This Is How Therapy Helped Me
And why I'm an advocate for therapy
When I found out my mom was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, I started to worry because I remember reading in one of my psychology classes that bipolar disorder can be inherited. I immediately thought maybe my depressive episodes were because I, too, am bipolar. I was dealing with a lot of anxiety at the time. Also, I was extremely irritable and would always hear complaints about “my mood swings.”
I looked to therapy to find my answer, plus I needed help to deal with everything I was going through at the moment. Maybe my mood swings were because I was bipolar and not “just who I was,” like I was used to hearing.
As I was telling the therapist stories about my mom, she told me, “It sounds like your mom has tendencies of bipolar disorder.” And that’s when I told her that before she passed, she was officially diagnosed. So, my big question was, did my depression have anything to do with being bipolar, too?
She explained to me that it sounds like outside factors trigger my depression episodes, like when certain events in my life happen. So, my depression was more situational versus inheritance.
To this day, I remember experiencing my first depressive episode vividly. I was thirteen, and I was with my mom, again in an unsafe environment (this comment comes from my previous post - Growing Up With a Bipolar Mom Was Scary), and I told her I didn’t feel comfortable or safe being where we were, but she didn’t want to leave.
Something happened; I won’t get into details. I’m saving that for my book, and I told my mom I wanted to leave. Because I was scared, felt unsafe, and the situation occurred, I didn’t want to eat. I kept crying, and I felt hopeless. When we finally left where we were three days later (it was probably less than three days; I don’t remember the timeframe; it felt like forever, though), I told my mom what had happened, and she called my dad. My dad said to call the police and report it. I was on a plane back home the next day. My stepmom cried when she saw me. Apparently, I had lost a lot of weight, but it makes sense because I wasn’t eating at all.
After that, I would experience depressive episodes, and it wasn’t until therapy that I was able to know the triggers, signs, and symptoms.
The therapist answered the question, and I stopped going to therapy after a few sessions. However, I started again, with a different therapist, a few years later. And I told her my whole life story, from the beginning until where I was. She told me that:
I needed to write a book.
She was surprised that the only thing I had was depression and anxiety.
I had become so used to trauma that my body normalized it and never really processed it, so when trauma did happen to me, it was just like, “Oh, here’s something else I need to get through.”
Telling her my story, all the details, from my childhood until early adulthood, was freeing! Up until that point, only God knew the details. My therapist told me that my anxiety came from not feeling safe as a child. My mom was supposed to provide a loving, protective, and safe environment for me to thrive, and she wasn’t able to do that, hence causing me anxiety. But I wouldn’t have known none of this, and I would have continued to think, “This is how I am,” if I had not gone to therapy.
We are how we are because of what happens to us - and I highly recommend the book, “What Happened To You,” by Dr. Bruce D. Perry and Oprah Winfrey, which explains that in so much detail.
Again, because of the answers, tools, and clarity I received in therapy, I highly recommend that everyone go to therapy and do the work. It may take a few therapists to find the right one, but once you do, it’s worth it.
With Love, Heidy
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