Comment by wholinator2 4 days ago
Therapy is definitely the way to go here. They're professional unpackers. Plus I've never heard someone say they regretted starting therapy. I've heard a lot of people say they regretted quitting or waiting to start.
I’m kind of worried about something like this where it backfires. Not sure it would be the therapist’s fault but in terms of an “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it”. The nagging curiosity of wanting to unpack my baggage is so insanely small. I am mostly fine and don’t dwell on it much at all. As I’m beginning to think it would be nice to verbalize the past a bit and how that’s made me who I am, I’m also not necessarily looking for change and it seems overwhelmingly risky that opening the bottle may actually cause me to get depressed or somehow interfere with the good in my present life. For that reason I’ve held off. It’s still a curiosity of mine, it’s also probably going to take hundreds of hours to fully unpack so it’s a little expensive too.
My dad — whose entire family was killed by the Nazis in Lithuania in 1941 after they'd enabled him to escape to Sweden and then the U.S. in 1939 when he was 17 — went back to his home there for the first time when he was in his 70s.
Upon returning home, he became VERY depressed and it persisted for the remaining 8 years of his life.
It was clear to me and my brother that the change from his normally upbeat and optimistic self stemmed from seeing in person the very places he lived and frequented and the memorials to those killed.
> I've never heard someone say they regretted starting therapy.
Let me be the first one then. I went in with an open mind. When the first one did not work, I tried another. After two years and zero benefit, I regretted spending the time. Cost was not an issue as it was covered by insurance.
In the end I concluded that therapy isn't for everyone. Many people do benefit from it, but many others see zero benefit.
It is also possible that I was not a good candidate for therapy because my issues were super minor.
My wife had a really bad experience with therapy when she went with postpartum. It's not all sunshine and roses, and they can and will switch from "I care about you and want you to get better" to "I might need to send people over to your house who can separate you from your child" pretty quickly. Not seeing the therapist anymore produced a marked improvement in her affect.