What’s up, doc?

I have always been interested in the intricacies of the human mind. I have always watched documentaries that explain how the brain works, how different chemicals influence emotions and how those emotions influence actions. I love watching true crime documentaries that talk about the life of serial killers, and documentaries about how the brain chemistry works and I always look for the nurture vs nature components that are at play. I found dreams interesting and how the subconscious sends messages to you, or your brain tries to continue to problem solve even while you sleep. I have always thought that words have power and that there is so much meaning in the words we pick, how we choose to order them, and how they are used to emphasize certain things. The right words can motivate and inspire, and the wrong words can cut and bring someone to their knees. Every choice conveys meaning and gives clues about the speaker. Listen enough and everything will be revealed. From this point of view, talk therapy has always intrigued me as to how therapists can pick the thread of the issues from the stories we tell.

I am an introvert and an overthinker, so my instinct when something happens is to start dissecting it and introspecting to see what happened, how it happened and how can I assign blame… to myself, mainly. I have been on the brink of breakdown and despair many times and I have always known that I needed therapy. I kept on thinking about it from time to time and then talking myself out of it. While I was young, I knew that there would have been an expense that my parents would not have wanted to take on. When I started earning, I kept on thinking about it but, kept on saying that I have been managing to keep it together on my own so, I can deal with everything just fine. I think a big part of it was that I was still in Romania, and we still had this view that you are just meant to keep your problems to yourself, never air your dirty laundry in public and that one should just get on with it. I moved to the UK and the times moved as well and the focus on mental health has increased and still, I thought that I could be just fine. Regardless, of how hard I struggled I still thought I could do it. The idea of trying therapy seemed so big. I didn’t even know where to start. I kept on saying that I would try it and that I needed to work on myself but I still, didn’t do anything about it.

After a bit of procrastination and going back and forward, an appointment was made for me. I have found myself in front of the building about 15 minutes early with no idea of what I am going to say for an hour. I do have two speeds, either too anxious about things that I arrive super early, or I get too relaxed, I underestimate how much time I need to get ready, and I am late. This time, my thoughts were racing, and the time was just expanding and dragging. If the social anxiety didn’t get me, the fact that I was given the instructions to a labyrinth would certainly do it. I get lost in a turnaround and I have two screens worth of instructions. I got this image of a skeleton in a corner of the building like in a cartoon, just bones and my outfit with a couple of daisies, no desert around me. I finally made it to the door with two minutes to spare. It gave me enough time to do everything that I should do. Should I knock? Would that be rude? Would somebody be in, and I would interrupt? I stayed there and stared at my watch, letting the seconds go by and I felt that this was an important moment, like standing on the precipice of something great. At the top of the hour, I took a deep breath and knocked.

I was let in, offered a seat and given a form to fill. Just the usual info but at the very end was a section that required me to add an emergency contact. That part made me crumble on the inside, my hands started to shake, I felt so incredibly lonely, and I felt ashamed that I had to say it aloud. I have just very feebly asked if it were required to fill it in just then or if I could leave it for another time. She smiled and said that it would not be a problem and then we settled in our chairs and looked at each other properly for the first time. I made a mental note that she looked like my mother.

She asked me what my expectations were of our time together to which I replied that it was to be guided to find my solutions. I am dramatic in all things, and I could not help doing a parallel with the Divine Comedy. As Dante loses his way, he finds himself in the woods and as he wanders around, he finds himself at the foot of a mountain but as he is attempting to make his way, his path is blocked in turn by a leopard, lion and she-wolf, aka, lust, pride, and greed. As he despairs, he sees a shadow approaching and it is Virgil, his guide through the Inferno, to show him the way through it. My beasts were anxiety, depression and panic attacks and my Virgil was using cognitive behavioural therapy to guide my path.

I had been terrified that I would not be able to fill an hour but once we started, I had to be told that the time was up. It was pouring out of me. I never wanted to be judged and while I knew that I was being assessed, I didn’t feel any trace of judgement, even further, I didn’t feel any trace of expectation for me to act or be in a certain way. We started face-to-face and then, when the pandemic began, we switched to phone calls. While I was just a voice on the phone, I never felt so seen in my life. I wasn’t used to anybody listening, so I was used to talking to myself and I was most definitely used to being shut down when I tried to express emotions so, having someone to really listen, understand and validate me was incredibly addictive. I had my friend, Diana and I had my therapist and between them, I was anchored, and I had a support system like I had never had before.

