What if You Never End Therapy?

[it's been awhile since I posted a Savage Chickens cartoon]

Therese recently posted about therapy termination, and as this is something I often think about, I thought I'd offer my own opinion. My opinion is that I never plan on ending therapy. I expressed this to a friend once some time ago who responded somewhat surprised. However, s/he doesn't have a chronic issue, and I also hadn't known this person all that long at the time. My opinion is that it's easy to terminate therapy when you're going through a transition -- divorce, career change, etc-- you can resolve those things, but how do you resolve altered brain chemistry?

At the time I had this conversation I was doing things such as calling my therapist 6 times in a 4 day period and sending her 20+ emails in a week. That was before OOO and a particular friend who has really gotten inside my head. I knew things weren't always going to be like they were at that time (they aren't, things are much better). I even felt -- and still feel -- like eventually I can get to the point where maybe I'm only checking in with my therapist once a month (of course with the occasional email & text message thrown in in between... I'm human and it's the 21st century). I just don't feel like there will ever be a point where I will be able to sever ties completely, nor do I think this will ever be appropriate or safe.

I have friends who have been seeing the same therapist 15, 20+ years (weekly I bet) and I don't think there is anything wrong with this (not that this is what the friend above was saying). If that's what you need, that's what you need. I think that a society that equates self-sufficiency with complete independence is really doing most of the population a huge disservice. Humans are herd animals, we need people, and for some people that need includes, and will always include, a therapist. Nor do I think this is what Therese was saying, that you should ditch your therapist. She was saying the opposite.

I just wanted to say this because I think it needs to be said. My therapist often tells me not to compare myself to other people, which is like impossible being that, as I said, I'm human. Reading Therese's post might have lead me to do that. She posted recommendations by experts that "...it seems logical to stop once you feel better, have resolved your major issues, and feel like your life and relationships have improved."

What if you never do feel "better"?

Says you: Didn't you just say you feel better?

Says me: I DID!!! And I DO! But my life can't "improve" you see. Although it has improved a great deal thanks to friends who get in my head, I will always have cerebral palsy and I will always be bipolar and be on medication and use wheelchairs etc, and so the things that initally lead me to therapy at the young age of 5 won't ever go away. They won't ever be "resolved" because not only can't they be resolved, I don't want or need them to be. Does that make me less of a person then someone going through a divorce who terminates therapy after 6mos? OF COURSE NOT! Yet somehow I can see someone interpreting that statement this way and so in my head I went

wait.... that isn't right.... that's bull and I hope no one actually thinks that. So I've been in therapy over half my life. So what? It's working this time and why would anyone end a good thing just because they think they're not as good as someone else? I hope they wouldn't...