Why I left therapy?
I have tasted therapy multiple times and the last time I was talking to a therapist, I was very regular. This regularity was a lot due to the lending ear she gave me. And I obviously liked it. Over time though, I started questioning my urges to seek this conversation every time something bothered me. My quick response would be to schedule a session. While doing this, I did realize the fault in my thinking process, but I postponed thinking over it for the instant gratification in talking out to someone about it. Thus, letting go of my personal responsibility for the situation and outsourcing it. My attitude was a bit naive then.
Slowly though, I realized the gaps in this kind of attitude in me. I could not follow this approach any longer. So, this was reason number 1 I told myself, “I will take responsibility of everything that happens in my life and find out how to address it”. Chances were that since I am the only one living my life, I was familiar with my life situation’s parameters and variables, and even though someone could provide assistance, my attitude of visiting a therapist as an escape had become largely clear to me. I stopped escaping and started facing life in all its bleak and bothersome uncertainities.
As mentioned earlier I liked visiting the therapist for the talks and conversations. Mostly she affirmed my feelings and thoughts and let me feel valid in my thoughts and pain. And I continued therapy for good 3–4 months describing everything that bothered me in minute details. Until, I started observing a pattern in this. I only talked about things that hurt me, over time whatever was inside was outside, and there was nothing left I could tell her. It was as if in some ways, I became emptier. But a clearer look at my sessions told me a deeper story, and I told to myself, “That’s it, my pity party is over”. This was the second reason I took the control of my life in my hands. Therapy was the process which pushed me to self-revelation that led me to take ownership of my own thoughts, actions no matter ! I was confronting things to self during the sessions, in presence of a therapist.
To be sure, I would often go to therapy for exchange of ideas, conversations but it was not always easy to spend time given other work loads. That was another reason too, but these ideas and conversations were important, very important. But my natural inclination to find out answers led me to books on similar themes : human psychology, human nature etc. So, I was still in the same realm and environment as therapy, but with myself and books. And this set up, seemed to work better for me, I realized gradually. Not only it helped me spend valuable time learning things, but also presented opportunity to explore ideas that would help me think and act better. Given this set-up I had arrived it, I gradually lost touch with therapy.
I do acknowledge that not everyone is able to take this self-ownership in tough times and they need assistance, like I did. It is the process that has led me to next waters. And I had some brilliant people who have sit with me and talked with me — warm people. And yet sometimes, there is a danger of being too comfortable in warmth when it prevents us from actually growing up and facing the world in all its hues on our own.
Nothing is written in rigid in our life, no decision is permanent. Yet, I have found ways to channel my emotions and take them out of my system — journalling is one. With journalling I noticed, the same thing happened with me as in the therapy. In therapy I was talking, describing all the stories and the pain, similarly in the journal I am writing unfiltered my emotions and thoughts of daily life. In the beginning I write daily of all the problems and disgusts of life, people, circumstances etc. and then I have nothing to write. In a way, things are outside of my system on the paper and I can prepare again for yet another day. I emptied myself of things through writing and that paved way for me for the next level.
And then noticing patterns in my own writings and the degree of anguish and hatred, I came to gradually accept myself even more and embrace my humanness — I am like everybody else, really! Confrontation with my own ideas and pains be in therapy or in journal helped me transcend them. Really, transcendence is the word. You keep speaking of all ills in your life, and then as it happened with me — I got tired of narrating the same stories and put a willing end to my ‘pity party’. And that is when I could find books in my lap falling one after another, helping me out for next territories of life.
I continue to journal as you know and it helps me self-cleanse, in a way. The quest for answers does not let me settle and I continue to explore the sweet-bitter life with tolerance and try to muster forbearance.
