Hi, I’m Anne. I am a therapist in Orange County, California. If you are thinking about starting therapy, it is probably a good sign that something underneath is speaking. It’s also completely understandable that it may induce anxiety to even be thinking about reaching out.
“Why can therapy feel so scary? Why am I so nervous to get started? Why was I so awkward on the phone?!“
These are such important questions to normalize. It makes sense you would feel scared and be nervous. You are trusting another person, practicing depending, which might have been betrayed in your life before. It is very vulnerable to show another person how you suffer and ask for them to help you.
In the kind of therapy I practice, I start with the assumption that you are protecting something precious within you, and I have no right to look unless you invite my help. That invitation is sacred. When you ask another person for help, you are beginning to engage your attachment system (the installed relationship “software” where you learned to trust or not trust other people). It’s not good therapy if it’s not fiddling with these wires, and that can be frightening.
If it is difficult to trust people to take good care of you, then reaching out for therapy is a big risk! It requires courage.
You don’t know what is on the other side, and it might be worth the risk.
If you are wondering if you should try therapy, my guess is that you are asking this question for good reason. Perhaps something important is under the surface that’s inviting you to ask yourself this question. It could be a snuffed wish, a hope, a self-belief, an idea that something could be different, etc. Even in wondering about it, I think you might be trying to tell yourself something.
And if it feels scary to keep exploring this question, that is really normal. Again, this dependence thing. “If I brought myself and my problems to another person, could they actually help me?” Only you can risk that first move.
