“…getting yourself back”

For the last 6 1/2 years I’ve been seeing a therapist to help me deal with anxiety and depression issues. Last April, I “broke up” with the person who had been treating me and started seeing someone new.

Making the move was the right thing to do. I’ve made more progress in the last year than I did the previous 5 1/2 combined.

Today I mentioned to my therapist that I’m frustrated; I feel like so much of my first 5 1/2 years of therapy was wasted. I wondered what might be different in my life if I’d done a better job of taking care of business to start with… if I’d “broken up” with my old guy earlier.

“Rebecca,” my therapist profoundly responded, “you’re getting yourself back.”

He’s right. All the work I’m doing is part of the process of getting myself back. I was about eight when my mother took me to the doctor for what I now realize was panic attacks. So, clearly, I’ve been dealing with this anxiety thing for quite awhile now.

When a person has been dealing with something, on one level or another, for more than 25 years, one shouldn’t expect to be “cured” after just a year of good therapy. So this process of “getting myself back” may take — is taking — longer than I’d like.

But I am, slowly but surely, getting myself back. That makes all the money and all the pain of the process worthwhile.