Like Patrick from Schitt's Creek, I love anniversaries, and more specifically, making unnecessary spectacles out of them. Cake, presents, PDA - what's not to love!?
As such, I'm happy to celebrate my one-year-of-therapy-versary!
In April of 2020, as quarantine was in full effect, I had my first therapy session. The woman I spoke to was not my favorite, and also did not take my insurance - so I never spoke to her again.
Most therapists offer a free 30-min trial session to chat and make sure you and the therapist connect, and to confirm insurance coverage. The relationship between you and your therapist is special; it involves a lot of trust and sometimes for no reason at all - you just won't vibe with someone. That's okay. Take your time finding a person you feel comfortable with.
After the first therapist didn't work out, I downloaded one of those therapy apps - thinking the ability to text someone 24/7 to vent sounded convenient. Plus I could observe Catholic confessional rules and never have to confront them face to face. The app people unfortunately never responded to me. I went through a bunch of generic prompts and nothing really came of it, so my search continued.
I've preached that therapy is nothing to be ashamed of and something that people from all walks of life would benefit from for many years now. I was recommending therapy to my friends who were going through difficult times, and on many occasions agreed with the notion that therapy should be required in high schools across the U.S. Kids go through trauma just like adults, often in worse ways because they don't always understand why things happen, or that it is even happening at all. Either way, I've preached this coping mechanism for years, and never actually used therapy myself.
Enter, April 2020. It was a weird time for all of us - realizing that the pandemic was going to last longer than anticipated, missing our friends and family, and right when the weather started to be really great - everything shut down. Plus we all have personal issues that nobody knows about going on inside our homes and heads. I just decided it was time. I made the decision to try therapy and began the process. There doesn't have to be some big tragedy for you to start. In some ways for me, I think I went as a preventative measure. I knew that this year was going to be challenging, so I signed up for some outside help. To take a line from the greatest movie of all time - sometimes it's important to be able to talk to someone who is a "completely objective third party observer with absolutely no person interest in the matter."
The timing worked out well for me because April happens to be the time of year that the company I work for goes through the open enrollment process. Open enrollment is the period of time employees can change and sign up for healthcare benefits, like dental and medical insurance. As part of the communications team it's my job to explain to everyone in the company, in terms that everyone can understand, how this process works, what benefits we have to choose from, and what each plan offers. Of course I'm not the expert on the subject, but if I'm going to write for the purpose of sharing information to a company, I better ask all the questions and know every detail before I begin. Through this research I learned a lot about a benefit called the Employee Assistance Program (EAP). It sounds kind of daunting, but is crazy helpful and is offered by a lot of health insurance companies. An EAP is typically a free-to-employees program that essentially offers free well-being services: financial planning consultants, interviewing and networking practice, smoking cessation programs, family legal advice, and of course, counseling. There is free 24/7 phone access to licensed therapists and counselors across the U.S for you and your family members, plus three free in-person (virtual due to Covid) therapy sessions, which can be used at multiple different places to allow for finding the right match. I highly recommend looking at your healthcare benefits and seeing if such a program exists for you.
Once I learned about the EAP, I went through my insurance company website and looked up "in-network psychotherapists" (also a scary word, it's fine). My insurance company had a list of thousands of therapists which you could filter like a dating app. Do you prefer male or female? Do you prefer someone who believes in a higher power? Pick the age range you'd like your therapist to be in. Would you like to talk in-person, during the day, on the weekends? Check all of the boxes for things you think you struggle with. Websites, bios, office locations and contact info were all linked. After spending some time on the site, choosing different filters, leaving voicemails with a few people (one of whom's outgoing message was "At this time I am accepting new clients, but I must disclose my license has been temporarily revoked" - what?), I found someone who checked all of my boxes.
I've been having sessions with this person for a full year now. She had crazy great credentials - I'm talking Michelle Obama on her home page credentials. She was in the age range I was looking for, she was religious, she believed in holistic practices. She specialized in anxiety, family, and sexual health therapy. And she had a flexible booking system, which made the therapy feel like it was more on my terms. The first therapist I engaged with told me the slot she had available was 10am Thursdays, and I was to go every week at that time. Some people go once a week, some every other week, with the therapist I went with - I make appointments based on my feelings and schedule. Typically I go once a month, sometimes for 30 minutes, sometimes for 50. Around Thanksgiving I cried for the first time during a session and she had me doing 30 minute sessions once a week for that month. Flexibility was important to me. I really appreciated that I could make appointments months in advance too, which allowed me to plan my weeks out and also hold myself accountable so I wouldn't quit or give up on a bad day.
A friend of mine asked a question on Facebook the other day, about the process in which you realize your therapist is "the one." It's hard to say. I definitely decided to call and make a trial appointment because of her credentials. When I filtered everything I thought I wanted in a therapist, she came up. I also felt comfortable talking to her. I liked how she reacted to what I was saying and she gave me assignments, starting day one, of things I should start doing or writing down. To be honest, I was a little bit tired of looking, too. (What? I never said this was some fairytale story.) She's cool, she listens. We are on the same page about things. I wouldn't say there was some big moment when it "hit me" and we clicked.
Just like now, there wasn't some magical moment in the past year that I felt like I ascended and that "therapy worked". It's not some one year program that I completed, it's more of an education that ends when you learn how to pass the tests. The tests being difficult moments in your life. I want to be very clear that you do not go to therapy because you are "broken" - you go to therapy to learn how to deal with a world that is designed to make you think you are broken.
It's a different experience for everyone, but for me it's about learning ways to cope with difficult situations, but then also challenging the idea that those situations are difficult in the first place. For example, I have anxiety about work. I'm constantly fearful of not doing my job correctly, so I procrastinate and make excuses and drive myself into a frenzy of negativity. My therapist teaches me ways to recognize those feelings and immediately cope with them, by journaling, or referring back to old employee reviews that are positive. Then when I am calm, she helps me understand where these feelings come from and why, while my feelings are valid and real, they are not necessarily true. Just because you feel scared that you are not good enough, does not mean that the real-life evidence proves it in any way. Society and parenting and school and social media have all played roles in how we think about our bodies, our minds, different political viewpoints - it all stems from something we were told to believe was true. Therapy reminds you that just because you believed something for a long time, it doesn't mean you have to continue believing that way if it's not good for you and your soul.
What I have learned from therapy in the past year is kind of how to speak; speak to myself, about myself, for myself. We are often so afraid to share our feelings because we think people will judge us, or we think we will hurt someone's feelings, or sometimes we aren't ready to face how we feel ourselves. But speaking all those truths, facing my own self in therapy, I often find gives me the strength to face my own fears, and speak up for myself, and say 'no' to things in the real world. I'm learning what I want, what I like, what bothers me. It's like I get to practice being me in a safe space, and then take that strength outside.
It's powerful.
So Happy One Year Thera-versary to me! One year in, still figuring things out, but working on it. Whether therapy ends up being something you love or hate or has you somewhere in the middle, I hope you try it. You might surprise yourself.
Plus if you start, you can add another anniversary to your list, which means more celebrations, champagne, and cookie cakes.
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