"Oh! you are taking therapy? That is awesome. You are so brave. If you feel something is wrong with you, you should get treated."
"Nah! I don't need therapy. I am okay, I am strong enough. It is just a regular thing, you know? I can handle it."{
Most people will be very happy for you if they heard that you are going to a therapist or a counselor, but if you suggest it to them, they will say they don't need it.
The process of therapy is not easy. It feels like peeling back a lot of layers of dead skin, burns, scars, ga[ing wounds and underlying infection. And then putting a balm on those time after time after time. And worse still your surgeon i.e. your therapist is actually not dressing the wound, but guiding you on how to do it.
The most frustrating part about therapy and self-awareness is that even when you know that somewhere your inner child is seeking validation from the wrong places, that you still continue to seek for it in the wrong places. It doesn't stop. No matter how many people you have to love your adult self, there is that one day when it may just all fall through.
That even as you are aware of the journey of your parents and other caregivers who affected you unwittingly and perhaps unintentionally, and you want to forgive them deeply and unconditionally, their devil continues to provoke your darkness and you respond - with anger, with frustration, and with thoughts of self-harm, and sometimes seeking that guilty pleasure of wishing they did not exist.
Even as you call it out, and admit that you are working on it, you may be more self-aware and empathic, others who carry on without remorse will call you crazy and misfit.
Therapy is not easy. The label of someone under therapy is not easy. Dealing with yourself and all those dark corners of your life that you had to turn to get on the path of life, it is not easy. It takes courage and a commitment to fight for yourself despite the world and our culture. It is hard to cut toxic cords and yet take care of people who were given to you through your karma.
But I want you to know that I understand. That you are loved. That your journey is unconditionally understood. That the universe has your back. That in your darkest moments, if you are willing to reach out, the universe will surprise you with support from unexpected places.
Love and light
