Therapy Is Not Linear: And That’s the Point

I could not imagine my life if I hadn't decided to ring up the hospital and book that first therapy appointment. It was almost five years ago since that day, and I'm still grateful I made that decision. And no, I still haven't reached the destination on this so-called recovery road. Therapy is not linear, like I said (and as the headline suggests).

Maybe I would have been more successful riding the highs that come with mania. Maybe I would have been worse, buried under the weight of depression. Maybe I wouldn’t have been here at all. Nobody knows—and frankly, I’m not keen to find out.

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The Waiting Room

I had always known something was wrong with me – maybe for months, or even years, but I delayed the decision of going to the therapy until the very last minute. Why? Because you would think that acknowledging you need help would be the hardest bit of all these, but for me, the hardest part came after: the waiting.

I was very young when I first realized I needed help. Mental health was a topic people avoided talking about back then. It got downplayed, brushed aside, and all you ever heard was something along the lines of, "Other people have it worse", or "You should be grateful you have the roof over your head and you don't need to suffer on the streets". You get the ideas.

And I believed it, too. Maybe I was an attention-seeker. Bad things happen to everyone every day and that I wasn't the first to go through a storm, and wouldn't be the last. It was easier to point a finger at myself, than admit something was broken inside and that I needed help.

And it wasn’t just that. There was also the stigma: the idea that going to therapy meant your life was a mess, that you’d hit absolute rock bottom.

And it wasn't just that. There was also the stigma around the fact that going to therapy means your life is a mess and that you'd hit an absolute rock bottom.

I didn't need therapy, I told myself. I just need to think differently, think more positively. Focus on the good. But it turned out I was bleeding and sitting on those wounds would have cost me my life.

Looking back now, I realize how brave I was to come out and admit I couldn't go through this battle alone. And even braver to ring the hospital and started therapy.

I used to wonder what it would feel like to wake up without those intrusive thoughts – the ones that told me to disappear, to give up, to quit because I was just too tired.

I was about find out.

Or was I?

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I Don't Belong Here

I remember sitting in the waiting room at the hospital, looking around at the other patients and thinking, "They probably need this more than I do". Some looked exhausted – out of life, dulled, numb, and empty. Others were anxious, biting their fingernails – like a volcano about to erupt.

And there was me – smiling and patiently waiting. I felt like a fraud. I didn't belong here. Like I had cheated my way into the system.

The way your brain invalidates your own suffering, it's a strange thing. I shouldn't be able to hold it all together and act like everything was okay. Even worse I was smiling when I should have been sobbing every night. I told myself I was being dramatic. That I was wasting everyone's time, including my own.

And that's what stigma does. It doesn't always come from the outside. Sometimes, it's internal. It's your own voice echoing what the world has told you – "You're fine", "Other people have it worse", "Just get over it".

And even in therapy, that voice doesn't magically disappear. You find yourself also downplaying things, over-explaining them, then backtrack and apologize for even saying it out loud at all.

But here's the truth I learned the hard way – your pain doesn't have to meet any criteria to matter. You don't need to cry every night to sleep, you can still go to work and meet deadlines. Your life doesn't have to be a mess. There's no checklist. No misery leaderboard. If it hurts, it hurts. And that's enough.

You deserve help even if your life looks "okay" from the outside. You deserve help even if you smile, even if you're able to crack jokes and the whole room laughs, even if you function, and even if you have good days in between the bad ones.

It doesn't have to rain every day for there to be a flood. It's about the draining – sometimes it rains just for an hour, and the whole place floods, because the system is broken.

Imposter syndrome in therapy is real. But so is healing. And healing starts when you stop comparing your wounds to everyone else’s and finally admit: this hurts and I want to feel better.

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Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

Another misconception people have about therapy is that it's a magical fix. Like the first few session will finally fix and erase the years of pain.

But I'll tell you – it's not like that. Not at all.

For a while, things did start to get better. I slept more. I cried less. I found myself actually and genuinely laughing at jokes instead of faking it. I thought, maybe this is it. Maybe I'm finally healing. Maybe I don't really need therapy anymore.

But then came the setbacks.

Suddenly, the sadness returned out of nowhere – no warning, no build-up, just boom! And I was down again. It was so heavy that even brushing my teeth feel like a full-time job. I felt like the progress I made meant nothing. Like I had walked so far, only to end up right back where I started.

That's when I told my therapist: "I can't do this anymore. I was doing better, and now I'm not. What's the point of trying if it just keeps happening again?"

It was disheartening. Demoralizing. I kept thinking, Why am I back here? I’ve already been through this part.

He looked at me and said something that I still hold on to, even now: "It's not a 100-meter sprint. It's a marathon. And marathons are full of cramps, missteps, slowdowns. But you keep running".

This hits home. I realized now that healing is not linear. Instead, it loops. It stumbles. It circles back. You make a progress, go close to the finishing line, then you plateau, or even slide down. But none of it erases the fact that you're still moving.

I used to think progress meant never feeling bad again – and that it means you will never be right back where you start. But I was wrong. Now I understand it's about learning to pick yourself up again. There might be a two-step forward and one back. But you've got to keep running.

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The Last Session (Well, not really)

You might think this story will end with, "And now I'm better". But again, it doesn't work that way and life doesn't tie itself up with neat little bows.

Therapy didn't cure me. It equipped me – giving tools I never knew I needed. It taught me how to sit down and have a talk with my feelings, instead of sprinting away from them. It taught me to challenge the voice that tells me I'm too much, or not enough. It taught me talk back. It also reminded me I'm not alone – even when it feels like I am.

Of course, I still have bad days. All of us do. The sadness comes and goes. But I no longer see that as failure. I see it as part of being human.

I'm still the same person as the one who walked into that first session almost five years ago. The difference is that I'm much more equipped and ready to fight whatever life will be throwing at me. And that counts for something. No – let's rewind that. It counts for everything.

Sometimes, healing is about getting up, doing your bed, and brushing your teeth on a day it feels impossible to. Sometimes, it's telling a friend you're not okay. Sometimes, it's you crying and hugging your pets venting everything out to them. Sometimes, it's just about making it to the next day.

There is no final session. No finishing line. Just a quiet kind of resilience. And the decision to keep going, again and again.

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