Stop Apologizing to Your Therapist

The first time I was in therapy, I was completely new to the whole mental health treatment thing. Even though I had spoken to my therapist a couple of times when she saw me in the hospital, I was nervous about being one on one with her in her office.

What were we going to talk about? Did I even really need therapy? (Spoiler alert: I did need therapy)

There were a lot of tears throughout all of the sessions I had with her, mostly because I was truly looking at past experiences and realizing the effect they had on me for the first time. She asked me questions about things that I had stuffed down so far I could barely dig them back up.

In the first few months, I would always apologize for crying. It was almost a reflex for me, given that for most of my life I had been labeled “too sensitive” and my tears were often dismissed. She would always shake her head, slide the box of tissues across the table to me, and gently assure me I didn't have to be sorry.

I've written before about how this therapist gave me the analogy of bottling up all of my feelings until the bottle burst, and I bring it up again now because the process of understanding and cleaning up the mess around the bottle was a huge milestone for me. Once the cap was off the bottle, I couldn't screw it back on.

By the time I stopped seeing my first therapist, I had made significant process on, among many other things, my apologizing problem. It was, however, still a work in progress.

Fast forward a couple of years and I'm in therapy again, but this time it's over the phone with a therapist who I still, as this is being written, have never seen in real life. I've written a lot about my experience with her as well, if you're interested in hearing about my journey up to this point.

When I began having appointments with this new therapist, I considered myself to be better equipped than I was the first time around. I understood my feelings more, I had a larger vocabulary with which to talk about my feelings. However, I was also experiencing the most severe anxiety I had ever had, and I had no idea what was triggering it.

Most of our early sessions were spent with her asking me screening questions and trying to pin point any trigger she could. As I tried to explain how being in a car nearly sent me into a panic attack, I kept saying one thing over and over: Does that make sense?

Deep down, I still believed that I sounded crazy. I had unlearned a lot of harmful things the first time around, but this therapist was new to me, and I didn't totally know how she would respond to what I was saying. Add onto that the fact that she had no idea what was causing this spike in my anxiety, and those intrusive thoughts began creeping in.

Maybe, I thought, I was crazy. Maybe there was no trigger, maybe it was just me. Despite my therapist assuring me that we would get to the bottom of this, there was a part of me that didn't truly believe it, that thought I would spend the rest of my life running from anything that could be a trigger.

However, we kept trying. She referred me to a doctor who prescribed me medication, we kept working on coping skills, and we found an answer that we both felt good about.

During a session a few months back, my therapist mentioned that she noticed I hadn't been apologizing or second guessing myself as much as I had before. I was becoming more and more confident in myself and my ability to express my feelings.

This took years and years of work, and I still have a ways to go. If you're in the same boat, know that you're therapist doesn't (or shouldn't) judge you for showing your feelings–it’s their job to listen to you!

It's a hard habit to break, but if I can do it I know you can, too.

–Abbie

Abbie Gibbs

Reader, writer, and person with an anxiety disorder. I want to share my experiences and let others know that they are not alone in their mental health struggles.

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