Advice I Gave My Therapist

...and how do you feel about that?

Please note: this is just my experience with ONE therapist. I have had other much more positive experiences — this is the only weird one. Sometimes it takes a bit of trial and error to find the right person for you. :)

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A long time ago in a land far away, I went to therapy.

It started off well - I turned up to the wrong place and had thirteen minutes to make a seventeen minute journey, and somehow made it. Time is a construct, folks. My appointment was in a back room of a posh gym, so everything smelt like chlorine and the air was always a bit warm. I would sit with my hands on my knees, avoiding eye contact with anyone who walked by. After a few weeks I stopped wearing jeans to my appointments and started wearing leggings because I thought it might make it less obvious that I wasn’t actually there for a work-out. The most exposing part about therapy wasn’t telling a stranger all my problems, it was sitting in the foyer of the gym. I may as well have had “I can’t lift more than 5kg” scrawled on my forehead. They all knew it

I don’t imagine my experience of therapy was that different from a lot of others’ — we began with a session going over the basics of how I was feeling, and then looked at breathing exercise and getting enough sleep and all the other fun, practical things to do when anxiety begins to boil over. It’s maybe worth noting that I never liked going to therapy. I know some people do, and they find it a release, but I never quite felt that way, and perhaps the reason why will become clearer, but I just wanted to mention now that it wasn’t quite clicking from the start.

The layout was like this: the first six weeks would follow practical techniques, and the last six weeks would be for counselling and discussing my problems. I am a girl who loves structure, so I was saving up my problems like a beaver ready to hibernate.

I don’t mind sharing that the first thing I’d planned on asking her about was social anxiety. I had made notes. I was prepared.

What I was not prepared for, however, was the question my therapist asked me fifteen minutes into the session.

The thing about my therapist, let’s call her Hannah, was she loved an anecdote. She told me about her brother’s quiches, the parties she had with her neighbours, and her engagement that almost was. And I’m sure that an anecdote can be really helpful in making people feel less alone in their feelings. It’s just that I couldn’t see how this one resonated with my anxiety, which revolved around going out with friends.

She began by telling me about her new boyfriend. She told me all about the fact that he was an ex-convict, fresh out the slammer if you will, and he was allergic to cats. Hannah had just adopted two kittens. She was a cat LOVER. But her new boyfriend kept sneezing and tearing up around the cats.

“I don’t know what to do,” she told me, “what do you think?”

And how do you feel about that?

Have you ever been in a conversation before where someone says something and you’re not sure if it’s a joke? I froze for about two minutes. Is this a psycho-analytical test?, I wondered.

“Um,” I said, “can he take antihistamines? Has he tried Piriton?”

I think I frowned a bit because I was searching her face for confirmation that I’d said the right thing. I was sure this was a practical test or something. Should I have maybe asked for more details about the ex-convict part? Like, what did he do? How bad was the crime? Because if we’re talking he’s - like - a bank robber then maybe leave it out, but if it was like he nicked a packet of Jelly Babies from Sainsbury’s then that’s different. Not a victimless crime, but definitely not on the same scale.

Hannah told me that the man in question did have allergy medication, but her main concern was that she didn’t want to fall in love with him and then be in a sticky situation.

“I don’t know whether to get rid of the cats?” She looked at me with such concern and sincerity that I knew that this probably actually wasn’t a joke anymore. This wasn’t a test - this was a genuine question.

“I wouldn’t get rid of the cats,” I said, because I wouldn’t. “How long have you been together?”

“Two months.”

Okay, so this is a fresh relationship, I thought. Well, last week I told Hannah that I’d never had a boyfriend so why the fuck is she asking me?

“I’d probably dump him before I dumped the cats, but that’s just me, obviously it’s about how you feel.” I said.

It’s about how you feel. I’ll add that to the long list of things I shouldn’t have said.

They were still together a few sessions later, when she told me she was annoyed because he kept playing Fortnite instead of helping her do the washing up. Red flag, I thought, but who am I to comment on someone else’s relationship?

This was quite a conflicting period for me. I sort of liked Hannah, when I wasn’t really annoyed at her, so I didn’t want her to be upset if I asked her to, I don’t know, stop talking about herself so much. Here we were, in my therapy session, and I was advising her. I didn’t feel angry, but I was frustrated and confused.

We spent about twenty minutes of the forty-five minute session discussing Hannah’s relationship, so by the time I managed to swing the conversation on to the topic of friendship and socialising, we were running out of time. I ended up feeling a bit guilty - as though I was being selfish for wanting to talk about me all the time. I realise that’s silly because I’m literally paying her to listen to me talk, but nonetheless, those feelings persisted.

If it told me one thing, it was that my problems weren’t special or overtly interesting. If they had been, Hannah would have probably been a lot more invested in them, and asked me for all the details. I know how she loved a gossip with the girls over a glass of Whispering Angel on a Friday night — that’s how she became so close with her neighbour, Anita. This gave me quite a lot of comfort: for my side of the conversation to be as boring as it was, she must hear it ten times a day. And if her other clients could get through it, so could I.

I’m not sure how to round this one up, but maybe I will just say to learn from my mistakes. If your therapist is talking about themselves too much, tell them to, if they wouldn’t mind - shut up and listen.

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