Therapy

I receive therapy for my mental health. I’m way better than I was two years ago, and it’s been a really long time since I’ve felt this good. And still, I see my therapist.

The other day, I spent a lot of time in the car driving around picking up things for my work. I was thinking of this question: Why therapy? There are too many catalytic events that can cause mental illness to list. I think about mental health quite a bit. When I look back over the times when I’ve been severely depressed, I can pick out circumstances or triggers. This caused that. Simple. Except it’s not. This is why I have this theory of catalytic mental illness. Like a catalyst in a chemical reaction, it’s often just a little thing that can have a huge effect. Sometimes, a lot of littler things, but still it adds up.

Epoxy is a resin combined with a hardener. The resin is this goopy sticky stuff that stays goopy until you add a tiny amount of the catalyst that sets off a reaction that turns the resin into a solid. It’s magical in a way, but it’s really just chemistry. A good bit of mental illness is just chemistry. Neurochemistry. I take some drugs that alter my neurochemistry, and I do things like getting out into nature, writing and going to therapy that also alter my neurochemistry.

Most people who will read this gets it. You’ll have also journeyed through depression and so you can relate to what I’m saying here. To put this another way, take a look at your hands. You’ve probably scraped them on something in your past. Maybe you’ve had a cut, or a splinter, or that tiny whisker of a wire that you can barely see that sticks out just enough to cause pain. Or that split in your skin right by a fingernail. Sticking out like a sore thumb is an idiom that’s grounded in the protective mechanism that we all use. Gash your hand really bad and you’ll rush to the emergency department for medical care. Splinters and what not can often be dealt with by yourself, but sometimes they get infected and you need to resort to medications to help the healing along. Occasionally, some scar tissue or a cyst will form around a wound from long ago, and only an expert can help remove it.

I feel like I use my hands a lot. I can get pretty cut up over time. On occasion, I can wear gloves to protect my hands, but often they just get in the way. Maybe, if you never used your hands they’d never get hurt. Maybe, if you always wore gloves they’d never get hurt. Maybe.

I’m really fortunate to have someone that help heal my hands when things get stuck in them, or they get infected. At some point, in a few months or a year from now, I’ll see my therapist much less often. Or something else will happen and plans will change. The future is the now that hasn’t happened yet.

I am rather liking this feeling good, while still being sensitive enough to feel pain. I am taking better care of myself these days, and I’m pretty certain that getting to that place is partially due to store-bought chemistry. And therapy, because I want to stay feeling good enough to stay.