Chloe Plumstead
Aurelia Columnist
Reflections is a series of essays embracing the power of introspection, taking on personal topics and rooting out what is just below the surface.
I know, I know: it was only at the end of April that I was declaring myself too chicken to engage with therapy despite the belief that it would likely help me, and here I am this month, letting you know that I bit the bullet and booked a session.
I was going to label this a contradiction but I think it’s instead indecision, a pervasive thread in my life as I find myself at somewhat of a crossroads. People keep telling me it’s my Saturn Return, apparently some astrological phenomenon that occurs every 27-29 years and brings about a wave of great change.
I’m not really into astrology but at times like this I wish I was – blaming Saturn is far more interesting than attributing these questions to a quarter life crisis, questions like what do I want for myself? What am I avoiding? Let’s just say the theme is personal growth and pretend all of this was planned under some sort of ‘everything is copy’ Nora Ephron influence. Anyway, I started therapy.
My change of heart came about after a rather serendipitous conversation with a friend (over brunch and espresso martinis, just to hammer home my Millenial age bracket). After chatting about summer plans and home renovations, the conversation flowed sensitively towards therapy, and my pal kindly opened up her vulnerability and shared some meaningful insight into her own experience.
I remarked on the coincidental timing of the chat – only a few days prior had I finished writing an article about how I was too scared to start counselling, and here I was, in person, communicating those same fears. We must have sat there for two or three hours, shooting the shit, bringing the tips of our respective icebergs gently into the light.
When the time came for us to go our separate ways, hopped up on the holy trinity of coffee, vodka and halloumi cheese, I resolved to try. Just one session, I told myself, and if it’s wildly uncomfortable, I didn’t have to do it again.
“There’s only so far you can take your introspection without actually speaking to someone and unloading it”
Reader: it was wildly uncomfortable. I was sweating absolute buckets. Truly! Sweat pouring from my armpits. I don’t live with anxiety as a chronic condition but I certainly experience some manifestation of it most days, and beyond struggling with eye contact (“am I looking in their eye or through their eye?”), ruthless nail biting and the general, fearful hum that destitution is only a week away, sweating reigns king in my symptom scorebook.
First come the cold chills, then my body tenses up, then my pores start pushing out moisture like they’re getting paid per perspiration. Couple this with my refusal to shed tears in front of any person who isn’t my Mum (I like to do one big cry alone and then swiftly move on) – well, friends, you’ve got a recipe for agitation.
And yet it wasn’t a one-and-done situation for me. I didn’t end the session and conclude that every fear I’d ever harboured about therapy was true, neither did I come out of it feeling like my apprehensions were entirely misguided. I didn’t want somebody to tell me I was brave or guide me to write down my feelings or ask me how something made me feel in that tone of voice which almost sounds rehearsed, and all of those things did happen. But I received it differently in that kind of space. It hits differently.
To put it bluntly, while I understood that this person was being paid to care (or at least pretend to) for an hour or so about the silly little problems in my silly little life, in the end, it didn’t really matter. Being granted the space to speak freely to somebody who has no prior knowledge of my life or relationships was liberating. Brief and stressful, but still liberating.
“What I mean to say is that frustration within yourself, that energy and sadness and, yep, definitely anger – none of that goes away unless you do something with it”
I won’t sit here and suggest that engaging with therapy has been transformative, but what I will say – and this is for the people who, like me, were full of apprehensions about what therapy could be, what it might be, what might be said, what might be felt – all of this speculation remains unresolved until you try. People told me this, and they were right.
You can play the predicted conversations over in your head endlessly, swapping out words here and phrases there, changing the tone to estimate how you’d react if things became awkward, or tense, but it never takes the curiosity away.
And I’ll confidently posit this to anybody who was in the same boat as me: I bet you’re self-therapising. I bet you’re standing in your kitchen in moments alone, talking to yourself about how you feel or imagining what you’d say if somebody asked you the difficult questions you quietly crave.
I bet you have a thousand theories for why you are the way you are, why you feel this way, what you continue to do that harms you. I bet self-reflection has led you to unearth a few knots of who-knows-whats inside that you’re now well aware of but unsure how to untangle.
This is where I found myself when I finally decided to book a session; there’s only so far you can take your introspection without actually speaking to someone and unloading it. You inside you talking to you about you – that’s an echo chamber if I’ve ever heard of one.
There’s no guarantee that sharing the most vulnerable parts of yourself is going to help and I know I was looking for some semblance of that before, some assurance that I wasn’t about to open a can of worms when I could glide through the rest of my life, having a nice enough time just as I was. No such guarantee exists. It’s absolutely a risk. But it’s also not the hugest of huge deals that you might be building it up to be.
I’m a pretty proud person so admitting that certain things have affected me over the years was my biggest challenge. If I’m being really honest, a part of myself didn’t want to engage with therapy because it seems like everybody gets therapy and I’m not everybody, I want to be better than everybody. That was, of course, both arrogant and ignorant. I am everybody, I am affected, and I do need a little bit of help. Even if it’s just to talk things out and not carry so much thought in my mind and worry on my chest – that in itself is a tonic.
So if you’re reading this and you find yourself thinking, damn, that might be me, all I ask is that you absorb this little bit of tough love. Ready? Here it comes.
Take responsibility for your health and happiness. That’s right, I’m telling you off! But I’m also giving you a little kiss on the forehead at the same time (can you feel that?). What I mean to say is that frustration within yourself, that energy and sadness and, yep, definitely anger – none of that goes away unless you do something with it. You can’t think yourself out of your own thoughts. Perhaps therapy isn’t the remedy for you and perhaps it won’t be for me either, but I’m asking you to just try something. Make the decision now and stick to it. Don’t think about it too much!
And if it turns out to be awful, feel free to write me and let me know. I’ll probably talk about it in therapy anyway.
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Reflections with Chloe Plumstead is illustrated by Amy Wain.