She’s been the best investment I’ve made for my personal life and career.
It was an after school activity with the therapist that worked in my school, and I was fascinated by psychology and her job. I wanted her to tell me everything about me — why I am the way I am, and whether something was wrong with me.
Even at that age, I already liked talking about myself. And what better place to do that than in therapy, right?
Since then, I always wanted to go to proper therapy, and as a dramatic, hormone-driven teenager with behavior issues, I always kept a mental note where I would note down all problems I might need to discuss in the future.
But it wasn’t until I was 24 and a grown-ass adult that I finally decided that it might be the time to see a therapist. And as you can imagine, my mental notes were overflowing by that time.
Once I booked my first session with my therapist in December of 2019, I realized that I’ve been procrastinating on actually taking this step.
It was very easy to want to go to therapy, to know that you need someone to talk to, but it’s very different to book the session and tell yourself that it’s time to commit.
I sobbed like a baby ten minutes into my first session, and I knew right then and there that my transformation was long overdue.
There is a limit for how much we can hold, hoarding emotions and feelings deep inside, pushing them to the darkest corners of our soul before we need to release it, so it doesn’t suffocate us.
So, let’s take a look at what a year of therapy has taught me.
Lesson #1: It’s never about you.
I went to therapy last year because I had crippling anxiety, which caused me physical pain, and I would have trouble leaving my house. I would be terrified every time I would have to go anywhere as it always felt that I might get sick or have a heart attack.
After talking with my shrink and long hours of untangling the mess that my emotions were, we discovered that my crushing anxiety related to people.
It turns out that because I felt like a failure in life and had no confidence in myself, I was afraid that people would judge me.
I was terrified that people were judging me for my failed career, gaining too much weight, and so many other things. Even my own best friends.
I grew up in a judgmental environment. I remember being a kid, around 12, walking to school in my cool ripped jeans and getting all sorts of mean replies from people on the streets. At that time, I didn’t care — I was a rebellious teen with the confidence of a cis white man in America. But those memories stayed with me and were crushing me at the age of 24.
Somehow I had this idea that once I leave my house, everyone I meet on the streets will be looking at me and judging. As if I was the most important person on this Earth.
My therapist, the very clever woman she is, explained that it’s not about me.
When someone is out there critiquing you or commenting on your life choices, it’s not about you — it’s about them. Or when they’re giving you advice on how you should live your life, it’s also not about you, but about them and their internal issues.
People are selfish and self-absorbed, and they don’t care enough about you to critique your actions for you. Most of the time, all the negative feedback you receive is all about their issues and insecurities projected outwards because they’re too scared to look inwards.
So when next time you hear someone sh*tting on your parade, don’t take it too personally — they’re just probably unhappy about their own parade.
Lesson #2: There is no such thing as “normal.”
For most of my sessions the first six months, I’ve always asked my therapist if something I do or want is normal and whether I’m normal.
I would tell her about my feelings and my unrealistic career goals, and every time, I would look for that reassurance from her. She never gave it to me, which I think was a good thing in the end, but it did drove me mad for a while.
She taught me that there is no such thing that’s universally “normal” per se.
If you want to move to the farm and live an isolated life, growing an organic garden and feeding your chickens for the rest of your life — it’s OK. If you want to live your life working as a barista in a trendy coffee shop and don’t want to go to college — it’s also OK.
Society fooled us, teaching us in school, convincing us that it’s either the conventional way or the highway and that if you refuse to be normal, your life is doomed, and you’re going to end up somewhere in the ditch or worse.
A lot of my frustration and anxiety came from my “failed career,” even though at the young age of 24, I was only at the beginning stages of it.
I wanted to be a writer since I wrote my first book at the age of 12. But I only allowed myself to dream about it because it’s not a real job according to society. So, I spend my early twenties trying to find another career that would be suitable for me.
I believed that the only way to live was to have the conventional 9–5 job, climb that steep career ladder and then settle down, buy a home and get myself a husband.
Well, it turns out that being a writer is a job, and it can pay well — I’ve been a full-time freelance writer since the beginning of 2020. It also turns out that I don’t need a husband, and being intentionally single is as normal as being in a relationship.
