Precipitating Event

I went back to therapy about two months ago.

Very few people decide to go to therapy for the hell of it. Most people experience a triggering event–a death of a family member, the end of a relationship, a traumatic experience, etc.–that causes them to seek help. This event is known as the precipitating event. For me, my precipitating event was a particularly nasty argument with my parents. I was misplacing and projecting all my frustration onto them, and I was emotionally exhausted. I knew it was time to go back to therapy.

While the precipitating event gets a person to therapy, it’s normally not the reason the person stays in therapy. The real reason is often buried deep inside; possibly something not even consciously known. For me, though, the was no hiding why I was going back: I was still depressed, and my mood was deeply and negatively impacting every aspect of my life.

For the last year, and despite making great strides in my mental health, I have not felt like my true, whole self. Being depressed feels like living life as a your own shadow. Your shadow moves like you, and looks like you, but it’s not you. You feel flat; dark; inconsequential–you’re there, but you’re not there. Moving through your own life–not affecting it.

Now after a couple weeks in therapy, I’m feeling significantly better. It’s amazing how much can change when you spend an hour a week actively working with a professional who is trained to literally rewire your brain. I’m no where near where I want to be, and that’s okay, because that’s the point of therapy. You get where you need to go, at your own pace, with your therapist’s guidance.

In one of my first therapy sessions, I told my therapist about this blog. I told her how I started it in 2018, on World Mental Health Day, to raise awareness for depression and anxiety. I told her how I so desperately wanted to write on the blog not just as a form of therapy, but also to hone my writing skills. I told her how my dream was to build the blog to a point where creating content could be my full time job. And then I confessed how I had, quite literally, written absolutely nothing since the first post.

Until today.

Of the many things I’m working on in therapy, one is creating small, realistic, attainable goals that eventually come together to help me reach my larger goals. One small goal I made for myself was to write at least once a week. “But,” I told my therapist, “how will I come up with something to write once a week? I’ll have to find a day that I’m in a really good mood to write, because otherwise I won’t be motivated enough to write.” My therapist told me that was my depression letting me make excuses. But what would I write about every single week?

Conveniently, there is something that happens once a week that always generates great content and normally puts me in a good enough mood to write: therapy.

The Therapy Thoughts section on my blog is going to be a weekly post where I discuss what I’ve talked about in therapy. Writing practice for me, free therapy and insight for you. I’m excited to record my journey through therapy, and I’m excited to see how my therapy will positively change me. I’m sick of not being my whole self.

Here’s to starting (again)!