I Decided that Maybe I Should Talk to Someone

I am writing this post to congratulate myself. “On what?” you might ask. Well, as of a few weeks ago, it has been a year since I first started seeing a therapist. (Cue the balloons that pop up on your iMessage even when you don’t want them to just because you said the word “mazel tov.”) And yes. I see a therapist. And it’s been truly wonderful. Also difficult and exhausting. But rewarding. Very often, I find that many of the people who are even willing to admit to seeing a therapist, which isn’t so many, do so in very offhand, fleeting ways; using alternative words to describe their therapist such as their counselor, coach, or “person.” And from my experience, almost none of these people are men - a not so surprising fact, since women are twice as likely to see a therapist than men. As of now, I only have one close male friend in therapy, and though I won’t say I’m the reason he went...he did immediately send me an excited “I went to therapy!” text right after, so I take some credit. Anyway, for that reason, I want to just stand in the statement that I am a man, in therapy, every week. I have been for a year. And not only is there no shame in it; there is pride.

Society can say there is no shame in seeing a therapist, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t affected subconsciously by intense social stigma. Even now, I struggle with this. Whenever someone mentions they are in therapy, I can’t help but play a quick game of “what caused them to go to therapy” (insert little gameshow-like jingle here). Behind door number one is divorced parents. Door number two: disordered eating. Other doors include: intense anxiety, drug problems, struggles with sexual or gender identity, death / loss in their family. This game involves picking up on subtle clues to identify what pushed them to see a therapist. Notice, I say pushed rather than chose to see a therapist, because there is this idea that usually, people only see therapists when absolutely necessary. Firstly, I would say it is always necessary since we’re all flawed, and therapy helps you engage in self reflection and growth. But that is neither here nor there. Secondly, even now, we’re trained to think of therapy as a reactive resource. One of my friends told me that in high school, she turned to her mom and said, “Mom, I think I’m depressed, I want to see a therapist,” and her mom responded, “You’re in high school, everyone is depressed in high school.” And, no shade, that sentiment is very common. Therapy is often considered for emergencies - only to put out fires. And while all of the reasons previously listed are all important, you don’t need something so concrete to find benefit from therapy.

I want to add a disclaimer before I continue. This post is from my experience. I am in no way an expert in therapy. Even though I am dating a social work student who wants to go into therapy, I could not tell you why some therapists have MSWs and some have MFTs, and what any of that means. But I do know my experience. I also took a psychology course in college. So maybe that does make me an expert?

For the sake of openness, I’ll tell you why I decided to go to therapy. Going back to high school, I used to analyze everything. Every night was like Toy Story in my brain - the second the lights turned off, my brain just came alive. Instead of sleeping, I would process full conversations from weeks prior, plan for future conversations that had yet to happen, and plan for multiple versions of these future conversations, just in case. It often took me so long to fall asleep, I wondered why I even went to bed in the first place. And for the next many years, this continued. For a while in high school, I’d brush my teeth and get into pajamas at 8 pm so the second I felt any sort of exhaustion, I could just close my eyes and go directly to sleep - laptop still open, lights still on - all because getting ready for bed allowed my mind more time to think, and the second it started thinking, there was no way to stop it. It was during this period that a family friend recommended sleeping with a fan since the sound of a fan drowns out silence. (Spoiler alert...probably not a good thing to need a fan to overpower your thoughts).

In college, this issue magnified. I’d constantly find myself, late at night, overwhelmed by a month’s worth of unprocessed thoughts and emotions trying to come out. The only time I really slept was when I was so exhausted I passed out. Then, I got to San Francisco and found myself with no interest in dating as that gave someone else control of my life, no tools to process my sexuality, and an abnormal lack of passion stemming from a fear of failure. Also, I hadn’t slept without a fan in four or five years. So, I decided that maybe I should speak to someone.

If only it was so simple. It took a lot of work to name my subconscious aversion to therapy, as if my seeing a therapist was in some way acknowledging that I couldn’t handle my life on my own. But the truth is, seeing a therapist was me handling it. When you want to gain muscle but have no experience with weight lifting, you see a trainer. The same is true for a therapist. But, similar to why not everyone gets a personal trainer even when they want to get fit, therapy can cost a lot of money, and I didn’t have any. And I didn’t want to ask my parents to pay for therapy - partially because doing so would mean I had to vocalize a need for therapy, and I’m not sure I could.

But then, in October of 2019, my Grandmother, Sherry, passed away. About a month after she passed, my grandfather called together his two kids, their spouses, and their combined 5 kids on a google hangouts call together (zoom wasn’t for social calls yet) for what was supposed to be a 30 minute phone call but turned into an hour since my grandfather couldn’t figure out how to turn on both his camera and audio at the same time. Anyway, my grandfather told us that we would be getting a small bit of money from a life insurance plan, and asked us to each go around, say a memory of my grandmother, and share what we were going to do with the money in her memory. My older brother said he was going to help pay his mortgage. My uncle said they were going on a family trip to Kenya. And my response was pretty simple: I’m going to use the money to pay for therapy. Now, my family is pretty open, but we never talk much about mental health, and barely (read: never) talk about emotions or feelings. So the concept of stating to my family I was going to therapy felt a bit daunting. Did they think I was kidding? Probably not. Did they really see the reason for therapy? Definitely not. Honestly, it felt kind of like coming out of sorts, but kind of more stressful (in some ways).

