More Than Treating Symptoms

     Sometime, I go to my weekly therapy session, and we don't talk about my OCD or do any exposure exercises. Sometimes we talk about my writing and how stressful it can be for me. Sometimes we talk about my relationships with family or friends. Basically, in therapy we talk about life in general instead of only the one piece of my life that is OCD.
     I always feel a little guilty when therapy talk drifts away from my OCD. I feel guilty because any time spent in my session on my part, talking about something that isn't related to the mental health condition with which I was diagnosed feels like I'm wasting my therapist's valuable time. To me, it seemed the same as going to my primary care physician for a cold, but then telling them all about a sprained ankle instead of telling them the actual problem for which I made the appointment in the first place.
     I told my therapist about that idea this week in my session, and she said something like, "You know, therapy is about coping in general." What she meant by that was that therapy isn't just about treating the symptoms of a mental health condition. It's about learning coping skills that can make life a little easier to deal with as well as treating the mental health condition. That statement makes sense now that I've heard it spoken out loud.
     Stress can  make the symptoms of mental health conditions worse, so of course you have to learn coping skills for life's stress to improve life with your mental health condition. She also made a point to tell me that I wasn't wasting time. Therapy is also a place to process traumatic events like the death of a beloved pet or family member, or any other traumatic life event. She has even asked about the book I'm writing, which was definitely a more pleasant topic of conversation.
     I guess I still had an expectation for the way I thought therapy would be. I thought the only thing that I should talk about was the mental health condition that I had been diagnosed with. I thought my everyday life and struggles outside of what was impacted by my OCD weren't on the table for discussion. The truth is that everything about your life is on the table for discussion when you walk into a counseling session, even the fact that you might have made a spur of the moment change to your hair.
     I'll end with this: Therapy isn't just about dealing with the symptoms of a mental health condition. Therapy is also about  learning to cope and to process things so that after therapy we can maintain our wellness. Just because you aren't talking about your symptoms every single time you sit in the chair doesn't mean that you aren't working on getting well or that you're wasting time. Sometimes, therapy needs to be a place to process life in general, and that's okay.