[WinterRose]

I thought I'd share something I wrote up this week. It's my most recent aha regarding what my therapy experience is all about - what goes on - and what I want it to be.
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It can be hard going through treatment for something like ADD, Depression, or Anxiety. It requires a lot of change on your part.

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“Change, no matter how much for the better, still feels cold and lonely at first…because it doesn’t feel like home. Old patterns, no matter how negative and painful…have an incredible magnetic power - because they do feel like home.” Gloria Steinem

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It’s related to fear of the unknown: the devil you’re used to versus the one you haven’t learned to master yet. It would be helpful if there were some kind of guide for what ‘normal’ life was like - what to expect - what it feels like not to be depressed. Sometimes healing feels like you are losing something important - like the knowledge of who you are. You’re not sure what will be left when the depression, etc. is gone. And sometimes it’s frightening to think there won’t be anything left or that you’ll lose that creative part of yourself or become a zombie.

It’s all about what defines who you are and knowing yourself. Although, we’re not who we want to be, we’re afraid to give up what we are to become something better. It’s a trust issue - the ability to throw everything away first, before you have anything else, and trust that something good will come in to replace what’s gone out. Nature teaches us that it will - nothing is empty for long - but we still fear that it won’t.

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There was a woman who was blind from the age of 6. Later in life, when she had married and had teenage children and a job, she had a surgery that restored her sight. At first she was happy, but eventually she became depressed and all aspects of her life suffered. She felt confused and empty. “She had undergone a profound change, and she just didn’t know how to ‘act sighted.’ All aspects of her behavior had to be relearned, and she felt as if she had lost something terribly important in her life.” (From writings of W.B. Swann)

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That is what it is like overcoming a mental difference, whatever it may be - ADD, depression, bi-polar, anxiety, etc. You just don’t know how to behave without it. There isn’t any guide. You have to relearn everything, including who you really are, how to function, how to interaction/interrelate with others, how to think. What a task! No wonder it is hard to come through the whole ordeal.

This is the purpose of therapy. The therapist is a partner to walk you into the unknown and support you in casting off the old life and creating a new one.

[Becca07]

Great post.

You hit so many of my fears right on the head, and I haven't even started therapy yet.

I've been having a series of surgeries on my feet for the past 18 months, like to extend for another year or so, and have had problems and surgery for the past 7 years. And I find myself scared of being better, because I don't know how to live a life that isn't revolving around surgeries and doctors appointments.

I agree, good post! Especially not knowing how to live sighted!