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While I would like to ask everyone who's had more extensive therapy about their experience with it, I decided this may be left for the counseling section because of how potentially personal it is. So just to be clear: I'm curious to hear feedback on therapy and if it has helped or even harmed people. This thread is less about me and more about a general curiosity.
To preface my own limited time with a therapist, just know that I was diagnosed with a brain tumor when I was in the 4th grade. It was, and still is, life threatening. It is in a unfortunate position; If it begins to grow again, it must be removed. If it is removed, I will die. Even under some miraculous circumstance where I wouldn't die, my doctor (obviously ball-parking it) said it would take roughly 40% of my memory with it and the memory problems that accompanied it would return anew. An important characteristic of the type of tumor I have is spontaneous growth even after years of being dormant. Most cases I learned about showed spontaneous growth within 8 years of it stopping. For me, that was more than 10 years ago. So, essentially, it's a time bomb that's long overdue.
As a result, being introduced to my own mortality at such a young age had my parents get an idea that therapy might be a preventive measure to bolster my mental health. At the time, my tumor still actively was impacting my life in a very direct way (In the form of short term memory loss and headaches) so if I were honest my biggest grievance had to do more with how much I hated school rather than my little guarantee that I wouldn't be dying of old age. Indeed, as far as my social life goes, I consider my middle school years to be my happiest. So I didn't fully understand the need for a therapist, but of course went anyway.
If I were honest, the therapy was just a massive waste of time. I'd even argue that it actually just surfaced problems that didn't need to be addressed and made my life just a little more difficult. Apparently my opinion on my own tumor at the time was very blahzay and not going where my therapist (Nice lady, mind) was going. So, somehow, the talked went to become about me and my dad and our general lack of a relationship. She eventually had me crying over something petty (I think it had to do with him not liking a movie we watched together or some sillyness like that) and it basically brought our not-actually-terrible-but-not-awesome relationship to the surface of my mother's mind. Queue the next many years all the way up through high school trying to get me and my dad to find anything in common.
I love my dad, and it's reciprocated, obviously. We have nothing in common as far as hobbies or anything goes, so if he was a stranger we'd likely not be friends, but it's never been that awful if I'm honest. Yet, because of a few therapy sessions (Which I convinced my mom to pull me out of thank goodness), there was an early-set drama-llama set loose in my house. I'm sure our lack of connection would have came up eventually, especially during high school, but I blame those worthless therapy sessions for summoning it forth sooner.
So, I know this has a rant tag (Due to wall-o'-text) but I'm curious: Have any of you done therapy? Do you think it helped/is helping? Would you recommend it to others?
Since I bothered bringing it up, while it's not really the focus of the thread, if you're super curious for some reason I'll also answer questions about my life with my medical condition. Just know that as of now I've literally been living with it for a vast majority of my life and as such am not really buggered by it. Though it has changed my perspective on living as a whole, I consider myself happy. Maybe not like sugar-plum-fairy levels of happy but definitely not very depressed~<3
To preface my own limited time with a therapist, just know that I was diagnosed with a brain tumor when I was in the 4th grade. It was, and still is, life threatening. It is in a unfortunate position; If it begins to grow again, it must be removed. If it is removed, I will die. Even under some miraculous circumstance where I wouldn't die, my doctor (obviously ball-parking it) said it would take roughly 40% of my memory with it and the memory problems that accompanied it would return anew. An important characteristic of the type of tumor I have is spontaneous growth even after years of being dormant. Most cases I learned about showed spontaneous growth within 8 years of it stopping. For me, that was more than 10 years ago. So, essentially, it's a time bomb that's long overdue.
As a result, being introduced to my own mortality at such a young age had my parents get an idea that therapy might be a preventive measure to bolster my mental health. At the time, my tumor still actively was impacting my life in a very direct way (In the form of short term memory loss and headaches) so if I were honest my biggest grievance had to do more with how much I hated school rather than my little guarantee that I wouldn't be dying of old age. Indeed, as far as my social life goes, I consider my middle school years to be my happiest. So I didn't fully understand the need for a therapist, but of course went anyway.
If I were honest, the therapy was just a massive waste of time. I'd even argue that it actually just surfaced problems that didn't need to be addressed and made my life just a little more difficult. Apparently my opinion on my own tumor at the time was very blahzay and not going where my therapist (Nice lady, mind) was going. So, somehow, the talked went to become about me and my dad and our general lack of a relationship. She eventually had me crying over something petty (I think it had to do with him not liking a movie we watched together or some sillyness like that) and it basically brought our not-actually-terrible-but-not-awesome relationship to the surface of my mother's mind. Queue the next many years all the way up through high school trying to get me and my dad to find anything in common.
I love my dad, and it's reciprocated, obviously. We have nothing in common as far as hobbies or anything goes, so if he was a stranger we'd likely not be friends, but it's never been that awful if I'm honest. Yet, because of a few therapy sessions (Which I convinced my mom to pull me out of thank goodness), there was an early-set drama-llama set loose in my house. I'm sure our lack of connection would have came up eventually, especially during high school, but I blame those worthless therapy sessions for summoning it forth sooner.
So, I know this has a rant tag (Due to wall-o'-text) but I'm curious: Have any of you done therapy? Do you think it helped/is helping? Would you recommend it to others?
Since I bothered bringing it up, while it's not really the focus of the thread, if you're super curious for some reason I'll also answer questions about my life with my medical condition. Just know that as of now I've literally been living with it for a vast majority of my life and as such am not really buggered by it. Though it has changed my perspective on living as a whole, I consider myself happy. Maybe not like sugar-plum-fairy levels of happy but definitely not very depressed~<3