Room to Grow

     This week in my phone therapy session, my therapist and I were talking about the ideas of growth and change. She talked about how it was okay to experience large-scale changes as we grew, like changing life paths and then restructuring our lives to match who we currently are. Humans aren't meant to stay the same forever, we're meant to grow and change and become different throughout our lives. (This was one of those topics, that if it were acceptable to say "Amen" to your therapist, I would have done so.)

    Sometimes, I look back at who I was from the ages of twenty to twenty-five, and I don't recognize that girl at all. I look back at the choices I made and the the way I thought about so many things, and I think now, "How was that me?" I look back over that time when I feel like I was pretty much controlled by my mental health conditions, and I'm internally screaming, "That doesn't feel like me!" The differences between five years ago and today are stark, and sometimes shocking, even to myself. 

   I feel...different now. Inwardly, I think and believe differently. My opinions are different. My goals are different. The picture I always had in my head of my happiest life doesn't AT ALL match the picture I have now in my head of my happiest life. I feel like I'm on a different path now.

    Outwardly, I'm different, too. I interact differently with people now that I'm no longer carrying around the weight and the trauma of my mental health conditions. I also dress and do my makeup differently than I did pre-therapy. (I mention this because, before therapy, my OCD made me feel like only certain types of clothing and makeup were "safe", and now I get to actually choose the way I look based on what I like. It feels like a big deal, to me, to have that freedom.)

    When people on TV/in movies/pop culture talk about going to therapy and healing and personal growth, they usually mean it in this poetic, romanticized way that doesn't really mean much about their life has actually changed since they've gone to therapy. So, that idea factored into my expectations of therapy. I expected that I would go to my weekly sessions and that therapy would ONLY help me understand, manage, and treat my mental health conditions. I thought it would end there, and that it wouldn't impact other areas of my life. Boy, was a I wrong, my friends.

    I know I mentioned in a previous post that the therapeutic process, and the healing stage in particular, changes us. When I say that I mean it in the most literal sense. That's why I needed to take some time for self-discovery and getting to know myself all over again. I wasn't prepared for that amount of growth and change because that was something people don't usually talk about when they talk about therapy. I also have to admit, when I noticed such big changes in myself, I was a little bit frightened by them, which is a perfectly reasonable reaction to have when you feel like you no longer recognize yourself. (Don't get me wrong, I like myself, but change is scary.) I thought I would want to get back to my life as it had been, but instead I discovered that my old life didn't feel like me in a lot of ways. I had to restructure accordingly to get a life that felt like the current me.

    Before you start therapy, give yourself permission to change and grow. Give yourself permission to grow out of things and even people and to grow into other things and people. Give yourself permission to figure out who you actually are and then BE THAT PERSON, not the person that other people or your mental health condition(s) tell you that you have to be. Create the space ("wiggle room", if you will) that you need to be able to explore and restructure. It's also a good idea to give yourself permission to be a little uncomfortable or even a little scared of the growth and change as it happens. 

    I'll end with this: People don't often talk about the fact that the therapeutic process, particularly healing, literally changes us, and discovering that for yourself can fill jarring, at the very least. But...humans weren't meant to stay the same throughout their whole lives, we're meant to grow and change. You are under no obligation to be the person you have always been. Before you even start therapy, give yourself permission and create whatever space you can to grow, change, and restructure your life to match who you actually are now.