My Return & What is Therapy?

I know it’s been quite a while since I’ve written or posted anything here, and I apologize for that. The reason, as you might expect, is that I’ve been dealing with some struggles with my mental health over the last few months, and I honestly didn’t know what I would write, primarily because it didn’t feel like I had anything worthy of sharing with others. I felt like I was regressing. I’m feeling better now, and these last few months have been a good reminder that progress truly is not linear. I had been kind of disappointed with myself because I had hoped that I had gotten past certain coping mechanisms or ways of thinking, just to find myself entrenched in those patterns all over again, and it felt like I had landed right back where I started. I confess that I fell back into self-harm for a bit of time, and while I am disappointed that that happened, I’m trying not to give myself too much grief over it. During my episode, I also stopped doing all kinds of hobbies, not just writing, and even was very sporadic in my journaling. I also isolated myself intentionally, thinking that I was too much and asked for too much help and that I needed to learn to be more independent – never mind the fact that I’m afraid of depending on other people to begin with. But progress is not merely not linear; it’s all over the place – forwards, backwards, left, right, upside-down, and loopty-loops. During that time, the foundation that kept me from crumbling entirely was my providers, especially my therapist. None of them were able to fix anything for me, but having that safe base to return to kept me going when all I wanted to do was stop.

Therapy is an interesting experience, and one that I think many people, including a significant number of people in therapy, don’t fully understand. While I can’t say that I know all the ins and outs of what therapy is, I do feel that I am experienced and knowledgeable enough about the topic to say a little bit about it. Let’s start with what therapy is not. Therapy is not going to fix you, and it is not going to fix your problems, at least not directly. Therapy won’t fix you because you are not a machine that is broken, you are a human that is suffering and struggling. It will not fix your problems, because a lot of times problems are not fixable, and even if the problem is fixable, it’s usually not a question of whether or not you know how to fix it. Most of the time, people already know (at least somewhat) what the solution is to their problem, the problem (no pun intended) is in implementing the solution.

So now that we’ve established that therapy isn’t meant to fix your problems/you, we can talk a bit about what therapy is, or at least what good therapy is. Good therapy is a safe place to explore the things that are troubling you and dive into the topics that matter to you. Therapy is a place to unpack and process (we’ll get to what it means to “unpack” and “process” in a sec) anything that is on your mind, whether it’s trauma from the past or your overbearing boss or your frustrating roommate situation or a relationship that feels like it’s on the rocks. It’s kind of like taking a box that is filled with a lot of stuff (complicated dynamics, emotions, thoughts, etc.) and slowly unpacking it, sometimes one thing at a time or sometimes all at once, and examining it. It doesn’t have to be methodical if that’s not your style (for me it usually isn’t). But it’s like taking those things out of the box and putting it up to the light so that you can understand what’s going on underneath the exterior. Therapists, good therapists at least, will both help you unpack those items from the box (for example, like if there’s so much inside that you don’t know where to start) and they’ll help you figure out what those items are. Sometimes that’s helping you feel your emotions instead of intellectualizing them; sometimes that’s asking you about certain aspects of the thing you’re unpacking; sometimes that’s giving you a chance to cry or to rant or to sit in silence with the thing. And as you unpack those things and look at them, you’re able to understand them, and maybe put them back inside in the box in a more organized and less overwhelming manner. What usually happens, at least for me, is that as I understand what’s going on with the thing that I’m struggling with, I’m able to accept it and also begin to consider if I want to do something about it, and if so, what I want to do. A good therapist should not tell you what to do, although if you ask, they might help you come up with some options and explore what those mean and what impact they might have. A good therapist will support you and cheer you on as you make whatever changes you feel able to make, and will not judge you if you’re unable to make them or regress.

Good therapy is also about compassion. It’s a place that feels safe, and warm, and it’s a place where you can talk about what’s bothering you without receiving any judgment. Sometimes there is nothing that can be done about the situation but to grieve it, and a good therapist will sit with you in that grief. Good therapy should be a place where you can feel all of your emotions and know that there is someone there who will receive them with kindness and without judgment, and will sit with you in all those emotions. It’s not about changing the emotions or making you feel better (although often that ends up being a side effect of good therapy), it’s about connection and support in a time that might otherwise be of isolation and loneliness. It’s about “you’re not alone in this, and I’m here with you.” It’s “I can’t do anything about this, but I can care about you and support you through it.” It “I can’t and I’m not going to turn on the light for you, but I will sit with you in the dark until you find the light yourself.”

I will give the disclaimer that good therapy does not always feel good. Good therapy involves hard work, and it can sometimes involve feeling worse than if you weren’t in therapy, because now you’re having to face the problem instead of avoid it and run away from it. A good therapist will not hide things from you, and will not lie to you. They will point out discrepancies, inconsistencies, and ways that you are shooting yourself in the foot, although it should always, always be done with warmth and kindness and without judgment.

During my most recent episode, as I mentioned before, I fell back on a lot of unhealthy coping mechanisms. My wonderful psychologist was not shy about telling me that I was being self-destructive. He wasn’t judgmental or mean about it, but he also wasn’t going to make excuses for me. When I told him that I didn’t know why I was being self-destructive and why I didn’t want to stop, his response was that it was probably somewhere inside me, and that I would figure it out when I was ready, and that I would stop being self-destructive when I was ready, and that he would wait patiently until I got to that point (which was not him saying that he was going to cut me off until then, but that he wouldn’t rush me or save me). He was kind and empathetic, but he was not sympathetic or pitying and did not offer me any extra comfort, because he knew that for me, doing that would only make me more likely to continue the self-destructive behavior because the attention felt good. I would get frustrated a lot in those sessions, but he patiently waited, session after session, week after week, and listened to me as I told him about what I was doing and how I was feeling, including when that feeling was anger towards him. And as he predicted, when I was ready, I did figure out why I was being self-destructive and why I didn’t want to stop being self-destructive (it was because I knew that it made him concerned about me, and I subconsciously reasoned that if he was concerned about me then he would probably think about me more, and that made me feel more connected to him). He was encouraging and receptive when I told him what was going on, and that gave me courage to put a stop to my unhealthy behaviors.

So good therapy isn’t about fixing your problems– it’s so much more than that! Good therapy is about having a safe place to unpack those problems, figure out what’s lying underneath those problems, understand their impact on you and your life, and having a support as you begin to deal with those problems in whatever manner befits it, whether that’s acceptance or change. A good therapist will be a companion on that journey. They will walk with you and hold your hand and give you a shoulder to lean on while you take each difficult step. A therapist I once had in a program said that DBT (dialectical behavioral therapy) isn’t about how to feel better, but how to better feel, and I actually think that’s true of all therapy. The way I think about therapy is that therapy is 1) to help you know yourself better so that you can become the person that you want to be; and 2) have a warm and safe place to use as both a shelter from the storm and a home base from which you can go out and explore life.