I am standing outside a house in a tree-lined street, about to change my life. I look through a window and see comforting things like books, a computer monitor, and a child's drawing. There is a small sign next to the front door. I draw myself up and ring the buzzer.
I am 38 years old in June. The country is worried about whether the Olympics will be ready on time or if England will crash out of the Euros. There are other things on my mind. I made a call a few weeks ago. We agreed to meet the woman on the end of the line, who was warm and polite. I'm waiting for her to open the door, but I'm not sure if I like her. Will she think I waste time? I don't know what I'm going to say.
Therapy carries a stigma in 2012 and I feel like an outlier. I haven't told anyone else that I'm here. There were no open conversations about mental health today. According to a report by Mind last November, over a third of Britons say they don't have the support or tools to deal with the ups and downs of life. According to the Centre for Mental Health, ten million people will need support for their mental health as a result of the Pandemic. The demand for therapy is higher than the supply. The New York Times found that therapists in the US are turning away patients. Since the start of the Pandemic, demand for mental health advice has gone up in the UK.
I haven't taken a crisis to seek help. I feel stuck at work, in life, and in love, so I am doing this. I don't know how to reach her, but I feel there is a braver, happier, more fulfilled person inside me trying to get out. I don't have the tools to address my low-level frustration without being able to identify what I am frustrated with.
I am like an old house whose electrics keep shorting in the same place, and I want someone to rewire me
I have been wondering if talking to a professional would help. It has always stopped me from needing therapy because I have a loving family, good friends, a roof over my head and food on the table. I am not from a family of therapy-seekers. My Yorkshire-born parents would not have joined a circus if they had known it was self-indulgent. Therapy is seen as a last resort for someone in need of help, not for someone with a functioning life who is feeling a bit directionless. I was told to get on with it.
It has taken me a long time to convince myself that, even though I am not suffering from what my friend calls capital T trauma, it could be helpful. Stephen Grosz writes in his book The Examined Life that most of us have felt trapped by things we find ourselves thinking or doing, caught by our own impulses or foolish choices. We feel unable to move forward, but we believe there must be a way.
I want to change. I want to be different. I want someone to change my electrics because they keep shorting in the same place. I have a strong sense that I will be stuck here forever if I don't do something. I'm sweating on a doorstep, asking for help. I am going to learn a lot.
I notice a box of tissues on a table as I sit for my first session. I get through a lot of them that day. The release of being listened to is an emotional experience.
My therapist is sitting on a chair while I sit on a sofa in a book filled room. Light pours in. I can memorise the titles behind her, so long as I don't get stuck for words. The tree outside her window is as familiar to me as the view from my own flat is.
My therapist is getting to know me and I do a lot of talking. It is often to affirm what I have said when she speaks.
My therapist refers to the talking we do as work. There is a reason for this. In these early days, many sessions are emotionally battering and leave me feeling wrung out.
Normal-life tears feel the same. They appear out of the blue. They are real, but they are confined to the session, leaving me a little shellshocked. When I cry, my therapist is sympathetic, but she is detached enough to be curious about my tears, what they reveal. They are a direct line to what really matters.
Despite the fact that I am single, I acknowledge how much I want to be a mother during one of these emotional moments. We begin to talk about what I could do. I don't believe I could cope as a single parent, but is it that I must fit in with society? Do I want to wait until I'm in a good relationship, which could take years, or do I want to do it now? My prejudice starts to shift over a period of months. I take a few baby steps, including an appointment with a fertility clinic, a checkup with my GP, and telling myself that I can pull the plug at any time. After our first session, I give birth to a daughter. It is the best decision I have ever made.
I think I might have a few months of sessions over the summer to iron out some issues, then call it a day. After nearly four decades of ingrained behavior, I realize that there is no sudden U-turn. I may be here by autumn.
The early weeks are filled with wave after wave of insights, so that's why I've always done that.
A therapist is part detective, part archaeologist, scratching at the surface, then digging a little deeper
Things quieten down after that. Sometimes sessions feel like a waste of time. This is when the hard, unsexy work happens. A therapist is a detective and archaeologist, scratching at the surface to find potential interest and digging a little deeper. The deep excavation takes place in these quieter, less emotional sessions. We begin to work as a team, trying to make connections.
Life gets a little easier in the real world. One day, I ask for something that makes my job more interesting and rewarding. All the hard work makes it feel worthwhile.
I never second-guess a session. Out of the blue, I have one that makes me feel like a weight has been lifted, but that a large obstruction inside me has been removed. The work of the previous months is what led to the breakthrough.
I am aware that most therapists root around in your past from watching TV shows and reading about Freud. How relevant can it be? I want to get to the root of my issues immediately. Delving into my childhood feels very time consuming.
