 17 year olds in real life. They look like children, so seeing them as adults and doing adult things is going to provoke uncomfortable feelings. So this means that anyone who does or tries to engage in sexual relations with a teenager of any age is a pe*****le and anyone who tries to justify such behavior is at best a pe*****le enabler if not outright supporter of it.

12/01/2025

Disclaimer: Not a Swiftie. Have not heard any songs from the last several albums, even in passing. Just an observer.

I’ve referenced this before, and I find myself thinking about it again. Taylor Swift is indeed a billionaire, but like, the billionaire that other billionaires don’t really like. There’s a lot of love for other billionaires, like their wealth is seen as a strength instead of a source of disconnection and misunderstanding. Taylor Swift doesn’t get the plight of the common man, but billionaires like Elon Musk, Donald Trump, or Peter Theil do. In general, the people who used this meme and hold these sentiments toward Taylor seem to have no problem with Trump and the majority of his administration being billionaires (or if not billionaires, far wealthier than most of us can comprehend).

It makes me wonder, why is that? Why does Taylor’s wealth make her unrelatable, but for others, particularly Trump and his ilk, it seems to give them an almost savior-like complex? It’s like they represent the best of us, and their wealth gives them a sense of status and deference to their greatness. When they speak, we need to listen. Not so with Taylor.

Consider the overarching value within our society, the one we hold above all else, in practice despite what we may say, is the belief that the creation of wealth is the source of all good and the singular means to solving all of society’s problems. The way to make the ideal society is to make it as wealthy as possible. From this perspective, it is like life is playing football, and most of us are playing around the middle school level. Some of us get to the high school, college, and pro level, fewer and fewer with each level. Billionaires then are the elite among the pros, the ones on everyone’s fantasy team every year, a class all their own even among the professionals. Billionaires have a level of wealth incomprehensible even among the wealthy. From this perspective, with the underlying value as the driving force, the adulation of billionaires makes sense.

While certainly not true for every single billionaire, I think it is fair to say that for many billionaires, the continuous generation of wealth is their coping skill. Workaholism is the drug of choice, where most time and energy is poured in a vain hope to feel good enough, as the default feeling is less than, or not good enough. With enough wealth, eventually there will come validation. We all know someone like this, so it's not an uncommon phenomenon, but it's a bit more pronounced with billionaires because, like their money, it's so much more. We all know someone who will work 80 hours a week to hit a high 6 or possibly 7 figures, but with many billionaires, you'll see the same behaviors but working with much bigger numbers, usually focused on investment instead of the direct exchange of labor for money. The underlying belief is the same either way: when the person has “enough” money, or power, or influence, everything will be okay. The emotional injuries being nursed through overworking cannot be helped in that way, so it never actually is or will be enough. Trapped in a continuous loop they go.

By contrast, Taylor Swift has built her wealth by doing what she loves. I'm sure she works hard and there are probably times when it is a grind, but she loves what she's doing and derives joy from it, independent of the wealth it brings. It's not limited to simply liking what she does to earn a living more than most other billionaires. She has achieved the “love what you do and you'll never work a day in your life” status, and has been very financially successful at it. Contrast this with most other billionaires, at least the ones idolized by people who tend to not like Taylor Swift, and most of them are pretty miserable in their desperate but vain attempts to ease their internal suffering through work and wealth.

For them, wealth generation is a coping skill. It does not bring joy, it temporarily eases pain, and poorly so. It’s not as scary as actually looking at and addressing the source of their pain and suffering, so they continue it day after day, chasing that next moment of less pain, of getting their head above water for a moment to take a breath. It is no wonder they would look upon someone else experiencing joy from their work with envy. As they are unable to take accountability for addressing the source of their suffering, instead opting to manage with constant temporary fixes, that envy devolves into contempt.

So too is it with the people who idolize them. Connecting on a subconscious level not by wealth (indeed, most people are much closer to a homeless person in terms of their net worth than a billionaire), but by the never ending cycle of inner pain and suffering temporarily soothed by something that fails to address the source of the suffering. The fear of going to the root of the pain is too overpowering, and so continues another trapped, endless loop. While not working to generate obscene wealth, the temporary fixes of the non-wealthy who idolize the wealthy that envy someone like Taylor Swift are still focused on the idea of doing “enough” to become “enough” - to prove one’s worth and place in society. The wealthy and the non-wealthy, connected of sorts through unresolved pain of which neither is consciously aware, united in disdain of someone who has what they strive for but, because of fear, never manage to achieve.

11/29/2025

Some people claim religious persecution when in reality it's a criticism of the effects of practicing and not the practicing itself. In such cases, claiming persecution where none exists is more about protecting oneself from the discomfort of accountability.

11/26/2025

Dying for them is would be easy. It's living for them that's hard.

11/26/2025

https://toledocitypaper.com/best-of/best-of-toledo-2025/ #/gallery?group=523248

It's that time of year again! Time to vote everyday for Best of Toledo. This year there are a lot of things to vote for, but they've made it super easy!

Everything is under the Professionals tab, so you just need to go there first, then scroll on down, voting for each person as you come to their category. The nominees I'd love for you to vote for are as follows:

Lexe Wooten, Nurse
Alexis Wooten, Nurse Practitioner
Kayla Spradley, Doctor
The Willow Center, Therapist/Counselor
Michelle Ruelke, Life Coach
Tallie Carter Designs, Interior Designer

HomeBest of Toledo Best of Toledo 2025: Vote Now! By Digital Media July 25, 2025 FacebookTwitterPinterestWhatsAppLinkedinReddIt The Toledo City Paper depends on readers like you! Become a friend today. See membership options Share FacebookTwitterPinterestWhatsAppLinkedinReddIt Previous articleChop M...

11/22/2025

A client told me that Mr. Rogers brought him a lot of comfort and safety during his tumultuous childhood, and be as an adult I had become his Mr. Rogers.

So anyway I'm retiring from therapy effective immediately. I've peaked; I can only go down from here.