Aayushi Agarwalla-Panda

One of the things I have noticed repeatedly as a therapist is that people often enter therapy with very different expectations. Some arrive with absolutely no idea what therapy is supposed to look like. Others arrive with a very specific list of things they want to change. Interestingly, both can sometimes come with the same expectation: that therapy should work quickly.

The confusing part was that the questions always sounded logical. I understood what my therapist was asking, but I couldn't emotionally understand why they were asking it. Looking back, I realise that most of my frustration wasn't because the questions were difficult. It was because answering them meant staying with thoughts and feelings I had spent a long time avoiding. As someone with fairly perfectionistic tendencies.

A part of me always thought therapy would make me feel lighter and lighter the further we went. I assumed that once I started healing, I would automatically feel more clear headed, decisive, confident, assertive. I thought progress would look like me finally doing and feeling better in all the areas of my life that had been affected by my emotional condition.