I am not depressed. I am not anxious. I am not suicidal.
I’m in a happy relationship with a stable job, a lot of friends, and a kick-ass blog. I once wrote a post ranking the worst things that had ever happened to me, and 2nd place was asking a girl out in high school and getting rejected. All that said…
I want to go to therapy.
A friend that I trust said years ago in a random conversation that everyone should go to therapy, and since then, I’ve been thinking about it.
WHY? What am I hoping to get out of it?
I often think about what I would say at the first meeting, and it would be something along the lines of:
“I don’t know why I’m here. I’m a pretty happy person with very little to complain about. I kind of just want you to ask me questions about myself, then I’ll answer them, then you’ll tell me something insightful about it.”
I don’t expect to overcome some significant trauma from my past, mostly because I don’t think there is any significant trauma.
Honestly it may come back to the Myself and Others post. I just like talking about myself.
Now that I write it out, maybe I’m looking for an outside perspective on my life and my thoughts. Where can I improve as a person maybe? What am I neglecting in life that I don’t realize?
Long story short, I don’t have an answer. There’s no specific reason for me to go. But I want to.
Where do I start?
I got serious about this earlier this year. Initially I was looking up in-person therapists, but then remembered I’d heard about 1000 ads for BetterHelp.
There were two things that turned me off to BetterHelp though.
- I dragged Meghan into making an account with me and we answered our questions very differently but were both assigned the same therapist. Over 25,000 therapists they say! And we got the same one!! How cool is that!!! That was a red flag.
- To paraphrase a post I read; “BetterHelp is not a therapy company. They’re a big tech company like all the others, they just happen to sell therapy.”
There were too many stories of people getting mediocre service. If I’m going to do this, I want the real deal.
So that leaves me going in person to a real therapist. I’ve loosely looked into places to go, but the main barrier to entry is picking a therapist.
Man? Woman? 30s? 60s? Cat? Dog?!
These don’t seem like a big deal, but my biggest fear is going to that first meeting and saying “I just can’t see that person being my therapist” and never going back. It’s a silly reason to NOT go at all, but for someone who isn’t sure why they’re going in the first place, it’s difficult.
Any advice or even recommendations would be appreciated! Maybe you went for no reason like I’m saying and it was useless. Or maybe it changed your life. Or maybe you’re a therapist who reads this blog and wants me as a client. I don’t know. But there’s comfort in numbers.
Where does that leave me? I guess I’m verbally committing to trying out therapy in 2023. Right after I trip on ayahuasca.
I did physical therapy in college for a pulled hamstring; it worked
I’ve seen a woman and a man. The woman was in person in Richmond and she was great. Then Covid happened and she wanted to keep it going virtually and I said no way sister.
The guy was virtually through BetterHelp and it sucked. It was expensive and I had to do like a membership thing. He also messaged me every single day on the site asking how I was doing, which in theory is nice but when I wouldn’t respond he’d keep messaging me because he thought I’d like killed myself. I only did three sessions with him and then cancelled. I’m sure he was good with other people but we just didn’t connect at all.
Get a woman therapist, at the least she may have giant knockers and you can blog about it.
I had therapy to address a specific issue, and it worked well for that. However, I kept going and I wasn’t being honest on other topics, so I should have stopped sooner. Not sure what you get out of it if you don’t have things to address. You might do better talking to a bartender or hair stylist.
Are you saying I have bad hair? Or a drinking problem? This comment might make me need therapy.
No you have great hair (and hopefully you use the brush I got you for your first work-related public speaking gig). I picked bartender and hairstylist because those two professions are famous for being great listeners and givers of advice. Seems like you don’t need therapy. Just someone to talk to that is not part of your life and therefore impartial and nonjudgmental.
No lie I got my haircut this week and she told me the story of her getting shot in the stomach as a 13 year old girl during the Albanian revolution of the 90s. But the haircut came out great!
Nobody gives better advice than I do. Believe me. I will be your therapist
Kudos to you for being open to trying out counseling. If you were going for a specific issue (e.g. severe anxiety), then finding a therapist who specializes in a certain area (e.g. CBT) could be useful. I did not take as many clinical counseling courses in my school counseling program, but I would recommend not going into therapy with the expectation that the therapist will seem like a perfect match in the first session or offer amazing insights into your life right off the bat. Maybe that will happen over time, but there are so many factors that go into the process. The primary predictor of success in therapy is the rapport built between the client and therapist. Hope it goes well!