Life After Psychotherapy

For a long time, I’ve been learning to manage my anxiety/depression in a number of ways. One of my first methods I started when I was 16, and that was talk therapy. I was terrified to see a therapist at first; it was already common for me to cry in the hallway at least twice a week at school, or have to go to the nurse’s office when my anxiety got so bad I had trouble physically moving around. Now I had to see a therapist? I felt like I was checking all the boxes for “crazy”, or “mentally unstable” or any of those words that made me feel like I was something to be avoided.

However, I was at the point where I couldn’t get through a single day or school without a panic attack, and so the therapist it was. The first few meetings were tough, and it took a few months for me to truly open up to my therapist. By the end of my first year, I could finally see some form of light at the end of the tunnel, a life that I wanted to have where I wasn’t constantly aware of every thought and emotion in my head that was making me worry to the point of getting sick.

Fast forward to today. I’m turning 24 in three weeks and I’ve finally made the decision with my therapist to end my treatment, as well as finishing the process of lowering my dosage of antidepressants so that I don’t have to take them anymore. For the first time in seven or eight years, I’m at a place where I don’t need daily medication or sessions with a therapist.

This is something to celebrate, I realize, and I’m incredibly blessed to have this experience. I mean, if you asked me when I was 16 if I’d ever get to this point, I would have scoffed and said no way. But here I am, with all the things I’ve always wanted. I’m writing a novel I love, working at a publishing company I love, I have great friends and family, and I’ve never felt more independent in my life. My last few meetings with my therapist where mostly times for me to realize certain situations that gave me immense amounts of anxiety are things I don’t even think twice about now. Sure I still have my struggles, but I can use the tools I acquired in therapy to fight them; I recognize the anxiety can still be there, but I know how to push it to the side.

That being said, no one quite prepares you for the anxiety of ending treatment. I stopped my treatment in December, and in the past month, my anxiety has reached some of those peak panic levels I hadn’t experience in some time. It made me question everything I was feeling. Maybe I wasn’t as well off as I thought. Maybe I wasn’t fighting the anxiety, it was the medication. Maybe I hadn’t learned anything and I would need therapy for the rest of my life. It’s easy to second guess yourself, and that seemed to be all I was doing. Thankfully, I feel like I’ve made it out the other side, and I feel confident that yes, it was the right time for me to stop going to therapy. Yes, I learned how to manage my mental illness. It almost feels like a break-up of sorts with your therapist, and we all know break-ups hurt. I have a few little tricks to deal with this stressful time.

First of all, you have to be kind to yourself. This is challenging, because I’ve always had a rough time with this. If you’ve been in therapy for a while, and you stop going, that’s a big change in your life. I’ve been with the same therapist for seven and a half years. It’s the strangest feeling to know I don’t have sessions with her anymore. It was scary the first week. I anticipated having a panic attack and having to call her again, as if my brain was sabotaging me and saying, “Told you so. Do you really think you didn’t need treatment anymore?” Any little worry in my head I would have to fight to keep from spiraling out of control. I had to remind myself that my progress over the years wasn’t just the therapist and medication. It was my hard work too. Naturally, such a big shift will cause some anxiety. Since that’s the case, be kind to yourself. Tell yourself it’s okay, buy yourself an ice cream, etc. Just do something nice for yourself, because standing on your own without having a therapist is terrifying at first. You’re taking a massive step and it’s natural to feel worried about it. You’re being brave, and you deserve to coddle yourself a bit because of that.

Another thing to take note of is to talk to the people around you. I was scared to tell my friends I wasn’t in therapy anymore, because I didn’t want to make a big deal about it. I also didn’t want to admit I was feeling anxious again in trying to adjust to not having regular meetings anymore. Why was I scared? I don’t know. Seriously. I just knew that I would open my mouth and this rush of fear would just punch me in the stomach. I always talk to my parents though, and my mom told me I should open up more about it. It’s always helpful to talk with m parents, because they’ve seen a lot of what my anxiety looks like firsthand. They’ve seen how it affects me and so they can give me advice on how to cope. So, finally, I mentioned it to my friends and they were totally supportive and understanding. Whatever your support network looks like, it’s there for a reason. Talk with the people you care about, and those who care about you. It doesn’t have to be a big deal. I phrased it as, “So I’m not in therapy anymore, and that’s kind of scary, you know?” That worked fine. My friends listened to what I had to say and understood that I was a little on edge for the few weeks after stopping therapy. Never underestimate the power of the people around you. Your real friends will listen, and that’s the most important thing you need.

Finally, take a little bit of perspective on the matter. I used to see my therapist weekly. Then when I went to college it was phone sessions. By the time I graduated, we were at once every two weeks. When I stopped speaking with her, we were talking once every six weeks, and I felt like I didn’t have anything to talk about. Nothing was making me overwhelmed or so unbearably sad or anxious that I felt I need support. I was handling things. Naturally, it was time for me to stop seeing her. Because I wasn’t talking with her all that frequently, my schedule, my life, all of that has stayed the same. Still, I felt so much anxiety once I said goodbye.

The way I picture it is that I’m walking on a tightrope, and I’m doing very well on my own. There’s a trampoline below me, so if I fall, no big deal. Something will catch me. Stopping therapy felt like taking away the trampoline. I didn’t need it, but knowing that it’s not there put me into a bit of a tailspin. What I needed, and what my mom helped me to see, is that perspective. Sure, the trampoline is gone, but if I’m doing so well on the tightrope, do I even need the trampoline? It didn’t change the conditions of the tightrope I’m walking, so I can still keep walking. Also, if I fall, now I don’t need the trampoline. I can catch myself on the rope. I can catch myself, because that’s what my therapist taught me to do.

I don’t know how well that tightrope analogy hold up, because I’m not a tightrope walker, but you get the idea. If you and your therapist decide it’s best to end treatment, then that probably is the right decision. You have all the tools you need to help yourself, you have people around you to help, and of course, you can always go back to therapy if you truly need it. There’s no shame in it. Just know that a therapist won’t just let you go if they don’t think you’re ready. If I wasn’t ready, my therapist would have told me so. Instead, she let me go, because she knew I had an entire library of resources in my head for ways to deal with anxiety and depression. So, is leaving talk therapy scary? Hell yes it is. Will you be nervous for a little while after you stop? Hell yes you will. But, will you feel proud of yourself when you see how far you’ve come? Hell. Yes.