So You’re The Therapist Friend

There are a lot of different types of friend that you can be—the mom friend, the immature friend, the serious friend—but there’s one category that people don’t talk about much, and it happens to be the category I fit in to: The therapist friend.

Maybe it’s a product of my anxiety, but I’ve always been very perceptive about and affected by other people’s feelings. Ever since I was little, I have been a massive people-pleaser. I for some reason thought that everyone’s feelings were directly affected by me—if someone was sad or upset, I took it upon myself to make them feel better, and if I couldn’t, I would feel extremely uncomfortable about it. The feelings of the people around me dramatically affected how I felt, and still do.

With the help of therapy, my people-pleasing tendencies have been minimized quite a bit. While in sessions with my first therapist when I was in high school, she taught me about thought patterns. I’m not a professional, so forgive this informal definition, but a thought pattern is a form of distorted thinking, specifically when you focus or harp on a negative thought (http://empoweredtherapy.org/10-common-anxious-thought-patterns-how-to-overcome-them/). My therapist had a book full of them, and we spent several sessions going through that book one by one and talking about if I suffer from them. The ones I dealt with the most were “what if” thoughts and assumption thoughts.

Part of the reason why I take on the role of the “therapist friend” is that I have this idea in my head that everyone else is just as sensitive as I am, and I don’t want anyone to feel left out or invisible like I have many times in my life. I’ve been hurt, the last thing I want is for anyone to feel the way I have in those moments.

Here’s the best piece of advice I can give my fellow therapist friends: Show that compassion to yourself. I know that’s so much easier said than done, but it will make such a difference in your life. I’m still working on it, but even the small steps I’ve made have already shown progress. Also, if you are in the position to afford it and feel you could benefit, THERAPY. Find a good therapist who will help you push through your thought patterns and rework the way you think about yourself and others.

I’m going through this journey too, and it’s not easy. I think we can do it.

Stay safe!

—Abbie