Thanks everyone.

The more I've thought about it over the last seven months, the more I've come to realize that what I liked about therapy had less to do with therapy and more to do with my relationship with T. I started therapy back when I was 25 and had just chosen to end my domestic partner of 5 years. At that time, I really did need the kind of support therapy can provide. After the immediate issue of the break-up was dealt with, I went pretty deep with T about other issues: not having a mom, childhood abuse, etc. That was all stuff I really needed to deal with... and I did. In the process, I also developed a meaningful relationship with someone (T) who was willing to offer some of the maternal support I'd never had. If I'm being honest, the "therapy" with my T probably ended about a year before our sessions stopped. By that time, therapy had become much more like talking to a friend, and we talked mostly about my life... but we talked about hers, too. I never would have ended therapy with her, though, because I never would have chosen to give up my relationship with her. And if I ended therapy while she was still a practicing T, it would have been an ending. But because therapy ended with her retirement and her giving up her license, she offered me an ongoing friendship after therapy.

For the first few months, I really missed having a weekly therapy appointment. When anything "bad" happened, I felt upset that I didn't have a T to call. I did notice that a source of support was no longer there in the same way. Because I felt that absence, I thought that meant I still needed therapy. So, I looked for a new T. But after having more time to think about it, I realized that it's not therapy that I missed. And now that I've shifted gears with my old T and she feels more like a "friend," I don't miss her as my T anymore. I like it better the way it is now. The absence I was feeling before went away. When I was going to appointments and trying out new Ts, I really didn't like it. Part of it is that I didn't find the right fit, but part of it is that I don't actually want to be in therapy. I don't have anything I need to talk about, and there isn't anything I want to work on. Sure, I have stress from work and I get frustrated by people in my life sometimes, but nothing that I need to process in therapy. It's all stuff I can talk about with my friends/family. Since I'm no longer relying on my T for support, I've actually grown a lot closer to my family and talk to them about my life more than I did before. I'm also happier than I was before. For whatever reason, I felt like I "should" find a new T, but the truth is that I don't want or need one. There are so many other things I would rather do with the time and money, and I feel extremely relieved now that I've made the decision to quit. I might decide in the future that I want to go back to therapy for one reason or another, but for the time being I'm really glad NOT to be in therapy. The second I made the decision to stop seeing this new T and to stop looking, it felt like a huge weight was lifted off of me.