Therapy!

Last month I toyed around with the idea of finding a talk therapist to get me through my winter blues. It’s been a long, dark, cold, depressing (see?) winter of isolation and disinterest, so, why not? I searched around the Internet and finally found someone who takes my insurance and is near my hometown. The only tiny problem was when I reached out to her she mentioned she was going on vacation and wouldn’t be able to see me for a month. Did I really want to wait a month to see this person? I couldn’t find any other therapists that struck my interest, so I told her “sure”, and scheduled a meeting a month out.

The month flew by, and that very meeting happened earlier this week! I haven’t had a therapist in a year, and when I did it was an underwhelming experience. That therapist was okay, but she was expensive and I think she was used to dealing with a different crowd — a more “Manhattan”, older crowd — so whenever I met with her I felt self-conscious about whatever I was talking about. I didn’t feel a “click” with her. And her office was stuffy, dry, lifeless. I’m not complaining, she was very nice and helped me deal with my life problems, but after three months I didn’t want to see her anymore. So I was really excited to meet this new one!

This new therapist’s office is under construction, so she’s been renting out the office of a local church for the time being. She was nice enough to schedule an appointment with me after work, so we agreed to meet at 8 pm. I drove my car to this dark, barren church parking lot and walked into this empty church-adjacent building on a Tuesday night. She had mentioned to me in our email correspondence that there would be no receptionist, so I didn’t know where I was going when I walked in there. I heard people in the basement. At 8 pm, in this dark church building… On a Tuesday night. They sounded like children. Maybe a religious youth thing was happening? I didn’t know what was going on.

Finally she walked in through the main door and greeted me. She had been outside in her car the whole time because her earlier appointment had cancelled, so I was essentially walking around this church building by myself. I’m really glad I didn’t walk into the basement, approaching random children saying, “I’m looking for my new therapist”, because that would have been amazing.

Anyway, our first meeting went well! She was a very nice, empathetic listener who cracked a few jokes between her words of encouragement. We met in a messy room (it was like a storage closet) full of books and decorations and other Christian nonsense. Halfway through our session all the children from the basement bolted out the front door, which was a weird, loud thing to happen as I was explaining my problems to this person. We’re meeting again next week. We’ll see what happens.

I’m glad I decided to pursue therapy again in my life. I think everyone should try it at least once. My last therapist had me dig deep into my subconscious, she wouldn’t say a thing and would have me ramble until some new discovery was made. I wasn’t crazy (haha) about that method, as I’m not a fan of talking about myself with zero reaction from the person on the other end, but some of those discoveries were pretty amazing. It’s too early to tell how this new therapist will be, or what methods she’ll use in our meetings, but if they’re as eccentric as our first meeting, then it should be a good time.

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