Choosing the Right Therapist – My Experience

Hello poppets,

How the dickens are we?

The other day I popped on my social media channels after reflecting on the words of old therapists during a walk with Lola.

If you’ve followed my blog for some time now you’ll know I have some STORIES in regards to old therapists and just how different they can all be. Despite advocating heavily for not focusing on the past, I found myself thinking about the difference in therapists I’d had over the years and the things I would like to say to them.

You see, for many years I was told there was nothing I could do about the way I was and how much I was suffering. I was told that because of my past, it was now going to be my future. I was in for a life of pain, suffering and carrying round guilt and shame for the rest of my life.

Whilst on my walk I was reflecting on some words of a particular bad therapist. Now, for many years id been told that narrative that I mentioned, but this person was particularly bad and had this edge which almost suggested he enjoyed the thought of me suffering and couldn’t wait to announce my fate.

This therapist was directly before finding the therapist of my dreams. I wasn’t at the point in my change of mindset where I was saying “Im going to change my life and you cant stop me” but I had certainly started to have that thought of “I wonder if theres more to life than this”. I went to this therapist with a list of questions and wanting to know my options going forward. I was willing to try anything and everything no matter how much it hurt and was ready to throw my all in.

And that my friends, is when I was laughed at.

Oh, straight up laughed in my face. I tried to explain this through my stories, but he had this manner about him that suggested he was hurting somewhere deep inside and instead of dealing with it was using every Tom, Dick and Harry as an emotional punching bag. He found it HILARIOUS that I thought I was going to get any better and when telling him that I wanted to do something about my OCD as it was progressively getting worse he noted that if I thought it was bad now, its only going to get worse!

Despite being English and all for a good bit of sarcasm, there was only so much I could take of this man. I couldn’t say ANYTHING without there being some sarcastic nasty comment in return and after only a few sessions it was wearing thin. With that, I decided to leave.

I decided to have a break (believe me I needed one after that) before going on that long waiting list for therapy again. Luckily, this is when I found the therapist of my dreams. Someone that not only believed there was more to life, but was ready to show me that there was. She had such a refreshing outlook on things and a view of theres no such thing as ‘cant’. I couldn’t believe my luck after such an awful experience beforehand and to be honest, not much better before that! The funny thing was, do you know where I found this therapist?

Next door.

Oh, i’m not even joking. In the next room from that truly awful human. Literally next door. If that isn’t an indication of how different therapists can be, I truly don’t know what it.

Now, we could go down the root of trying to work out how the DICKENS two therapists in the same building had such different methods despite having the same certificate on the wall, but instead I think it’s important to cover the importance of making sure our therapists are right for US. For some reason and I have found many relate to this, we have this idea that we have to stay with certain therapists. I think when we already have difficulties, anxiety etc it can be hard to speak up and we can feel rude saying that they are not for us. Not only that, but I think because of that certificate on the wall we think they must know best and cant possibly be steering us in the wrong direction.

Therapists, psychologists and the like are incredibly intelligent people, but they’re also just that, people. They are people with different ideas about the world and different beliefs in their work. Recovery doesn’t have to be your goal and you dont have to go down the road of recovery, but dont let it be because someone else has told you it’s not possible. If you want more for your life, there are people that will help you get there and guide you along that journey.

Its really unfortunate and sad that the recovery methods aren’t a standard practice and therapists seem to have such varied methods, but sometimes we have to decide what we want and thats definitely something that I had to do. I had to work out if I was going to take this mans words as the gospel truth or want more for myself and thank GOODNESS I chose the latter.

This is your life and you have to decide what you want from it. I know I preach a lot about changing your life, but i’m too far into this journey now to ever believe any different. My word I was once told I would never speak again when I was dealing with selective mutism. I was told I would be mute for the rest of my life. I have friends that have gone from wheelchair bound to walking, spoke to people who battled with schizophrenia and now those voices don’t make a sound.

I think a lot of it boils down to self worth. Feeling we are worthy of more is difficult and even more so when someone indicates that we aren’t through telling us we have to stay the same. I am and always will be here to remind you that you deserve more.

You deserve the whole darn’ world.