I started going to therapy a month ago, almost exactly. Yesterday was my fourth week, and the last before a three week break for vacation and surgery.
It was a chill day, I didn’t have anything major to talk about; I haven’t been feeling as utterly fragile and defensive as I was the first day I went in. We talked a lot about the job interview Thursday, and the surgery I get on the 20th. My favorite question she asked was something like,
When was anxiety helpful or positive for you?
After staring at a wall for a solid chunk of time, I started rattling things off,
Anxiety makes me a good planner
Anxiety makes me more prepared for the future, and able to see a lot of detail
Anxiety helps me practice self-care
Anxiety helps me hyper-focus on things that are really important to me
Anxiety keeps my standards very high for myself
Saying these things out loud felt Extremely Helpful for me, especially after waking up with a pit of fear deep in my tum. I have four days of work before a 10 day ‘vacation’ that feels more like an obligation and a big scary list of Must Dos by the day. On returning, I have one day of work before getting my knee reconstructed and what feels like a million years of…