You make the rules for your life, and you choose how your life is going to go. It doesn’t matter if it’s different from other people’s lives as long as it serves you and you’re happy with it.
Lesson #3: Sometimes, it’s just not that deep.
My two other close friends started seeing a therapist at the same time, so we would share out insights into our sessions, and what we’ve learned every time we would have coffee.
During one of the sessions, my friend’s therapist told her that her obsession with work and the fact that she was working so much was because she was trying to compensate for the lack of romantic relationships in her life.
I took it as a personal attack, and you better believe me when I say that I was concerned about my state of mind and what my love for work says about me until the next session with my therapist.
In my mind, I was looking for explanations on another mental disorder or daddy issue I haven’t discovered yet. But once I told my therapist my concerns, she asked me certain questions and explained that it’s not always that deep.
You might be in love and passionate about your work during this season of your life — it does not always have to mean that you’re lacking relationships or have daddy issues.
Now, I’m not here saying that traumas don’t matter. I’m just saying that sometimes things about you and your personality just are.
Not every personality trait and quirk has to be the result of past trauma, even if it’s tempting to think this way.
Lesson #4: You have a right to not like your family, and it doesn’t make you a horrible human being.
I’ve always told people that I don’t like my family and that I had to move countries and live thousands of miles away from them to be sane.
Some people would laugh at me, thinking that I was joking. Some people would give me a pitying look and the usual oh, I’m so sorry! response.
Not liking your own family can come as a huge burden.
In our society, we have this strong notion that family is above all, it’s sacred, blood is thicker than water, and all that jazz. We should be grateful that we have a family that loved us enough to raise us and give us food on the table and a roof over our heads.
And listen — I’m not saying that I’m not grateful for my family or that you should be rude to your loved ones because they’re as*holes.
But just because I’m grateful for everything they’ve given me and have love for them, it doesn’t mean I have to like them. It doesn’t mean that I have to live in a toxic environment that’s doing more harm than good to me, just because they clothed me when I was a child and paid for my living expenses.
I know that more people like me have families that are simply toxic. And you know, just because someone is toxic doesn’t mean that they’re a bad person. Maybe you’re just not suitable for each other.
So, it’s OK not to want to participate in your family activities. It’s OK to take a step back and keep your distance. Sometimes, it’s OK to completely cut ties and walk your separate ways if things are really bad.
Things get even more complicated when we have conflicting feelings about our family — we don’t like them, but we long for their approval.
I was in this boat. I was black sheep in the family (still am), but I was doing everything in my power to get their approval.
It was killing me softly inside.
My therapist explained that we’re naturally seeking approval and love from our parents, as they’re the people responsible for us surviving while we were little, so it’s natural that we would want them to like us.
But she also said that it’s OK to not like your family and not want to be a part of it.
I had to understand where the need for approval is coming from and decide whether I want to pay attention to that need or whether I would be better off without it.
You have the same decision to make, and no matter the outcome, it doesn’t make you a bad human being.
Lesson #5: The things you own don’t determine your level of “adult.”
When I first started seeing my therapist last December, it was almost a year since I moved back to live with my mom. I was unemployed, depressed, and not able to get my shit together at the time.
At the same time, my closest friends were getting corporate promotions, finishing their degrees, getting engaged, and buying houses. A completely different reality from the one I was living on my mom’s couch.
I was happy for them and was cheering them along the way, but I felt as if I have failed as an adult, and I felt ashamed of myself. Somehow, in my mind, other people’s successes were equal to my failure, when, in reality, these two things have nothing in common.
When I talked about it with my therapist, I admitted that I was feeling as if I was still stuck being that rebellious 16 years-old, but in the adult world.
In my mind, being an adult was a status thing. You’re not an adult until you have your own place, a successful corporate job, and a stable adult relationship.
Because I didn’t have any of those things, I felt like I wasn’t an adult, even though I was 24 years old and I’ve lived five years before that on my own before moving back home.
My therapist asked me what exactly my current situation makes me not a proper adult.
It was already six months since we’ve been talking and when she asked me this question, and I looked into my own life and not the ideal I’ve built in my head, I had an epiphany.
