Reflections | Therapy is Overpriced & Feels so dramatic...
…This was my mindset in one variant or another for most of my adolescent and adult years, however, somewhere during the last eight years the notion to carve time out of my life and invest the funds into talk therapy grew unrelenting. In the beginning I made a lot of side comments about “maybe needing to go to therapy” or “oh, shouldn’t we all be in therapy…” or anything that might stir a light-hearted laugh but the motive was always to survey the audience. You can call it the people pleaser in me that I let out every once in a while…but more-so I think I was collecting reactions to see who else was doing what and if I liked the strength that they projected in who they were as people in their every day lives.
A little backstory on my make; I grew up listening to a lot of down talk and really strong opinions in regards to talk therapy… comments were routinely said that were busy shaping a narrative around therapy that it was more or less for crybabies or others who didn’t have Jesus to lean into- as though people who knew Jesus didn’t need to talk through anything, or that it was a sign of weakness and even instability… “for the lost.” That “shrinks” were only in the business to solve their own toxic issues and their education made them feel better about themselves. Also, having been raised where private issues were for us an no one else the idea of talking vulnerably to a complete stranger felt wildly reckless and weak. It was engrained in me that I wasn’t to expose the hard things or let tears fall during hard conversations. We would talk for hours on end as a family but when there is toxicity amongst the ones in the home but it doesn’t feel toxic, rather it feels like a well oiled machine that loves deeply, how can there be a thriving incubator for real health, clear mindedness or even a more broad perspective?
My experience of having been raised in a very traditional home and family shaped so much of me, as one’s raise does. My dad was the head of household and my mother kept a well running home. We leaned into scripture- not written books with perspective and thoughts developed by educated others. We prayed about the things that felt too big instead of breaking it down in relatable formats. We stood tall and held back emotion in situations that might have gleaned a little goodness from feeling having been incorporated into them or the aftermath of them. And while I can now so clearly see the badness in these routines and the habits cultivated in me, it would be foolish to think there wasn’t some realized in them. The fundamental ideas enveloped in the pillar of strength mindset that I embraced as I moved into adulthood took me to productive places in life. I received compliments and praise over and over from perfect strangers observing as well as those who were close to me about the survival qualities I had gained that I led with in outside situations and relationships. These bystanders experienced my resilience and strength quickly with my sharp quips, big presence and ability to interject without fear at any moment in time… My ability to stay focused and get things done felt identifying and energizing. I was offered a position at every job interviewed for and had others sweep me away with lofty offers in order to incorporate my “male personality in a female’s body” for their own company goals. I thrived on the received commentary and experienced the catapult affect moving me from one place to the next. Unique experiences came my way including big things, uncommon happenings, “important” connections, all flowing from these personality traits learned which originated in order to thrive in my home life when I was young. While they offered positivity and opportunity in so many regards they were rooted and incubated in a lot of unhealth. Deciphering this would take years of undoing and shaking the perverbial etch-a-sketch in order to understand. While I downplayed so many of the experiences to anyone who would highlight them in front of others I stored them in their own special box in my mind. These were my things that gave me worth, that made me feel good about what I was doing either which way. But, as the days turned to months and the months to years I started noticing some deeper unsettling isms that needed serious attention. However, in order to give them attention would call for me to dig into parts of my being that had been tucked so far out of reach that it would cause a rewriting at my very core. This felt big and scary and incredibly weak and unattractive. Quietly, I knew this meant subscribing to the “vulnerability” that therapy stood for but guys, it took years, actual years, for me to come to terms with it.
… After two years of just thinking that therapy might not just be for the wealthy, the character in a show or an absolute emotional wreck, insert the side bar comments that I referenced earlier. I began the fielding of the ones around me close or not, christians or not while notating the answers to these questions; would anyone share their own experience? Would I be judged for going to a session? Would I need to lay on a chaise lounge with a box of tissues by my side? (my actual worst nightmare) Would anyone I was making comments to encourage digging into self growth and the expenditure of therapy? Would anyone validate the incredible expense of talk therapy in order to gain vast knowledge of how to process through information healthily and with balance? To be honest, everyone laughed or made a similar comment to mine. No one encouraged it… Until I moved to the East coast.
“Some of my most basic fears about therapy included that the therapist would just want to talk about feelings, that I’d have to share everything on their terms, that I was obligated to a therapist after one visit, that I might get fed some kind of theory that I didn’t align with my beliefs and would have to receive it as truth.”
The next natural layer for testing the idea of participating in therapy was for me was to set the humor to the side and entrust someone with a little more of the context of my thoughts and story and see if they thought it seemed worth while to digging into or if I just needed to keep one foot in front of the other. These conversations were short but serious and always only with two people. I guess stepping into something that had been judged as a negative, like therapy, made me feel as if I stepped into participating in it would register as a betrayal as to who I am, the hard work my parents did on raising me well, what I believed or the visual of what read as a pretty “good” life. Or maybe subscribing to therapy realized truths that I wasn’t sure if I wanted realized. After a few eye opening conversations, I started calling places to see about appointment bookings.
The next stall tactic was telling myself it was too expensive and dismissing the value that the dollar spent would give back to the worth of my life.
Go forward further one more time, I’m finding myself sitting with even more realizations, truths and pains and I finally decided to put some action into my thoughts. I began digging in and found someone to talk with. What a painstaking process this all was! I wasted YEARS mulling this decision over. Years! Once I decided to go, I read through every counselor on the first four pages of Psychology Today three times. I legitimately had profiles memorized. I reached out to friends and family that are psychologists for recommendations, I sorted through my own feelings about someone with a religious emphasis or not in their practice and then visited three different therapists before I found one I felt connected to. It made for a long process at a cost both financial and of my energies but it has been so eye opening and has offered so much healing.
The point of this share is because I deeply believe that I’m not the only human that presents as having their shit together, feels good, has healthy and loving relationships with both friends and family, a seemingly picture perfect raise and still needs to sort through some of the details of life. We’re not actually made to walk through life without companionship and sometimes that comes from resources or who are unbiased and educated in how to talk through situations that have taken place, systems that have been embraced, unhealthy coping mechanisms and give us a set of tools so that we can apply healthier rhythms into our own lives.
Therapy is work. It’s not something I’ve looked forward from week to week or something that I’ve enjoyed spending our money on but I do enjoy the toolkit I have developed alongside of someone that allows me to treat the ones around me better, to treat myself better and to implement changes that I wanted to make on a foundational level but I just didn’t know how to or where to begin. I’ve not arrived; I don’t think we do as humans but I feel more healthy and I wish I hadn’t taken almost a decade to get over myself and ask for a professional’s insight.
If you’re in the lull, I hope you take this as a push in the right direction. And I hope my lengthy share here helps you to feel normalized and encouraged. You are normal. We all need a little talk therapy.
I will say, including others in the journey has been really vital to the process. Just a few people have been included and my husband of course. I only share what I want with them but sometimes including the ones we’re doing life with in the process is healing as well. Lots of tears have been shared over tables that are pretty like this that you see on IG. Gathering is healing. xx-k
