After 15 Years of Depression, I Finally Started Therapy
I know, I know.
It’s not that I hadn’t tried it before. My mom forced me to see a counselor my freshman year of high school because I was very obviously depressed. In typical teenage fashion, I fought it tooth and nail because I didn’t think it would be helpful. I was a shy kid — you think talking to a stranger is going to help me?
My fourteen-year-old angst coupled with my generally bullheaded nature led me to give the well-meaning woman in the bleak, carpeted room short answers. I sulked while she probed about what was bothering me. But she didn’t get it — there wasn’t anything I could point to as the root cause of my feelings. Isn’t that the point of depression? I thought.
Unable to relate to this woman, I convinced my mother to let me stop going after 4 weeks. A year and a half later, my pediatrician prescribed me antidepressants, for which I didn’t have to see a psychiatrist, as depression was a symptom of Graves disease, a thyroid condition I was diagnosed with when I was 8.
The pills worked wonders pretty quickly for me. I became more social and felt like I was finally at a stable baseline for “normal” emotions. In a way it felt like a dusty film that had been over my eyes was peeled off.
It wasn’t all fixed, though. I didn’t think past the chemical element of depression. I had my ups and downs and experienced some pretty low lows. In college, I increased my dosage, but I definitely should have been supplementing with talk therapy and at least seen a school counselor. Even if I didn’t have any underlying mental health issues, that would have been beneficial.
Even after graduation when I was dealing with identity issues and career anxiety, even after my mother died and I was traumatized and grief-stricken, even after moving to a brand new city where I knew nobody, I didn’t seek professional help. I didn’t even know where to begin. I’d never really had a therapist and didn’t know how to find someone that would be a good fit.
The thought crossed my mind often. I did research quite a few times. I even signed up for one of the telehealth online therapy services that got super popular during COVID and tried to talk to someone there, but I ended up paying for the service while barely using it.
I felt so awkward trying to enter this space as a sort of therapy virgin when I knew I should have taken that step years ago. At a time when it seemed everyone was ultra-focused on “mental health,” I still couldn’t bring myself to reach out for help. It was a combination of fear, discouragement and money anxiety.
Recently, a small event in my personal life triggered a four-day long depressive episode and some dark thoughts. I managed to pull myself out of it and started feeling better, but knew that I couldn’t let it go anymore — I needed someone to help me work through these feelings.
After the first two appointments, which were considered “intake” meetings full of questions about my clinical, personal and family history as well as my general issues in order to develop a treatment plan, I met with my therapist for our first real treatment session.
To be honest, I felt a little better even after our initial meeting. I could at least know that I had made the first move in improving my mindset and giving myself the tools to hopefully prevent another spiral like the other week’s. I even felt like I had chosen the right professional as well (not just because we have the same alma mater — go Orange — but that definitely felt like kismet).
What I didn’t know is that she’s a licensed art therapist, which I wasn’t specifically looking for when I searched online, but given my proclivity for using writing and dance, both of which I’d consider art forms, to work out my feelings, I think it may be even more helpful.
Since I started meeting with her, I’ve had ups and downs just like any other period in my life, but I find myself feeling lighter after our sessions no matter what’s going on outside. I enjoy speaking with her and it feels good to get my thoughts out there, even if to me it sounds like a ramble of random garbage.
She has helped me make connections between aspects of my life and the feelings I share with her, and validates my emotions. The “art projects” she gives me during our sessions are therapeutic as well. But I wasn’t quite sure how this would help me in the long-term.
I always knew I should seek “help,” that I needed to talk to someone, but I didn’t think ahead past that. I didn’t explore the different kinds of therapy or even anticipate how a therapist might help me feel better.
About three months later, I’m starting to feel a subtle shift in my thinking. It may just be the fact that I have a safe space to let out any negative thoughts that invade my mind during the week, but I’ve noticed fewer volatile mood swings and less doom-spiraling. I managed to calm myself down quite a few times in the past few weeks when events, or feelings around my work and my personal life, or just my existential thoughts overwhelmed me.
Therapy isn’t going to “cure” me, but at this early stage I can say it’s beneficial. Simply having someone to give an unbiased opinion, who makes you feel heard, seen, and not crazy, can ease more tension in an anxious mind than I ever thought.
Nothing major has come out of our sessions, no epiphanies. Maybe eventually I’ll have one of those famed therapy breakthroughs, but right now I’m content to continue on this journey with her to figure out how I can help her help myself.
