Therapy (of the Mind Kind)

Yesterday I left a comment on this post at Everyone Needs Therapy. The post itself didn't lend to me commenting at all. I felt compelled to comment about people's comments. Start reading peoples comments over there. The discussion is always amazing. The comment starts like this:

I've been in & out of therapy for almost 2 decades. I'm on my 8th shrink.

[image description: a guy up on a ladder yells 'HELLO HELLO' into someone's empty head]

This is not something I'm not used to saying (oftentimes to myself)-- I'm on my 8th shrink. It's the "in & out of therapy for almost two decades" part that hit me. TWO DECADES?!?!?! WTF???? I'm only 24 for pete's sake. If we add up all my stints (some people I saw less then a year, some multiple years) I'm guessing it adds up to 12 years. 12 years=HALF MY LIFE!!!

Half my life, and what do I have to show for it? Sometimes I think nothing at all, sometimes I think something--something small. Sometimes I think all the rest of my time doesn't count except for the last two years. I think about how I completely wasted my time with half of them (about 3 or 4 years). I think about how for about 6 years (broken up into 2 stints, same shrink) I was talked at for an hr a week. I'm not sure I got anything from that dude for the first 3 or 4 years.

Sometimes I think the last two years are going painfully slowly. I think that the last year managed to erase the year before it. I think about how I wasn't anxious at all 2 years ago (it's in black & white in my chart) and how now, well now I've been known to be so nauseous just the thought of food makes me feel like I'm going to throw up. Now I've been known to wake up in the middle of the night in so much physical pain that I end up in tears. So sometimes (like today) I have to remind myself of this. At least I'm not THERE.