An End To Therapy

I stopped going to ther­a­py.

Because I feel like I’m fixed.

Not com­plete­ly, but I’m at the point where I can rec­og­nize my prob­lems, bad men­tal habits, and work towards fix­ing them myself. My anx­i­ety — the rea­son why I went to ther­a­py in the first place — is under con­trol, and I’ve been delight­ful­ly drink­ing black tea in the morn­ings1. No more sui­ci­dal thoughts either.

I asked my psy­chol­o­gist whether I could hang out with him out­side of the ses­sions because I enjoyed his com­pa­ny so much on a per­son­al lev­el. From life to art to soci­ol­o­gy, we would always stray onto a wide vari­ety of oth­er top­ics. Perhaps I found the human mind to be as fas­ci­nat­ing as he did.

He told me that as much as he’d like to, his ethics would­n’t allow him to do so. I brought up the option of going to some­one else for ther­a­py, so that we could be friends, but after a bit of con­sid­er­a­tion, I did­n’t like that option either, because I real­ly enjoyed work­ing with him. On top of that, as he explained, he would be avail­able to me if I ever required his ser­vices in the future. I won’t lie and say that it did­n’t make me very sad, but I under­stood and respect­ed his rea­sons.

So after my last ses­sion, we shook hands, and he said “I’ll see you when I see you. Take care”.

And he meant it.

  1. Caffeine, along with many oth­er things, used to trig­ger anx­i­ety attacks in me. []

9 comments

  1. That’s very good to hear. I may not say much, but I read every entry. Do take care, because even strangers can send kind thoughts.

  2. I am so hap­py for you! I can’t wait until the day comes when I can say that I am fixed.

  3. Congratulations! I’m going on 13 months since I’ve start­ed going to ther­a­py reg­u­lar­ly, with no end yet in sight but I’m con­tent with that. :)

  4. Hey, so glad that you can enjoy the good old morn­ing black tea again…with con­densed milk? :)

  5. I wish I WISH that I had some­one I felt that way about. I have some­one I can call when I com­plete­ly crash, but they are non­pro­fes­sion­al. My expe­ri­ence with pro­fes­sion­als has been very dis­ap­point­ing. I rarely find any­one who seems to under­stand my deci­sions in life. They pre­sume every­one has the same moti­va­tions.

  6. Oh ps very glad to know you’re feel­ing fine. : )

  7. @Anton — It means a great deal to me that you would reveal your­self as a read­er to tell me this. Thank you very much.

    @Lucy — Thanks! The end will come soon enough, that’s how life seems to work out. When it comes, it’s almost bit­ter­sweet because you feel like you’re fixed, but not improv­ing your­self as dra­mat­i­cal­ly either.

    @Esther — Thank you. There was no end in sight for me, and before I knew it, it was over. As much as I enjoyed going, my bank account did­n’t take the same plea­sure in the ses­sions.

    @Uncle Joe — I haven’t had HK style milk tea in a while, so my black tea is still rel­a­tive­ly light orange pekoe or an Australian brand some­one bought me. Eventually, I’ll drink HK style again, but on a much less fre­quent basis than I used to.

    I’m not sure if I’ll find the con­densed milk to be too sweet, because I’ve been drink­ing herbal tea (with­out sug­ar) for so long that things often taste too sweet to me. I do miss the creami­ness a lot though.

    @Xibee — Sounds like your expe­ri­ences have been extreme­ly judg­men­tal. I think I lucked out with a good men­tal health pro­fes­sion­al. The doc­tor who gave me the refer­ral, my reg­u­lar prac­ti­tion­er, cares only about mon­ey, and nev­er lis­tens to me. If there were GPs cur­rent­ly accept­ing new patients in my area, I would find a new one.

    And thank you. :)

  8. It took me going to see a psy­chol­o­gist a long time ago to real­ize that I did­n’t need to go seek ther­a­py. What I need­ed was a friend above all else and I should­n’t have to pay for some­one to lis­ten and tell me what I should fig­ure out on my own terms.

    Needless to say I’m still search­ing for that friend, but in all regards to what’s out in the world, take care and good luck. Sometimes we nev­er know what good we may find in the peo­ple we meet.

  9. I was lucky enough to have a psy­chol­o­gist who did­n’t tell me what I “should” do. Right up front, he told me that it was some­thing we’d work on togeth­er, that ther­a­py was­n’t like a sur­gi­cal pro­ce­dure where he’d remove a com­plex from me.

    It was sur­pris­ing to find out the things I did­n’t know about myself. I take pride in being extreme­ly self-aware, but he brought out things that I were sim­ply too blind to see. There’s no way I could have reached where I am now with­out his help.

    I find friends are too biased. They don’t have a prop­er­ly objec­tive view of things, or any­where near the expe­ri­ence and edu­ca­tion, to solve issues such as sui­ci­dal thoughts. While I know that my friends care deeply about me, it just was­n’t enough for them to say, “I love you, don’t kill your­self”.

    Needless to say, every­one gets healed in dif­fer­ent ways. Perhaps I was a more severe case that required pro­fes­sion­al help. If you can receive the help you need from a friend, that’s great, and quite a remark­able per­son you’ve found. Good luck to you too.

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