From the very first session, my therapist and I begin to make connections between how I experienced the world as a child and how I experience it today. They aren't too different. We survive our childhoods by figuring out how to fit into our families, our roles, and our small world; we learn about relationships from our parents. These ways of being into our adult lives are no longer relevant or useful. The joining-the-dots seem like magic to me. It's like finding a key for a door that has been locked your entire life, if you understand that there is a sound reason why I behave a certain way.
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I wonder why I'm not sure how I feel about things. I have always struggled to articulate and trust my feelings. They weren't discussed, taken seriously or explored as a child. It takes a lot of hard work to challenge this deeply held belief.
At first, Philip Larkin was correct, they fuck you up. I blame my parents for every problem I have, every flaw in my character, and every life skill I lack. I don't have to take responsibility for my failures, as it lets me off the hook. It feels a bit pointless after a while. It is a therapeutic dead end.
I can see that my parents had to make do with their parents. They were fucked up in their turn, by fools in old-style hats and coats.
More interesting conversations can be had once this truth is established. Understanding that I'm not flawed and that I must dictate what shape my life takes gives me the freedom to think about the choices I could make in the future.
I am lucky to have my parents. They are too involved with me to be objective. A professional therapist is a great counterpart. I hope to give my daughter as many life skills as I can, but I will screw her up in my own way.
The phrase is bandied about so freely in self-help articles and fridge magnets that it has almost lost its meaning. For me, it's core to it all. If I could become a bit more confident, a bit less self-conscious, then I would be ready to launch into the world, fully formed, and then I would find love.
Before I start therapy, it turns out I'm spectacularly misguided about my desire for a personality transplant. At the end of our first session, my therapist asked me if I had ever considered that someone might accept me as I am, flaws, and all. I don't have. It is a revelation.
The cliche says that therapists nod their heads and say: "And how did that make you feel?" The repetition makes me see that my feelings are valid and that they aren't wrong.
My therapist rarely asks that question because it's implicit in everything we talk about. She asks a more powerful question: "What is that good for?"
I don't know what she means. What is the best choice for an unavailable man? Obviously, nothing. What purpose does it serve? He won't commit to a relationship with me. She asked half-smiling, what is that good for. I say it keeps me from having an intimate relationship. I don't want to be hurt by someone I really care about. And so on.
I ask this question all the time. Keeping quiet about a work frustration is good for it. I don't have to push myself or make higher-profile mistakes. My insistence that my daughter clear her plate is not good for her. I feel in control as a parent because it makes me feel like I can control her. There is always an explanation.
I don't know when to shut up if a therapy session is a mirror of the outside world and how we exist in it. A therapeutic silence is worse than a real-life silence because it is unnaturally awkward sitting next to someone and waiting for them to speak.
Silences are often when the juiciest things come out, as any journalist who regularly does interviews will tell you. Courage is needed to sit with it. I have learned that if you are filling silences to avoid awkwardness, you are also avoiding an intimate thought, an ability to feel a little exposed.
When I do speak honestly, what I say usually surprises me. ‘I am really, really pissed off,’ I say. I am shocked
The start of therapy is the hardest part. It's an unspoken rule that you start off instead of your therapist. What you say first can dictate the rest of the week. This pressure is unbearable for me. I try to turn up with a good yarn or run through our last session in my head to make up for it.
I am challenged by my therapist on what might happen if I don't prepare and just see what happens. What is my biggest fear? I say that I will say something trite or embarrassing. I will be found out for being stupid or not having done my homework. She asked if you often feel like this, needing to be the good girl, for fear of what people might think of you. You bet I do.
I am stumped for words sometimes. I stare out of the window, I smile apologetically, I talk about the weather, or I compliment my therapist. It is hard. She nodded quietly, scrutinising me.
She puts me out of my misery and asks what's happening for me. I talk about something that happened in the week or a future plan when she says it. She stops me and says, "No, right now." What is happening for you right now?
I don't think about it, so I don't know. When I speak honestly, what I say surprises me. I am shocked. We try to figure out what I'm so angry about after it's been voiced.
It has been 10 years since that warm June afternoon. My life has changed for the better after a decade of talking with my therapist. I'm a mother, I'm more confident and fulfilled at work than I've ever been, and I'm in a loving relationship with a good man. A lack of self-worth, a fear of taking up too much space, and a fear of expressing how I feel have all been lifted. There is a simple fact of aging. It is thanks to the power of my weekly conversations.
How to find a therapist.
I am stopping. Therapy has given me the skills to be my own therapist.
I am curious to see how I feel as we wind down. My relationship with my therapist is one-sided, as she knows everything about me even though I know nothing about her. I've told her stories about obscure family members and she remembers them all. We are close, but not a friendship. I wonder if she will be able to see me. She says we are also human beings.
Therapy hasn't fixed me because I wasn't broken. It has made sense of my thoughts, feelings and actions. Have I run out of problems? Will I never get tongue-tied in intimate conversations or suffer moments of self-doubt? Absolutely not. My therapy gave me the tools to tackle them and helped me confront them.
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