Occasionally, con­ver­sa­tions around the din­ner table turn to psy­chother­a­py — some­one knows a co-work­er, or a friend, or a rel­a­tive who sees a shrink — and my fam­i­ly would talk about it so dis­parag­ing­ly.

They’d say there’s some­thing wrong with peo­ple who go to ther­a­py; not the fact that they have men­tal health issues, but the fact that any­one who needs to pay some­one else to feel bet­ter is fool­ish. They think psy­chol­o­gists are bad, or of no use. That you only need to go to ther­a­py if you don’t know how to “find a hob­by” or “blow off steam”, or don’t have any friends to talk to. Their ideas about it are so naïve, sim­plis­tic, and stereo­typ­i­cal; a per­fect reflec­tion of their minds and the way they see the world.

I’d always stay qui­et. How could I explain the dam­age done, when it was some of them who dam­aged me in the first place?

But when the con­ver­sa­tion turned to me, I men­tioned that I had a ther­a­pist. Perhaps to change their minds about it, to defend some­thing that has helped me so much. After all, I might not even be here talk­ing to them if it was­n’t for my ther­a­py.

Now they know.

But they still don’t under­stand.