The Start of Therapy

While I have become a huge advocate for therapy, that was definitely not always the case and I am finally going to share my story.

When I was 12 years old, before starting therapy, I was extremely depressed but never told anyone. I wasn't honest with anyone until I began engaging in self-destructive behavior. The person I told was a teacher, not knowing that they are mandated reporters. After my parents were told by the school, my parents made me see a therapist. I only saw her a few times before I told my mom that I no longer wanted to see her due to her being judgemental. I told her about a situation that bothered me and she made jokes about it. So, because of that, I stopped seeing a therapist.

Then I started again because when I started an anti-seizure medication, I started to have thoughts even worse than the self-destructive behaviors that I had been doing for two years at that point. I started with a new therapist who was absolutely amazing. It took me a long time to be willing to open up to her. For about a year, everything I talked about was superficial stuff that didn't really matter that much. When I started with the harder stuff, I started to feel a free feeling that I had never had. I was no longer constantly alone.

She had me start seeing a nurse practitioner in the same building two years after I began to see her so I could get on medication for, at the time, depression and anxiety. I tried countless medicines to no avail. They all just made me feel worse. I was always more depressed, more anxious, or both. I had no idea why until I took advanced placement psychology about eight months after I started seeing the nurse practitioner. We got into abnormal psychology and when I learned about bipolar disorder, all I thought was, "I have a lot of symptoms of this. Could I be misdiagnosed and actually have bipolar?" I brought it up to her and she seemed to be a little dismissive and told me that since I wasn't 18, I couldn't be diagnosed, even if I was right. To this day, I don't understand why they are so strict with the age for the diagnosis. I get it, to an extent, but I was only seven months from being 18.

Fast forward to when I was 19 and had to switch to a new therapist since I was still in the pediatric therapy office. It was a pretty smooth transition. I saw both for a few months and completely switched when I had an appointment with the new psychiatrist. At the first appointment, he asked what my diagnoses were. I told him, "I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety but I think it is bipolar disorder, type two, not depression." He asked me what made me think that. I told him about my first suspected hypomanic episode. I didn't sleep for five days and I did some dangerous stuff. Luckily, there were no repercussions on my end from the dangerous stuff. However, because of that episode, I had to drop out of college since it was so bad for me mentally. After I told him everything, despite being embarrassed, he told me that I was right and it was bipolar. He told me it was type one but I had a strong feeling he was wrong. I worked with him for nearly two years. I had to leave because it was a group program that didn't work well for me.

Now, I consistently see an amazing therapist who helps me understand my emotions and break them down. I have been learning how to understand emotions when I feel them physically. While it has been a hard road, it is completely worth it. My psychogenic non-epileptic attacks have gotten way better from what they used to be like. My new psychiatrist, who is amazing, trusted me based on what I explained to her and told me that it isn't type one, it's type two. The generalized anxiety disorder never changed though. As much as therapy can be a burden, I know it will be helpful in the long run.

Even though starting therapy wasn't a big deal, it made me learn how to work on myself. It has made the biggest impact on my life even with all the stuff I have dealt with.