Just a month later, when I decided to talk to my parents about my sexuality, my mom responded, “So is that why you need therapy?” And my immediate reaction was “no.” I mean, yes, that is part of it. But when I walked into my therapist’s office on the first day with a handwritten list of 8 things that I felt were holding me back or I needed help with, only 1 of them even touched upon sexuality. As my friend Max once said about when they attend therapy, “yes, I’m queer. And I have many issues that are completely unrelated to that.” And in that moment of talking to my mom, I recognized that, yes, I had work to do regarding discussing sexuality publicly, but my desire for therapy stemmed from a need for a space of self reflection, for someone to give me tools and structure to process, for someone to see inside my head and tell me I was crazy. Or not. And, spoiler alert: I wasn’t crazy. The truth is that none of the things I was thinking about were novel to my therapist at all. I had been living for years thinking I was the only one who dealt with certain insecurities or thoughts, always afraid to ask my friends if they felt similarly out of fear that if they couldn’t relate, subsequently pushing me deeper into the dark hole of isolation.

But, one of the blessings I feel in life is that I am in a relationship with someone who values therapy, and have friends who value it.

Savyon and I not only talk about therapy, but use it as a precursor for our conversations. We are constantly sharing and debriefing all of the things we talk about in therapy, both topics related and unrelated to our relationship.

The same is true with my friends. Therapy is not some dark secret place where my inner feelings go to die, it is a place to have a professional help me process the things going on. My friend Aliza and I have therapy at the same time every week and we call each other after to congratulate each other on the growth we both accomplished, pat ourselves on the back for crying or not crying (although only one of us really cries in therapy), and help process what we learned. It’s kind of like discussing with someone what you learned in class that day.

In therapy this week, Sarah (my therapist) and I decided to reflect on the year of therapy. As part of this, she asked me to reflect on what the largest takeaways of the last year were, and I said there are three.

Number 1

The first is giving myself permission to think any thought that comes into my head. Sounds simple. But I’ve always struggled analyzing the underlying meaning of thoughts - like if only I had someone who could interpret my thoughts for me, like my own personal Joseph and the (you know, with the technicolor dreamcoat). In 4th grade religious Jewish school, our teacher told us that you’re not even allowed to think about worshipping an idol, because thinking about it is as if you were doing it. And for not just the next year, but many years following, this image of me fully prostrating to an inanimate object would pop into my head. I would be in services, or having fun with friends, or trying to go to sleep, and this image of me bowing down to some big golden elephant statue would just appear, and the harder I tried to get rid of it, the longer it stayed. And then I’d try to analyze why. Maybe it’s my mind’s way of telling me that I want to rebel against god. And Sarah helped me understand that there doesn’t need to be this underlying meaning behind every thought. It’s ok to wonder if god exists without it meaning you don’t believe in them. It’s ok to think about what it would be like to date someone else without it meaning that you want to be with anyone else. It’s ok to think about bowing down to an expensive shiny Dumbo without becoming an idol worshipper.

Number 2

The second thing she helped me with was by asking the simple question of why. Every time I say, “I can’t” or “I shouldn’t,” she asks, “why?” or “who says?” And very fast, I become aware of how often I act off of an assumed objective right and wrong, rather than because of my own personal values.

Number 3

The third thing, which I truly consider a gift, is telling me to take a break. She told me to spend 15 minutes, every day, away from people, away from music, just sitting and thinking. At first, this felt so simple, and silly, but I was like “fine fine, I’ll do it.” So I’d sit at the park for 15 minutes and people watch, or sit on my stoop, or just walk around the block. And more often than not, I spent this time thinking about dinner, or how an entire season of Survivor would have changed if one person had voted differently early on. But after a month or so, I realized that I had actually been falling asleep. And when I mentioned to Sarah, a few months later, that I had trouble falling asleep again, she asked if I had been taking my breaks. And, all of sudden, it dawned on me. Either I give my brain time to breathe, or it takes it when I want to go to sleep.

It’s funny because, during this year, every time I went into therapy being like “ehhhh, I don’t think I need this anymore,” I left remembering why I love therapy. There is just something about having someone else reframe my thoughts and challenge me that causes me to grow more in a month than I am able to in a year on my own.

And look, I recognize that a lot of the time, people in therapy make it seem far easier than it is. As if we magically happen across a wonderful therapist that magically whisked away all of our problems. But if you’ve tried to find a therapist and couldn’t...Same. This country makes it so damn impossible to find a therapist, and when you do, they are probably out of network, cost a fortune, or aren’t licensed in your state.

