The Best Ending Yet- Leaving Therapy and Knowing How To Make The Call

Saying goodbye to something that’s good for you and the transformative results of ‘a problem shared is a problem halved’ …

“Until last autumn I’d never experienced an ending that didn’t feel like a loss. But when I decided it was time to stop going to therapy it wasn’t because I was sick of it, or because I’d found someone better, I was just ready to step forward.

As a child and young teenager I was taken to osteopaths, reiki healers, homeopaths and even a medium we called Spooky Sue. Something was always wrong that couldn’t be identified by my GP. My knees were aching, my feet were twitching, my bladder was sensitive, I saw a ghost in the hallway at home. Something made me feel unsettled and I didn’t know that it could be called anxiety. 

It hit me hard a couple of years ago in the Spring. I took the CBT sessions offered by my doctor and went to every short session, completing worksheets and rating my anxiety on a scale of 1 to 10. I followed the course religiously, desperate for a fix for what I was feeling. I needed some relief, someone who knew what they were talking about and someone to tell me I wasn’t losing my mind. 

“When we came to our last session we reflected on my first. She read me a summary statement I wrote at the beginning and I heard someone lost and unsteady. ”

I self medicated through my headphones. I streamed tears on the bus home whilst I heard other people having self realisations with Ester Perel. I watched motivational talks about vulnerability on Youtube. I tried to enforce a strict routine of 10 minute guided app-based mediations every evening. I did 5 days of 30 days of yoga. When I felt the anxiety bubble inside me I sat very very still. 

At the end of the Summer I found a therapist in a neighbourhood away from my flat. The street was slightly untamed, with bushy front gardens and cats lying out on hot wheely bins. The waiting room was so familiar, leaflets about Tai Chi classes laid out on a table and the sandaled feet of women arriving for yoga in carpeted rooms. Her consulting room had two comfortable chairs that faced each other, and a distractingly patterned curtain that I could look at when I didn’t want to meet her eyes. 

I went back almost every Saturday for the next 14 months. I sat and talked, I cried. Sometimes I despaired that she didn’t have any of the answers that I needed and sometimes I came away feeling like I’d been fixed and didn’t need to go back. Some weeks when I reached the bottom of the hill up to her office I thought the only way I’d get there was if I dragged myself up the tarmac with my finger tips. Other weeks I’d completely forget about my appointment and I’d have to sprint for the bus. 

She helped me acknowledge pain and anxiety. We dug into memories, into dreams, into fears and into plans or ideas for what I was going to do next. I sat in a chair and I spoke to myself in a chair opposite me. I felt awkward and sad that I didn’t know what to say. Or that I knew what to say but I couldn’t bring myself to say it out loud. When I said what I wanted to say to myself I heard the words back in my own mind. I heard punishment and judgment, fear and love. And I heard that this was manageable. 

“I’ve never said goodbye to something that was good for me, I’ve only ended something when things are bad.”

I did not know the power of being able to name exactly how I was feeling. To articulate it without hesitation and be listened to is a gift. To realise that you don’t need someone to hear what you’re saying for it to be real is transformative. Knowing it yourself is enough. When you know how you feel and you don’t fear it, you can rebuild. This is how I knew I was ready to say goodbye.

When we came to our last session we reflected on my first. She read me a summary statement I wrote at the beginning and I heard someone lost and unsteady. I heard someone adrift in pain and unable to describe it. I heard it all through the ears of the person I am now, not fixed, but definitely healed. 

I’ve never said goodbye to something that was good for me, I’ve only ended something when things are bad. Relationships, jobs, friendships, tenancies - when the time comes you’re strung out and happy to see them finished. I didn’t know I wouldn’t feel like this when it came to therapy. I could go back every Saturday for many, many years. It would bring me comfort and strength. But I know that I started seeing someone else so I could stand up by myself, and this is where I am now. 

All of the things we spoke about over that year still lap at my feet like waves. Some crash heavily and pull me back, making me feel light headed and panicked, and some push me forwards into new feeling and new territory. In the months since I left I’ve realised that you don’t leave therapy behind. You carry everything you learned with you as you are now, rebuilding.”