Well I did it. I made an appointment with a therapist. I’ll be seeing her tomorrow afternoon. I’ve been cynical and wary of psychotherapy ever since my college days when one dour-faced shrink decided I was too fucked up for society and doped me up for a better part of a year, not to mention locking me up in the psycho ward for 2 months of my life when I was 19. Plus, I know exactly what’s wrong with me, and I know what to do to change it, I just can’t, or won’t. Every caring person in my life has suggested therapy, and thru the Employee Assistance Program here at work I get 10 visits free, so why not.
I just don’t want to think about a lot of things, much less talk about them. I don’t know how anyone can help me if I truly feel that I beyond help, that I am doomed to eternal fucked-upedness for the rest of my life. I guess that prospect doesn’t sound just quirky and eccentric anymore. It just sounds like I’m a crazy, whacked out bitch.
Wish me luck. Oh, how I want to believe this will work. How badly I want to believe in myself.
I need therapy stories, good and bad. Last time I was a scared, impressionable kid. Now, I’m a scared, impressionable adult and single parent. I need to know if/how therapy has helped you.
Well, it helps to remember what therapist’s are and aren’t.
They aren’t
1)psychic
2)out to get you
3)tremendously smarter than you are
4)privy to a mysterious body of knowledge that is unavailable to you
They are (hopefully)
1)good listeners
2)experienced with people who have similar concerns to yours
3)just people. You may not get along with your therapist. If not, get another one.
You say you know what your problems are. So do your best to articulate those to the therapist and let him/her come up with suggestions about how to go about dealing with them.
There are also, as you may know, different approaches to therapy. The best, IMHO, focus on changing current thought patterns and behavior, rather than dredging up what happened to you 10 or 20 years ago. This may or may not involve drugs, but that decision should be up to the two of you, working together.
I’ve known the good, the bad and the ugly. signs of the bad/ugly therapists: They agree to/initiate outside contact with you; one or the other of you ends up unclothed during the “session” some 8 months later, you’re feeling the same.
good therapists exist. if that one isn’t good, demand a different one. One therapist I knew told me that she would be able to see me professionally, even tho’ she was treating my (soon to be divorced) husband. I told her that if she truly believed THAT, she was a scarier person than he was, and then walked out…
Sweetcan, therapy saved my life. It’s as simple as that. And I wouldn’t have done it without the 10 free visits.
You made the right choice. Just start talking and keep doing it. You’ll come to some healthy conclusions quickly. On your own. The therapist is just there as a sounding board and to keep you on track.
Don’t take the suggestion of medication negatively. As I’ve said before here, modern (as in “the past couple years”) meds are much better than what they might have fed you before. No highs, no dopiness. You just end up feeling better.