Thoughts on therapy

Therapy isn’t just for those suffering from mental illnesses. It can help with anyone going through a rough time, whether it’s long term or short term.

Personally, I haven’t gone through a lot of therapy - about 2 years total. It also took a while to find the right therapist for me.

My first experience with therapy was online therapy through Better Help. This I went into knowing it wasn’t my end goal. I just needed practice opening up and talking to someone about what’s been going on in my head. It started off as online chats. That was all I could handle at the time - writing down my thoughts instead of speaking them. I did that for a few months before feeling comfortable enough to speak aloud.

Once I could consistently get through therapy sessions without completely choking up and being unable to speak, I felt ready to talk to a therapist in person. So I went to the free counseling provided by my school.

At the time, I was going through a break up, so most of the sessions revolved around recovering from that. So the therapy helped, but honestly on a more surface level. I worked on bettering relationships with my family and getting rid of external toxicity, but there was still a lot I needed to work on.

I took a break from therapy once I graduated college and the pandemic hit. But this may not have been the best choice. Especially with the difficulties of the pandemic, things reached a boiling point within me. I reached the lowest point I’d ever been for the longest time. My suicidal thoughts and tendencies were out of control. I was scared. Those I love were scared.

So I went back into therapy (virtually), but this time I also started seeing a psychiatrist for medication. Now, medication isn’t always the answer, and I sincerely hope I won’t need medication for my entire life, but it was definitely the kick start that I needed to start healing.

If you’ve read my poems, you’ll know it took a while to find the right medication and dosage for me. Things got worse before they got better. Lucky for me, I had more people than I realized who cared about me and my well being. I was able to step back from working and focus on recovering and rebuilding who I was - taking out the inner toxicity and letting the inner peace blossom.

I was only able to do this with therapy. I always thought I needed a female therapist because I’m a woman, but it turns out having an older gentleman be my therapist was perfect. He was a grandfatherly figure and I was able to connect much better than with a woman. This, in part, is because most of my conflicts occurred between me and other women. I couldn’t fully separate myself from that fact.

Everyone is going to have a different experience when it comes to therapy because it all depends on what you need. I needed a sounding board to bounce my thoughts off of - someone to help me clear out the clutter of my emotions and show me what was really going on. So no matter what kind of hardship you’re going through, consider therapy. It may be more helpful than you think.