I had a job, it was not a corporate job, but I never wanted a corporate job. I was making money. I wasn’t paying rent, but I helped around the house and did the cooking for the family instead. I was taking care of my health as a proper adult does. And I was getting ready to start building my life again, this time, the right way.
Once I told all of this to my therapist, she said that that’s exactly what adults do. It’s not about living in a cool New York City apartment, driving a Tesla, and having cocktails with friends every Friday night.
Being an adult is a state of mind and not a status symbol and fancy adult things you surround yourself with.
Lesson #6: We suck at understanding how time flows.
One of the first things my therapist asked me on the second or third session was how I understand time.
In that session, I told her that I had a goal I wanted to accomplish in the next three months but struggled to accomplish it for two years already.
We all have one or two of those types of goals, right?
She asked me how long this goal would take to accomplish, in my current situation, if I was looking at it realistically. I grunted, frowned, and said that realistically it would take me a year.
I had a goal I wanted to accomplish in three months that realistically would take me a year, and I was almost in tears about it. I told her that a year is too long, that I’ve already wasted a lot of time, and that I need to do it now.
Ah, that lovely instant gratification demon.
Now, seeing my emotional and ridiculous reaction, she asked me to look back and see how fast or slow my last year went. Did it feel like it dragged a long time, or did it went by crazy fast?
I sat there in silence for a long moment before admitting that it felt as if it flew by in an instant. And that was the secret.
We are terrible at evaluating time and how much something will take. I’m not sure why and I don’t remember the explanation my therapist gave me now but realizing it was a game-changer for me.
Time is a trickster — it moves slowly when we are doing painful things, and it moves too fast when we do things we enjoy. But in reality, it moves at the same pace, no matter the environment, time of the year, or a person.
Our perception of it is the thing that matters, so we should prioritize focusing on changing it to serve us.
By the way-a year later, I still haven’t accomplished that goal I had. But I’m halfway there, and it might take me another six months to get to the finish line. But it sure feels good being realistic.
Lesson #7: Mental health is a spectrum (like so many other things in life).
This was one of the last lessons I’ve learned, and it happened when I asked my therapist whether she thinks I’m a narcissist.
As someone that always liked being the center of attention and wanted a career that involved a lot of me, myself, and I — it worried me. What if I’m a horrible person?
After asking a few routine questions, she told me that I don’t have clinical narcissism. But she also explained that mental health issues are a wide spectrum, and every single person falls somewhere on it.
It’s not black and white most of the time when it comes to mental health. You might not have clinical narcissism, but you might have some narcissistic tendencies and fall somewhere on the spectrum.
I think all creatives and politicians fall somewhere on the spectrum of narcissism as why else would you want to put yourself out there for everyone to see?
And don’t give me that bullsh*t about wanting to do good in life. You can do good in life without putting yourself out there for everyone’s entertainment.
My good friend has had a very busy and stressful year, and a few months ago, she asked me whether I think she has anxiety. She said that she feels physically sick from stress, so tense that she might pass out at any time.
Because she knew about my physical anxiety symptoms, she wanted to know if that’s what she had. Of course, I’m not a doctor, so I didn’t give her a diagnosis. But I told her that you don’t have to have anxiety for your body to react to stress this way.
Some of us are more sensitive, and our bodies respond in this way, while some are less prone to physical reactions; it all depends on where you fall on the spectrum.
I believe this to be a very liberating thought. People like to assume that if you have mental health issues, that you’re broken, that something is wrong with you. That’s not true.
We’re all human beings wired similarly, and no one is an exception and has immunity to mental health issues. If there would be people like that, well, I think life would be so much more boring.
Final Thoughts
Therapy has so many benefits — I honestly think it should be mandatory for everyone, at least trying a few sessions to see how your life could change.
Deciding to see a therapist is difficult, and it requires a commitment that not many people are willing to make. It also opens the door to the sensitive part of you that will fight you with claws and teeth once you poke it.
I’ve stopped therapy in November of 2020, after almost a year. I’m not sure whether I’ll come back to it or not. But I know that it will always be the best investment I made in myself.
The Ascent
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