I meant to put the trigger warning on here, not thumbs up. I dunno why odd icons showed up on both my posts today...

This is long and pretty negative about therapy so please don't read it if you think it will discourage you. I respect therapy a lot and I can tell it really helps a lot of people on PC. I strongly believe it could help other people on PC who are struggling to decide about that. So I hope I won't discourage anyone. I'm just not sure therapy can help me for moderate ongoing depression.



Reasons not to continue therapy


I’m afraid I’m using it to avoid loneliness instead of spending time in the real world. I don’t think stopping therapy will inspire me to suddenly improve my social life much. But at least I won’t be dependent on someone I’m paying to pay attention to what’s going on in my life when I could be putting the energy into something in real life.

I have imaginary conversations with whatever t I’m seeing in my head all the time. I read that having these imagined conversations is normal for clients, so I don’t worry about it too much. I know I won’t ever really have a fraction of these conversations with the t because there could never be enough time. I don’t even begin to try. But it seems like there is something wrong with spending so much time even imagining conversations with someone who couldn’t actually have nearly that much interest in your life.

I’ve been to 3 therapists in the past year and a half for 4-6 months each. None of them have really helped noticeably. They said nice things that made me feel good for a few days sometimes, and improved my confidence a little at times. One of them validated a little bit that some things that hurt as a kid shouldn’t have happened. Overall, my depression – wanting to sleep and eat most of the time, and experiencing that people don’t like me much, is about the same. You all online are great- the experience of people not liking me is in closer relationships. At this point, it’s pretty hard to imagine how therapy could make a difference the way I hoped it would. Likely I was hoping for too much.

My current t is male and my age, which feels awkward. I’ve searched the therapists in my area pretty thoroughly and he’s the best fit I could find except for his gender. Even though he's the best fit, I think he will not notice if I stop coming and that he probably does not particularly like me. (I might stop going because he apparently forgot to respond to my email about what happened when I got to my last appointment late and he wasn't there.)


The amount of time therapy takes over years might not be worth it for me- the amount of improvement might not be any different from what could happen without therapy. The time in session is not much, but the time thinking about therapy is.

If I stop, maybe I will get over this hoping that things could be better and accept things the way they are.

Reasons to keep going to therapy
I really admire how some people I meet can express themselves at times. I wish it seemed acceptable to be open about who I really am like that, and I still wish/hope therapy could help with that, even though my experience so far has been that it doesn’t. I also still wish/hope it could help with the depression symptoms I mentioned.

I can afford the copays and the time in session. They are not much to lose for a chance to feel less depressed, no matter if it’s a small chance.

If I don’t go, there’s a chance I’ll keep wondering if it could have helped, kind of living in that imaginary possibility sometimes, instead of really accepting things the way they are and living life the way it really is. This is the strongest reason I feel to keep going.

I’m really disappointed to give up on the time and effort I’ve already spent with not much to show for it. If I have decreased that unrealistic hope that therapy could help me, that is something to show for it, I guess. But it still hurts that I couldn’t make any progress on the other issues like I hoped.

Why did I post this?
Does anyone else struggle over hope of therapy helping you to improve things versus accepting things the way they are? I know most people here are in therapy and it's helping, or else there are good reasons they could be helped (like people who don't remember their childhood, or who experienced abuse). But for other people like me who know they didn't go through a lot of abuse, does it seem like therapy gets in the way of accepting the way things are?