Pandora's Box

     I'm not really sure what I expected out of therapy. To be honest, I think my expectations were a little unrealistic. I thought that I could take care of the big issue that was causing me so much distress (my religious-themed obsessions and the resulting anxiety), and that would somehow make everything else in my mind fall in line and become "fixed". Maybe I expected to be able to find a solution to all of my issues in a too-short time frame. That isn't how this works.
     Before I talked to my therapist about it, I thought I wasn't getting better at all because I was still having quite a few bad days. New sources of anxiety seem to be popping into my mind almost weekly. I thought I was doing therapy wrong. I didn't care that I have only been in therapy since August, or that I've actually only been undergoing treatment for Pure O since October. I expected more than the small victories, my baby steps toward wellness. I still thought I needed to be better at getting better, even though I know mental illness doesn't work that way.
     My mind is my very own Pandora's Box. Inside my Pandora's Box I locked away a great many things over the years, like suppressed feelings, all the anxiety-inducing fears I tried to ignore, and all the past events that I pretended (at the time) had no effect on me at all. All the things I never dealt with are hidden in there. I'd bottled up too many things and pretended I was fine for too long.
     Therapy has opened Pandora's Box, and that means all those things can make their way to the surface of my mind. All the things I never dealt with can wreak havoc, and sometimes that's what happens. That's why I have a new source of anxiety almost every week. I'm going to have to deal with everything that comes out of the Pandora's Box that is my mind, and that isn't the easiest thing in the world to do, especially when you've gotten used to not dealing with everything.
     I expected to be better faster once I started treatment, and I realize that was an unrealistic idea. I don't have a lot of patience, especially not when it comes to myself so I expected too much. I didn't realize that I'd spent years locking thing away. Of course, treatment and getting well is going to take time. I'm trying to change years and years worth of faulty thinking. I can't just shut Pandora's Box back and pretend I'm perfectly fine anymore.
     Therapy is a slow process. Sometimes, to me, this process of working through all the stuff that comes out of the anxious depths of my mind feels agonizingly slow. I didn't expect things to be as difficult to work through as they have been. I also didn't expect to open the Pandora's Box of all my issues that I didn't know I'd buried while I just tried to deal with Primarily Obsessional Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.
     I'll end with this: Be gentle with the things you tell yourself about the treatment process. Confronting the darkest parts of your mind isn't easy, and it's a slow process. Even the smallest step in the direction of wellness is a victory, even if it doesn't seem like it.