I do not think you can prepare yourself for life, you just have to live it. Surely you have regrets in life, things you wish you had done differently or that you feel someone else should have done differently, etc.? Those come up and/or the therapist may or may not see situations the same way you do. One may feel misunderstood, angry, hurt, hopeless, depressed, etc. from what goes on in therapy and those things get acted out or discussed or are caused by discussions, etc. Therapy can be a true "struggle". But no one else's struggle is the same as our own because ours is ours.