Therapy Is More Than a Textbook

So, for some reason, only a couple of sessions of “therapy” with Dr. Ron have been more beneficial to my overall well-being and mental outlook than the repetitive appointments I’ve had over the past couple of years. My “self-awareness” always comes to the spotlight when I go to these less than satisfactory appointments without fail. The therapists would always tell me how good I am at identifying my problems and reasoning and where they came from and ruminating over every bit of who I am. I feel like it was more overthinking than anything else. Whatever it was, I brought pause to the conversations. It became a cycle of going in there, talking about my feelings with helpful but arid anecdotes to pair up with whatever was on my mind that day. This is true if I even had anything on my mind at all; walking into those uncomfortably cramped offices offered little space, not even for thoughts of topics to vent about. The phenomenon of losing all memories of anything ever upsetting was not lost on me.

After going to these appointments, I really felt like I would always hit a plateau, some specific time into the session. Where I’d get everything off my chest, get everything out into the air, and then it would feel like “so now what.” Although I loved them lots and thought they were great, wise people, the therapists just listened. And that’s what my bestie’s for, unfortunately, not a trained professional. So, unfortunately, their methods of helping me consisted of not warrant any soul-searching, and I’d often leave with my mind in shambles. I’d feel like a slingshot firing, with things I usually don’t talk about flung into the spaces between us and rushing back to me, and then tunneled into staring up at the ceiling hours later. And this isn’t thinly veiled hate speech against talking about your feelings or the therapists’ approaches in general. In fact, I personally found it very liberating at the moment, but it’s only the first part of working towards improving your mental health.

Dr. Ron and his interactive workbook introduced the second part of my therapy. After venting, I lacked in properly handling everything I talk about, something to solve the feeling of “what now?”. I feel like, after the two sessions I’ve had of working out my mind, the slingshot of emotions is not so much a slingshot anymore. Instead of basically doing the therapist’s job, the sessions opened doors in my mind and coerced me to go through them. What I’ve taken away is that meeting someone, where they’re at is the first step to getting to the root of what holds you back from upgrading in life. During the sessions, I wrote everything that bothered me on a board and rated them. My tidy mind reveled in this compartmentalization. The icing on the cake is a personalized slideshow with the main takeaways from our sessions! I never had that before, but it’s different; conversation starters and solution providers are hard to come by so quickly and easily. It would’ve taken weeks to get to that point of quick duality with other therapists I’ve been with. I have figured out the method to my madness a thousand times over, but deconstructing it is an elusive achievement way out in the boonies until now.