You didn't ask but I'm here to tell you: Four ways therapy has helped me get through 2020

If 2020 were a recipe, unearthed in a hasty internet search for “easy weeknight dinners,” it would begin with a long, folksy preamble about 2019. Those halcyon days when hugs were abundant, toilet paper was plentiful, and no one gave a second thought to eating knee-to-knee, elbow-to-elbow, exhale to inhale with strangers in an enclosed space.

The recipe would then go on to rattle off a laundry list of ingredients. A tablespoon of uncertainty, a truckload of anxiety, a pinch of panic, and a sprinkle of what in heaven’s name is even happening right now. 

 

If we weren’t all in need of some mental and emotional TLC before this year, where every day delivers a new dumpster fire and another reason for existential reflection, we most certainly are now. 

 

As the mother of four smallish kids, facing the same concerns and fears as most parents around the world, I’ve never been more grateful for two things: brief trips to the bathroom, wherein I collect my thoughts and whisper some motivational affirmations into a toothpaste-spattered mirror — and therapy. 

 

Every Monday at 1 p.m., I make sure our toddler is napping. I make sure my husband, who’s currently working from our basement, has one ear out for any screaming children or virtual school crises. I grab my phone, sneak into our dented SUV, and settle in for a 50-minute session. 

 

There was a time when I met with my therapist in a real office. We could talk face to face, and I could borrow generously from the box of tissues on the table between us. These days, she calls me, and I talk with her from the car. It’s not perfect, but it works. 

 

My first experiences with therapy began apprehensively and continued sporadically, starting when I was 24. I saw it as a quick fix. Help me get through this breakup. Talk with me about one aspect my marriage. Wade with me into the shallow waters that surround deep grief, and when I feel better, we can part ways. Each meeting was a relief, but the beneficial effects were short lived. 

 

Now I see my relationship with therapy and my therapist as an ongoing collaboration. A really important journey with no particular destination. The longer and more regularly I go, the more I’m able to see the improvements that result. Sprints are temporarily rewarding, but marathons offer emotional growth, interesting sights and tiny cups of water along the way. 

 

Over the years, I’ve experienced so many real, tangible benefits from regular therapy — benefits that can apply to anyone. Any parent. Any person with even crumb of desire for introspection. 

 

1. It’s self-care in the purest sense. 

Face masks and bath bombs are great, but sometimes the little luxuries labeled as “self-care” are band-aids we slap over a bigger need. Therapy helps me care for myself on a super fundamental level. It helps me address the issues and worries that keep me from feeling like my best self. It’s that oxygen-mask-on-an-airplane analogy brought to life. When I can breathe easier, I can be more present for the important people in my life, which brings me to #2...

 

2. It makes me a better partner and mom, daughter and friend. 

It’s a lot easier to respond to and work through the interpersonal snags in life if we try to understand where the other person is coming from, and what they might be feeling. Therapy gives me the opportunity to contemplate perspectives outside my own, so I can view my marriage, my friendships and parenthood with an extra layer of empathy and respond accordingly. I yell less. I listen more. I take everything a lot less personally.

 

3. It gives me a place to put my grief. 

I’m not sure if you if you’ve noticed this, but as a society, we’re really bad at grief. The pattern goes a little something like this: “Here: We’ll give you two weeks to be really sad. You’ll get a year of general sympathy (tops), and then you’re on your own. Still feel gloomy? Go weep quietly in a bathroom stall, but please fix your eye makeup and turn that frown upside-down when you’re done.” 

 

We’re told to stifle our grief, but we still carry it – everywhere. Therapy gives me a place to put down that heavy backpack. Unload it. Breathe a sigh of relief. I can talk about missing my dad, or the pain of losing my youngest brother, process my sadness, and find new ways to exist as a grieving person in a world that doesn’t always seem to care. For me, this gift alone is worth the price of admission.   

 

4. It helps me feel hopeful. 

It doesn’t matter who you are. How much money you have or don’t have. How many kids are in your care. These days, we are all stuck in a weird existential holding pattern with no clear way out. It can be hard to look to the future when your hierarchy of needs has been whittled down to: eat, sleep, pay bills, keep the iPad charged, try to remember what day it is. Therapy gives me little achievable goals that help me remember something simple and essential: we are all continuing to grow, even in this time of diminished light. 

 

All of this comes with a caveat: I know that therapy isn’t as accessible or affordable as it should be. I hope that we can begin to whittle away the stigma and focus on reframing therapy from a luxury for some people to a healthy necessity for all people. If you are able to talk with a therapist, or even a friend who is ready and willing to listen, take advantage of that gift. I don’t know you, or what this hot-garbage-surprise-egg of a year has dropped at your feet, but I can tell you with full certainty that you deserve it.