Last year I began seeing a therapist. Now to a lot of people that’s probably not a big deal. People go see therapists all the time and it’s no big deal, but to my family it was. I had been wanting to go to therapy since 2015 but my family was unfortunately not very supportive of the desire. I finally talked to one of my friends who is well into adulthood (in her seventies to be exact) and she offered to help me pay to go to therapy since she understood pretty clearly why I wanted to go. But, I wasn’t 18 at the time, so I needed permission from my parents. I asked and asked for months and they would always respond back with “it’s a waste of time” or “it’s too much money” and “that’s not what we’re going to waste our money on”. I tried to understand a lot of these reasons for a certain amount of time, but in December of 2015 was when I finally had enough. I was about to enter my second semester of senior year and I felt a lot of weight on my shoulders from family and friends, and just the general pressure of college, and I needed someone to offer me some emotional guidance and support.
I was taking a writing class in my first semester of senior year and I was really liking it a lot. I had always been really good at putting my emotions onto paper, so that’s what I decided to do with my parents. I wrote them a letter about why I felt I needed to go to therapy and how ridiculous their reasons were for me to not go. I figured it would be as simple as, if they didn’t have to pay for it, I could do what I wanted. I had someone else that was willing to pay for me to go because they knew I needed it, and I always figured my parents would support that. But I guess I needed that harsh truth eventually. So they begrudgingly let me go, and I saw her twice a month from January to June. I changed a lot in those months and I was so happy with how I was feeling as a human being that I decided to go for another six months, but only once a month because I knew my college schedule was going to be crazy. I grew a lot in those six months too but in December of 2016, I decided to stop going every month. I was faced with the fact that I had to start saving money in the right places because even though my friend was supporting me in my emotional journey, she was also supporting me in my college journey, and I had to decide where I wanted more of the money to go. So for this semester, I decided school.
I haven’t seen my therapist in two months, and I’m doing okay…I think. For a while, I felt like I was going to be fine, but when I got back to school, I felt a weird sense of loneliness and I started to get sad. Then I realized I didn’t have my therapist to turn to, and it was a bit of a wake-up call. For a couple days I felt like I was completely on my own, and it took me a while to remind myself that she’s still only a text or a call away. I know I will go see her again soon, but for now, I’m going to take this time to be on my own for a little and see how it feels.
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