Some Days I Wish I’d Never Started Therapy
Some days, I wish I’d never started therapy.
Don’t get me wrong, when I look back on the work that I’ve done over the last six years, I’m proud of the growth I see. The things it took me eight months to say aloud to my first therapist, I now talk about unashamedly. But there’s a side effect to all that healing that I didn’t realize until recently:
Once you start tuning into your inner truth - your feelings, desires, and needs - it becomes harder and harder to lie to yourself.
None of us fits perfectly into the cookie cutter shapes that society, our loved ones, and even ourselves wish that we did. That’s because we are each a messy, dynamic group of trillions of cells that are about as random and unpredictable as the weather. When our truths don’t line up with the expectations of the people or society we depend on, the easiest solution is often to deny they exist at all. And for many of us, that seems to work well enough, at least for a little while, but there’s an inherent problem with that strategy.
Though you wouldn’t know it from the current state of national politics, deceit doesn’t come naturally to us. In fact, lying creates a physical stress response in our bodies and minds that accumulates over time. In order to cope with this chronic stress, we turn to a variety of behaviors like drinking or using drugs, people-pleasing, compulsive eating or exercising, and many others. The specific method doesn’t really matter. What matters is that these behaviors often just create more problems in our lives, and that is precisely what leads many of us to seek help.
If someone had told me when I started therapy that it would uncover as many lies in my life as it has, I don’t know if I would have ever started. I’ve done so many hard things over the last 10 years. I’ve made it out of a conservative, religious upbringing and come out as gay to homophobic friends and family members. I’ve left partners who, though comfortable and committed, weren’t the right fit for me. I’ve quit my job that was making me miserable and taken out loans to follow my dreams. I’ve even begun to speak openly about the childhood trauma that’s haunted me for decades.
Sometimes, it feels like I’ve fought battle after battle, emerging exhausted but victorious, only to find out that the war is still not over yet.
Earlier this year, I was driving to work when I recognized another one of these battles on the horizon. A lie I’ve been repressing for most of my life had finally reared its head, and I just couldn’t take it. I started sobbing right there in my car.
“No, no, no, I can’t do this again,” I said to myself in between tears. “Haven’t I been through enough!?”
In that moment, all I wanted was to be able to suppress everything I was feeling and retreat back to the safety of denial like I’d been doing for the last 25 years, but my growth in therapy has taken that option away from me. The doors I’ve worked so hard to walk through don’t swing both ways, and I knew that even if I could succeed in lying to myself for a bit longer, if I ever want a chance at peace, I have to tell the truth.
I don’t want to fight this next battle. The stakes seem too high, and the relationships I stand to lose feel too substantial. But I know I don’t really have a choice anymore. My heart has tasted the sweetness of telling the truth, and it won’t rest until it’s turned over every last lie.
So I do what I have to do. I suit up in my armor, I surround myself with the best support system I can, and I head toward the battlefield. As I walk, I hear the sound of my voice screaming, “Turn back while you still can,” but my feet aren’t listening. They keep marching on.
