When the new therapist called me girl on the phone, I should have hung up. But I was desperate. There were no therapists within a 50-mile radius accepting new clients or my crappy insurance, and he was the only one from the Psychology Today database who answered my message, which was that my mental health was in a state of emergency. When he returned my call I was standing in a health food store in front of the supplements with a weepy hangover, thinking about whether the $27 bag of powdered goji berries would help me fix my life. Half of me was in yoga teacher training, drinking green juice and worrying about free radicals, and the other half was crying every day, drinking so much I thought I would die from it.
Historically I have not had good luck with therapy. My first time trying it was in middle school, when something short circuited in me. Two hundred of my parents’ hard-earned dollars went down the toilet every session as I sat there trying to figure out why it was so hard to be a person. The therapist referred me to a psychiatrist. A few more stacks were surrendered to diagnose me with bipolar II disorder, even though I was never manic and the mood swings were likely a mixture of spiking hormones and garden-variety depression. Medication was prescribed. I felt guilty to be this much of a problem. My parents were tough, serious people who had survived martial law and a Communist regime, moved across the world with six suitcases and a prayer for a better future, and here I was, drowning. The meds flattened me out, and now instead of feeling too much of everything I felt too little. The wildfire element that made me see the world in a way only I could had dimmed. To me, it was preferable to feel dark than beige, and so I lied and told my parents I felt better, discontinued treatment, and did my best to bury it all.
As an adult I tried therapy a few more times. I traveled over an hour to see the only therapist within driving distance who accepted Medicaid. She wore cream sweaters and looked like the term après ski feels. After nothing came of her advice to establish stronger boundaries—boundaries aren’t really a thing in Eastern European families, at least not something you can meaningfully enforce—we gave up on each other. Later, an EMDR practitioner, who was supposed to be helping me deal with my sexual assault PTSD, told me I had a lot to be happy about, so I should just be happy.
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