Afterthoughts

After a long while I was thinking about past therapy and therapy in general and decided to take a look here too and write some thoughts.

I'm mostly curious of the experiences of others who did long term therapy and finally quit it already a while ago. I'd like to know how do you feel now about some aspects vs. how you felt then.

My therapy ended many years ago, and a lot of it feels almost surreal to me now. The attachment and the feelings of dependency among other things.

I was in therapy for anxiety mostly and I have a big childhood trauma. While on therapy I spent countless of hours pondering about therapy, the therapist and the relationship and what does the therapist think (!). Somehow I thought it was good way to spend time to overthink all this, constantly. Now I think it was not, I could've spend that time much better. I also felt so dependent on therapy and the therapist, and being a highly functioning adult both before and after therapy I feel it was rather strange experience.

So was therapy useful then? Yes and no. Sometimes I felt I couldn't be without, and being heard, seen and discussing many different subjects were definitely useful, no doubt. And while in therapy I felt it was 100% useful, but I also think my way of thinking about therapy was not objective while in. The attachment was so strong and I think for someone who endured same kind of childhood trauma as myself it is typical and even expected to fall into that hard. It caused both pain and frustration but also good and validating feelings. My therapist was great, our relationship was professional, a bit personal in the end and we are still in touch. I call her a friend now, but it's not pajama party kind of friendship, more casual and "normal". I'm glad to have met her and she is someone that has been a big part of my life and I am happy I didn't lose her. And communicating doesn't really bring up strong feelings, it's just like with other people I talk to and like.

Did the anxiety go, was I "cured" in therapy? Not really. I learned ways to think differently some stuff and it definitely eased the trauma memories a bit to talk through them, but now that the years have passed, I think the anxiety is about the same than when I started. It comes and goes and I believe it is a very common dg anyway. It is just me, my past and personality and I can live with it and have found a lot of self care that works.

If I knew all this before, would I do it again? The funny thing is that the answer is NO WAY. I loved therapy while I was in, I loved my therapist, and I believed so much it was helpful and at the time it often was. So the experience was good, and I truly cherish a lot of it. But the amount of time and emotional work with totally irrelevant stuff put into it vs. the real benefit. No I would not do it again.