Once I was ready to actually find a therapist (which was months after telling myself I was), I signed on to my computer with the eager excitement of Freshmen in college thinking their lives are going to change forever the second they step on campus. But two minutes in, I was overwhelmed. There are MSWs and MFTs. Those who focus on couples; children; eating disorders; sexuality. Some therapists who were the age of my grandparents, and some who could have been my siblings. There were men, there were women, there were non-binary people. There were those who focused on CBT (which sounds more like a strain of marijuana than a type of therapy) and those who focus on other stuff. If you feel overwhelmed reading this, same. Five minutes into “the rest of my life” and already I felt lost.

But after an hour, I found a person. They were female, older, but not too old - I find it easier to talk to women than men, which makes sense given the number of female friendships I have. I wanted someone that was older so they could have an authoritative or wise feeling, but not too old that they may not be “with the times.” This person also said they focused on young adults, sexuality, and anxiety. Perfect. I emailed them, eagerly awaiting confirmation and the start to my new life.

Similar to my acceptance to Hogwarts, that confirmation email never came. Not that day. Not the next day. Not the next week. So I decided maybe I would email a few others, kind of like applying to safety schools in case the top school that you’re perfect for is dumb and doesn’t accept you. So I emailed three more. No response. Within weeks, cue: frantic Shai. Something to know about me is that I hate bargaining. Once I go through the mental and emotional process of deciding that I want something, I struggle to walk away from it - which makes me a pretty horrendous bargainer. Given I had already decided I needed a therapist, I emailed 15 other therapists, no matter how bad of a fit. And within three weeks, only three had responded. One said she didn’t think we’d be a fit, the other two said they were at capacity. It clearly wasn’t meant to be.

But then, a few months later, I met Savyon, we started dating, and she talked about her therapist, Sandra, non-stop. Savyon legitimately recommended Sandra to all of her friends. So when I mentioned my failed therapy attempts, she didn’t recommend Sandra, because that would have been weird, but she did reaffirm that this is an experience many people have, and encouraged me to try again.

With that subtle nudge, I went back to the drawing board and found a therapist! And, on that first day, waiting outside this therapist's office, in a makeshift waiting room with a small little plastic-looking plant and a decorative fountain making jungle noises, I felt super anxious about what was to come. And for 4 sessions, this therapist asked questions. She asked about my family, my friends, camp, sexual history, relationship to religion, etc. It was just question after question. And even though I had every intention of utilizing therapy, I found myself holding back. Curbing some of my answers. It dawned on me that getting to therapy was the easy part. The hard part was actually doing the work in therapy.

Long story short: this therapist wasn’t covered by insurance. I was a bit deflated, and disappointed that I had just spent 4 hours telling this woman more about my life than anyone else and now it had all gone to waste. I sort of walked away from that being like “oh well, I guess therapy wasn’t for me.” But that, again, was a defense mechanism, because something always felt a bit off with the first person. But let me tell you, just because you find a therapist, doesn’t mean you find the therapist. It’s kind of like online dating. Just because you like their picture, and the few sentences they wrote about themselves, and exchanged a few pleasant emails, doesn’t mean you should marry them. And as though a call from whatever supernatural being you believe in, one of the two therapists that didn’t have space way back when, emailed me out of nowhere asking if I was still in need of a therapist. And she was in network. And that was when I met Sarah.

On the first day with Sarah, I walked into the building in downtown San Francisco, and went to like the 14th floor. The waiting room had floor to ceiling windows that overlooked the city and the bay. I listened to some Chelsea Cutler to get myself in the introspective mood. She called me in, and immediately I felt more comfortable than the first time. I realized that just because therapy is important, doesn’t mean that it will work with any therapist. The relationship is important. And this was the right one. I came in with that aforementioned piece of paper with eight things that I wanted to work on, and my time with Sarah began.

Though I am quite disappointed to say that I don’t have that piece of paper anymore, I can tell you they involved thinking at night, being unsure about my intentions behind things, what I consider over independence, and a difficulty processing emotions. She didn’t spend 4 sessions asking about every detail of my life. She turned to me and asked, “which of those eight things do you want to address first?”

As a closing, I have to say, emotionally, therapy is hard work. I never realized how difficult it was to fully talk about all of my thoughts and insecurities. It’s kind of daunting to even acknowledge that you have insecurities, let alone be open and honest about them. I still notice myself curbing some of my responses because I feel so exposed. And the emotional energy it takes to work on yourself is a lot. So in no way am I saying that therapy is easy. But it also allows you to grow. It allows you to see yourself and process yourself in a way that most people are unable to do on their own. But every time I think I don’t need therapy anymore, I go back for one more session, and realize that I don’t have to need therapy to want therapy. And I want therapy because I don’t think I’m the best possible version of myself. And I will proudly admit that I think there is work to do on myself, and I’m trying to do it.

And look, everyone can use a therapist. As shown in the book “Maybe you should talk to someone” (which everyone should read), the main character is a therapist who goes to see a therapist. Because even she needs the help. And if I can leave you with anything it’s that, if you feel like there is work you want to do on yourself, maybe you should talk to someone.