Free to Feel: the gift of therapy
My therapy journey and what it taught me about strength.
The other day, we were talking about the painful process of waiting and how using that time to center ourselves can be a useful and rejuvenating exercise. Today, I want to reflect on therapy. Specifically, I want to talk about how incredibly freeing and simultaneously grounding I find the therapy experience (particularly in times of crisis).
Growing up, I had a distorted view of therapy. For some reason I can’t pinpoint, I used to believe seeking therapy signified weakness and that only those that had “something wrong with them” needed therapy. I know now how ignorant I was.
I know now that seeking therapy takes strength.
I know now that therapy does not “fix” broken people (in most cases), but rather helps a whole person realize they aren’t broken.
Therapy is a place and a practice and a relationship.
It is where I learned about myself. Where I was made stronger.
I believe the best therapist in the world couldn’t help a person that isn’t willing to help themselves (again, in most cases; I acknowledge there are some situations that are perhaps more dire and severe when a psychological or medical intervention is needed for someone not able or willing to seek help on their own).
Therapy is a place of learning: learning about yourself, learning about how we interact with others and with our own thoughts, and learning how to move through the world in a more comfortable and healthy way. It’s like have a personal (mental/ emotional) trainer — they can’t do the workouts for you, gain muscle for you, or lose the weight for you. They can only show you some ways to meet your goals and realize your full potential.
Therapy isn’t something done to a person.
Therapy happens with a therapist.
Growth is an individual process that professionals and experts can help us navigate, but the path is ours to tread.
My personal therapy journey began out of a desire to move away from SSRIs. I was an undergrad when I was diagnosed with anxiety and depression. The campus doctor immediately put me on medications. They started taking effect after four weeks or so of taking them. I hardly noticed their impact, because I hardly noticed anything at all.
It was actually an acting professor that pulled me aside after class one day to ask how I was doing and inquire if anything was wrong. The reason for the questions, she said, was because she’d noticed a significant shift in my engagement and spirit. Being an acting major, we regularly practiced being present in each moment and were committed to our work and to each other.
All it took was this professor pulling me aside and asking me what was up for my recent weeks of numbness to come into focus. I remember tears pooling on my bottom eyelids and feeling like I had “missed” so much the last few weeks. It was almost as if I was numb. Just going through the motions, but not really feeling anything.
As you can guess, having emotions dulled by medicine is not ideal for an actor. I was impartial, withdrawn, utterly dispassionate. Not the trademarks of a good actor.
I was not myself.
(This is not the case for all people who take anti-anxiety and anti-depressant medications, but there are a significant number of people who struggle with emotional blunting as a side effect.)
The gentle intervention from my professor was all I needed to realize I was feeling nothing. And I didn’t like feeling nothing. And I wasn’t the same when I felt nothing. I would rather struggle and breathe through the tough moments in order to feel the good. She recommended therapy upon me sharing my diagnosis and experience with the new meds.
Had she refrained from saying anything, I may have gone on to believe that other people preferred me muted, quieted, numb. She helped me see another way to navigate my pain and anxiety. And she told me she wanted the old me back if I felt the same way.
And I did.
And so began my search to find a therapist. Fortunately, I quickly found a wonderful psychologist who specialized in Mindfulness and Dialectical Behavior Therapy. She was gentle and warm, and she gave me space to feel everything.
Because I had spent so much time thinking therapy was only for the weak, it was profound and life-altering to learn (from a wicked smart therapist with a PhD) that it was, in fact, a sign of great strength and courage to be brave enough to feel our feelings.
Side note: through my senior year of high school and most of my undergrad, I tended to drink away my problems. I drowned my insecurity, depression and anxiety in shitty vodka and more whiskey cokes than I could count. I was very used to desensitizing myself through what I call “alcohol anesthesia.”
To experience the extremes and everything in between with a whole heart, body, and mind was difficult, but worth it. My therapist helped me enter a new period of my life where I was finally free to be me.
Free to cry.
Free to laugh.
Free to stress. Free to breathe though the stress so I could come out on the other side.
Free to wonder.
Free to feel.
It was as though I finally discovered how empowering feelings can be. And more importantly, that despite being powerless to control every aspect of my life, I did have the power to control the way I reacted to what was happening around me.
Therapy gave me that power.
My therapist didn’t tell me I had this power. I realized for myself through many sessions of talking and responding to questions.
Talking. And listening.
They are what heals, what carries through the good and the bad.
And they made me strong, not weak. Brave, not cowardly.
I took the leap to seek therapy. I regularly went to my appointments — even when I didn’t feel like it. I did the work. I felt the feels.
And I sit here today a better, kinder, more confident and comfortable woman for it.
After a few months of consistent therapy, I took a hiatus.
When I came back a couple years later, my therapist welcomed me with open arms. She didn’t coddle me or my new cancer diagnosis.
We simply picked up where we left off. She asked me questions and let me respond.
She offered me tissues and told me my feelings were reasonable and understandable.
And what a gift that was.
What a profound feeling.
To be understood. Even when my circumstances were beyond understanding.
