Who loves being in their therapised era? Me!
Illustration by Kat J. Weiss
I would like to share what a few sessions of therapy within 6 months did for me in order to help normalise and lessen the taboo of seeking out this form of mental health care. I do not have a concrete diagnosis, but perhaps it is especially in these cases that it’s important to advocate for psychotherapy — after all, we don’t just go to the doctor when we’re bleeding out on the operating table (sorry, graphic). I hope that by sharing some of my learnings, I can inspire you to also take care of yourselves.
I am lucky that I live in a country where therapy is covered by public health insurance. Yes, there is a long waiting list, naturally — but it’s especially in this context where I would like to advocate for people to seek out specialised mental health care, from professionals who know their stuff, before they spend thousands of dollars on courses from bad-faith coaches and influencers.
Having said that, of course this is a free world and one can do anything they feel suits them. Not all psychotherapists will be a good match (which is why it’s totally normal to switch). I’m just saying.
Anyway, now that we have that out of the way, let me explain why I sought out psychotherapy, how it went, and what I learnt:
Why
I would describe myself as a person with a high degree of responsibility-taking. It can be a good thing, but I feel guilty for a LOT of things that have little or nothing to do with me, or things that are hard to change, and therefore cause a lot of burden.
I told my therapist, it feels like there is a knot in my life that I can’t undo. And I’m scared that if people see me for who I am inside, i.e. discover this knot, they will reject me. As a result, it makes it hard to accept praise or even that I might be “a good person”.
I put that last phrase in quotation because I don’t know if, why, or how that even matters; if it’s even possible in this unequal society to be “a good person”. But let’s not intellectualise this issue further lol.
How it went
Let me tell you straight up that my therapist is not a pep-talking hype-person. I feel like a lot of people maybe think that’s how therapists do their job. Their approach was for me to self-direct; it was up to me to identify my goal (i.e. what I want to achieve out of therapy), and their task was to help me attain that, step-by-step, and to provide insight.
Perhaps this does not work for everyone (again, it’s normal for the chemistry “not to be right” as therapists are just people too, so you can switch), but what I came to like about this approach eventually is that it forced me to face the truth: I had to be ready to help myself.
So my goal, in a nutshell, looked like this: I want to let go of those deep-seated feelings of guilt that burden me, that make it hard to accept any praise, without losing empathy or that drive to want to do something good in the world.
What I learnt
I came to realise that simply writing down those goals was help enough for me (in my particular case). And I was ready to be like, “OK I actually feel fine and this was really helpful, thank you very much and bye” but then what ensued was a really beautiful last therapy session in which my therapist allowed me to reflect on everything.
First, they assured me that I could come back any time within two years to use up my remaining sessions if I ever felt the need to — to my relief. Then I had this big emotional cry about my realisations, namely, that my friends are super important to me, and that in my particular case, reaching out to them would probably solve most of my problems. That I can trust them even with my biggest concerns — even if my pace for fully opening up to people is slow (which is OK).
And that, while I have lost some friends over the years, I am very very very thankful for the ones who have stuck around, who are so caring, sensitive, supportive and aware. I feel unbelievably lucky to have them.
I realised that intense loneliness has been my biggest burden in the past, and that you can feel lonely even in the most populous places on earth. It actually takes work to keep friendships alive! And this is a challenge for me, because I can linger cozily in my alone-time and not realise when it’s been too much. Plus, I feel an innate anxiety about reaching out to friends at times, for fear of rejection. But I’m trying to change that!
We also touched upon the responsibility-taking piece. That I am allowed to trust others’ perspectives on a tricky situation, where I would otherwise solely rely on my own narrative and take all the blame for something — that, essentially, I can trust the people around me to hold me back.
Lastly, I realised that my therapist cannot undo the “knot" in my life — but they have given me the tools to work with it. I don’t know if I’ll ever get over the feeling of secretly being an awful person under everyone’s noses and therefore never being able to accept that I am likeable. But I have gained one important thing, a little spool of trust; and ever so slowly, I hope to unwind it.