Personal Therapy Statement

Personal Therapy Statement

When I went to my first therapist I was about 13 years old and experiencing anger and confusion about my life. My father’s third wife left him because he slept with their housekeeper. My life felt out of control and I did not have the skills to cope. Unfortunately, I only met with this therapist once. I remember being resistant and untrusting towards her, crossing my arms tightly in front of me to create any barrier to entrance. My mother and I never returned to her. Most likely my mother deemed her to be ineffective. In hindsight I wish I had stayed to work through the issues that were plaguing me throughout my adolescence.
I returned to therapy about twenty years later. I was unhappy at work, choosing the

I can vividly remember sitting on her couch, plucking Kleenexes out of the box, and finally allowing the bottomless well of sadness to come out. I could not remember the last time I cried like this. I valued the safe space she created for me to pour out my sadness. Throughout the next several years I learned that my father did not have the tools to give me the love and support that I needed. For years I blamed myself for not being a “good enough” daughter because those were the messages I was receiving from them. I let go of the expectations I had of the ideal parents and stopped trying to be the perfect daughter. Therapy helped me process those low feelings of self-worth and regain my power back. I started to engage in the activities that I wanted to do, despite the negative reactions from my parents. My parents’ values did not have to be my values. We are entirely different people who happen to share the same DNA yet we approach life with a different set of experiences. I decided to write my own story and burn theirs into the fire. My therapist guided me to make better choices in men, jobs, and my overall lifestyle. I valued her honesty, her reflections, and the safe space she created. I ended the therapy after several years. My therapist loved bringing up Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. As I recall it was the only theory she ever brought up. She started to sound like a broken record and I took this as a cue to end