Five Reasons We Go To Therapy Even When It Sucks
When I had to learn how to switch from the C chord to the G chord, I wanted to smash my new guitar. I had been playing my guitar for exactly 22 days.I imagined holding my beautiful, blue, brand new guitar over my head and throwing it to the ground. I felt the imaginary satisfaction of hearing it smash with loud twangs. "WHY AM I EVEN DOING THIS? THIS SUCKS!" I thought.Clearly, I was reaching my frustration threshold, and I needed a break. This scenario reminded me of clients who have said to me over the course of working with me in therapy, "WHY AM I EVEN DOING THIS? THIS SUCKS! WHAT IS THE POINT?” In fact, it reminded me of myself, saying almost these exact words to my own therapist. And yet, I keep practicing my guitar. I go back to therapy regularly. My trauma and grief recovery clients come back to work with me week after week.As I have recently started studying guitar, this “WHAT IS THE POINT” question has been on my mind a lot. While practicing curiosity about this frustration, I discovered five reasons we continue to do hard things - like therapy - when they become highly frustrating.
A Place to Focus
Where else can we go to talk about ourselves? Even for one hour a week?Working with a therapist or trauma recovery coach gives us valuable time in this world that prizes busy-ness over peace, fast over slow, surface over depth. This is *our* place, *our* time, to talk about whatever *we* want to talk about. This is the safe place to get mad and loud and cry without anybody judging us or wanting something from us. A place to confront darkness in ourselves and others, to learn new ways of being and doing, to find peace.Working with a therapist gives us scheduled, structured time to focus on how we can best take care of ourselves, how we’re learning and growing, and how to cope with life’s realities.
A Person to Listen
Learning new stuff is challenging enough without the assistance of helpful humans, especially professionals in their fields.I learned this the hard way. “I’ll just learn how to play guitar on Youtube,” I said. Then, when that didn’t work, “I’ll just learn how to play guitar on an app,” I said. Spoiler alert, that didn’t work either. I finally relented to asking for help for another human who has played guitar for several years. My guitar teacher, who looks 12 years old to me, but I’m the age where everyone younger than me looks 12. Working with a human who is an expert - especially a mental health professional - has long-term benefits. A trained, trauma-informed person who knows not only how to listen well, but also knows what to listen for, provides a whole different kind of processing. From naming and questioning to reminding and celebrating, a person who knows how to really listen is invaluable to relational and mental health.
A Perspective on Our Lives
If there’s one thing I’ve learned as a trauma survivor, it’s that the past is never the past. Therapy gives us perspective on how our past lives continue to affect our present lives.Without intentional knowledge and change, our behavior can be boiled down to a collection of trauma responses. Trauma responses are behaviors that start out as protection but become destructive as circumstances change. For instance, I have practiced moving from the C chord to the G chord on my guitar, but it doesn’t sound great because my ring finger presses down on a string that it is not supposed to push. When I strum, the chords don’t sound pretty at all. In fact, they sound terrible. I feel instantly angry and want to smash my guitar.It’s reasonable to expect that my guitar playing won’t sound great; after all, I just started playing the guitar a few weeks ago. In my trauma brain, however, I have learned that “being perfect” keeps me from gaining unwanted attention from my abusers. If I try something and it is not perfect right away, my brain wants to quit because to not “be perfect” has historically not been safe.I have been in my own trauma and PTSD recovery for almost two decades, and I still run into trauma responses like perfectionism. My consistency in therapy, however, has given me perspective about my personal trauma responses, where they come from, and how to deal with and change them.
A Practice and a Plan
The value of therapy is in its practice. And a reminder from my guitar teacher, “Practice makes precision.”Whatever we practice becomes emotional and physical muscle memory. Repeating something over and over again builds neural pathways in our brains that become automatic. The good news is that we can change our brains by building new neural pathways through practice. In therapy, we spend time practicing new skills and words and feelings and thoughts and patterns. And when we practice these things, we take back our power and voice and choice. We uncover the layers of trauma responses and get to live as our authentic selves. One of the great parts about therapy is being able to practice with a plan. Forward motion. My guitar teacher has a plan for my development. My therapist and I work together on our plan for my continued healing from childhood sexual abuse. I work with my clients on plans that help them develop skills that they want and need.For instance, right now in therapy, I’m working on not being busy all the time. Guess what? In my old neural pathways, “being busy” equals “being safe,” because if I was busy, I wasn’t around my abusers. But now, I get to build new neural pathways in my brain that allows rest without guilt and shame. And in the process, I get to feel safe within myself wherever I’m at and through whatever I’m doing.This is why we keep doing difficult things, even when they suck sometimes. As Rainer Maria Rilke said, “Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.”