Going to therapy can be absolutely life-changing, but it’s not always easy. So, when women were asked about the harsh truths they had to accept after receiving care, they were extremely candid. These are raw accounts of people identifying and acknowledging their personal struggles, and we hope these stories will encourage and inspire you to reflect on and seek help for any issues that may be weighing on your heart and mind. Here are some of the most emotional and eye-opening responses:
1.
“My therapist told me, ‘You don’t need to save someone to add value to their lives,’ and I cried. I think more people need to hear that.”
2.
“Something I learned in my therapy sessions is that I’m the only one keeping myself from happiness. It’s easier to sit and feel sorry for yourself (which I’m guilty of) than to make an attempt to do certain things that make you happy. I’ve started doing things that make me happier, like attending events at my public library. I’ve never felt happier and more myself.”
—emarshall12346
3.
“I’m intimidated by anyone who I feel like has their life together, so I only make friends with people who I feel like have messed-up lives like mine. There have been so many times when I enjoy someone’s company and can see us being friends, until they say something that intimidates me — something as small as them saying, ‘I woke up to run this morning.’ Basically, my subconscious says, I could NEVER do that. She must have her life together, and there’s no reason she would want to be around someone as screwed up as me.”
4.
“I’m not in charge of other people’s feelings, even when they feel bad because of my actions. For example, my dad being disappointed that I’m not pursuing higher education, or my mom being sad because I won’t let her track me anymore. I had a therapy appointment today and cried because of this. Instead of doing what everyone around me wants me to do, even if it hurts them, I have to do what I want to do and find happiness in that.”
5.
“Even though there will be friends and family around, I am still an individual, and I need to start accepting that being alone is good. Being alone doesn’t need to feel lonely.”
6.
“That my parents (mostly my mother) were/are emotionally immature and abusive. It was so normalized my whole childhood. I knew they weren’t great parents, but I didn’t realize the amount of trauma I experienced until it surfaced in therapy.”
7.
“I don’t do nice things for others because I’m a ‘nice’ person, but I do it in a self-serving manner to keep myself ‘safe.’ Growing up, I worked tirelessly doing nice things for my mother, who had an alcohol addiction, so she wouldn’t hurt me. Now, as an adult, I compulsively do nice things for others so that I won’t be rejected by them.”
8.
“I have developed codependency, and it has pretty much wrecked how I view my relationships and how I act towards myself. Oh, and also how trauma has affected the way I view people’s tones of voice and facial expressions. This has caused me to be hyper-aware of body language. It can be a good and bad thing, depending on how you look at it. I can easily pick up when someone is uncomfortable, not saying everything they mean to, is keeping a secret, lying, etc. But it also makes me overthink and over-analyze.”
9.
“That I was not a ‘low effort’ kid. My parents raised me in such a way that I just stopped having needs because it was easier than expecting them to meet them. It’s still hard for me to admit that I have needs sometimes, and to admit that I feel pain when they aren’t met. But, I’m still working on the part where I feel ugly and unlikeable and nobody will ever really love me. That one is tough.”
10.
“I water red flags so they can grow into beautiful disasters. I am my own worst enemy.”
11.
“I can heal myself, but not my family, and the parts of them that hurt me the most at times were the maladaptive coping skills they developed during their own traumatic childhoods. But that doesn’t excuse their behavior. If you aren’t choosing to break the cycle, you’re choosing to continue it. You can’t effortlessly float out of a whirlpool. There is no ‘good parent’ in an abusive home.”
12.
“I have PTSD because my life has been full of trauma. It felt terrible when I first heard it. Surely the ‘trauma’ label must be for people who had it worse than me? It feels much more realistic and objective now that I’ve been treated by a therapist who specializes in PTSD. Yes, what I went through was trauma. And yes, it left its mark on me.”
13.
“Someone who is emotionally unavailable can often make someone who is emotionally available feel like their basic needs are too much.”
14.
“Sometimes moving on without that apology you want so bad is better than trying to get it. Some people just can’t give a sincere apology for the pain and trauma they caused.”
15.
“I will die someday. I ended up in therapy because I couldn’t stop thinking about dying — blood clots, strokes, heart attacks, cancer. I panicked about it all. Everyone around me would say, ‘Stop being silly, of course you’re not dying,’ but it never assured me or helped at all. The therapist told me I am dying, and every day I get closer to it, just like everyone else. It’s a fact of life we all need to accept. And it helped. Now I don’t live in fear of the inevitable.”
16.
“You have worth even if you contribute nothing. You shouldn’t have to prove your value. And your self-esteem should not be based solely on how others perceive you.”
17.
“My first ‘real’ relationship was a grooming situation. I was 19 with someone 25 years older than me, and of course, I thought, No one understands our relationship! This is different than other age-gap relationships. It wasn’t. I wasted 4–5 years of my youth on it. I still get flashbacks that really ick me out and make my heart race, and I’m still working on that in therapy.”
18.
“My mother will never be the person I need her or want her to be, and I have to let go of that dream of her which I created. I can keep her in my life or cut her out of it, but only by accepting her for who she is and letting go of the fiction.”
19.
“I talk to myself in such a mean, hateful way — a way I’d never dare talk to another living person. I tend to show grace to everyone except myself. I’m my own worst critic, and it’s self-defeating.”
20.
“Sometimes your best friends are only there out of convenience (small town or group), and don’t actually care about you. Once that convenience is removed, the friendship has no base, and they’ll no longer care about you, no matter how strong that friendship once was.”
21.
“My mother likes me, but she doesn’t love me. She wanted children, but not the responsibility that comes with having them, or the responsibility of supporting them after they’re cute and cuddly.”
22.
“My disease isn’t curable. I am NOT going to improve. I have to quit waiting on better days to start enjoying my life, because those days are never, ever coming. This is my new permanent life. This is my new normal, and even after several years of being sick, I can’t really accept it.”
23.
“Rejection is not the worst thing that can happen to you. Stating your wants and needs is healthy. It’s better to be alone than to stay with someone with whom you can’t share your needs and feelings — or even worse, someone who doesn’t want to meet those needs. Also, there is a real human need for community. Thankfully, as an adult, there is the option to build your own community.”
24.
“When my mom died, I realized through therapy that I wasn’t mourning the loss of my mother, but the realization that she had never been one, and her death made that definite. Years later, I’m honestly still taken aback by that one.”
25.
Last but not least: “Sometimes, I am the problem and source of my own issues. Recognizing that is a good thing and a catalyst to change. Therapy is also not meant to side with me. It takes a lot of work to unlearn a lot of unhealthy skills I have learned throughout my life.”
Have you ever had to face a difficult truth about yourself? If you’re a woman and have been to therapy, did it help you discover something about yourself that you had a hard time digesting? Share your truth in the comments, or you can anonymously submit your story using the form below.