While other people turned to drugs and alcohol to numb their pain, I started to look at it as an enigma I needed to solve. I would watch documentaries, interviews and TED talks trying to understand what was happening. I was analysing myself and my emotions and then I would have my therapy session where we would discuss it all. In the beginning, I would count the days between the sessions and when the day came, I could unload everything. It felt like people were tired of talking about my breakup and my feelings and they either talked to me less and less or they would tell me that I should get over it, put it behind me, and stop talking about it. The positive thinking chat was brought up. I started to feel shame and guilt that I wasn’t getting better fast enough and that I was bothering people and then in my therapy session I could be open about how I felt, and I would get told “Everything you feel right now, it’s normal.” That gave me permission to feel my feelings and put down my burden. It gave me respite even for a few hours.

We had a chat, and I was told that I had to feel my feelings. I thought I was or, at least most of them but I got told that I needed to feel ALL of them. All of them? There were so many and even the ones that were sipping through were extremely painful and violent. I have been told that I need to feel them as they come otherwise, they will surface and explode in my face at the worst times. Well, at the time, everybody was about the good vibes so, after watching a Ted Talk about the high number of suicides in the world’s happiest country and learning about people being happy by comparison, I concluded that while I have no good vibes to give, I can bring happiness to people because they would be better off than I am. This is the time when it was suggested to me that I should stop watching Ted Talks if this is the way they make me feel. Fair enough!

I could see that it was working, and I had days when I felt a lot better so, I listened to my therapist’s advice like it was the word of God. It wasn’t easy to work by any means. Before every session, we would take the test that assessed my anxiety and my depression, and I was knocking it out of the park. My test scores were high on both accounts, which also meant that I was in quite a dark place. Furthermore, to start becoming aware of my patterns and my triggers, I started to rate my emotions on a mood chart. Not only would I rate myself, but I would write an account of what happened. It hurt the first time when I felt it and again when I wrote about it and reflected on it. We would then look at it together and see if we can gain any wisdom from it. Things were pilling on and on and I did go so far into depression that I became suicidal so, I had asked for help, and I also went on antidepressants.

I felt that we had a very good rapport, which is very important but that doesn’t mean that emotions are going to be linear. There was a time when I felt anger towards her. I felt like I was stuck, and I didn’t know how to progress, and I felt resentful because it seemed to me like she knew and wouldn’t tell me. Why wouldn’t she just tell me? This would be so much easier if I just got a list, I thought. Of course, that is not how it works. Therapy doesn’t work at that pace and your therapist doesn’t lift the curtain on all your life problems for a grand reveal. Mostly because, one would rebel, reject the revelation, and never come back to therapy. These are feelings and parts of the self that have been hidden or rejected so, it would be quite the shock to face them all at once. I got crumbs, I got hints and then I resolved issues at the speed that I was ready to accept them. I was determined to make this happen so; I decided that if the subject is too easy to talk about it is not an issue. I wanted to make a real change in my life, and I couldn’t do that unless I fully committed and leaned into it. Nobody changes what they don’t consider a problem so unless things are ready to come to light, the subject will be dodged again and again.

There is this thing called Kintsugi. It is a Japanese art form in which broken pottery is put back together with gold. The idea is that one embraces the flaw and that the imperfection makes it an even more beautiful piece. The gold makes it more durable, and more resilient. I felt so broken, and I was being put back together piece by piece, I felt that by the end of it, I would look like C-3PO. Slowly, things started to get better, I started to accept my feelings, and they started to get easier to feel then with my mind not being in a constant state of flux, I could concentrate and evaluate everything so, I started to test the waters with the new skills that I was learning, and I started to feel better. Days felt lighter and it was funny that sometimes I would speak to my therapist and Diana independently and they would give me the same advice or have the same opinion and now I had the mental space to appreciate the gift of both of them. I would walk with Bruno, and I felt that he was such an amazing dog to be around. We had talked about looking at my childhood and while I accepted in principle, I would change the subject insistently when it came to practice. There were a few sessions that were just chats, so I was asked if I still needed therapy and if I was still getting the full benefit of our time. I considered it but I still felt that I had a few things to cover. And then, it was time. I said that I was finally ready for her to let go of my hand and for me to step out into the world.

There is always a final conversation in which we assess how it all went and also, one gets reminded that this is not a final thing, that life is full of ups and downs, that healing is not linear and if there is a need to come back, the possibility is always available. I had done 7 months of therapy at that point and by the end of it, I was so grateful for the help that I got. I had started this journey not knowing who I was and by the end of it, I had received the gift of me. I had reconnected with myself, and I was deeply in love with myself. This had been more than I could have ever hoped for, and this would have to be a goodbye… for now.