Holy Mess, Whole Me

Let me start with a bit of a history lesson.

I’ve had a long, complicated relationship with therapy. My earliest memories involve sitting in a room filled with toys I didn’t have at home, while a kind adult gently asked how things were going and how I felt about it all. At the time, it felt more like playtime than anything serious.

Fast forward to my teenage years—after a particularly rough patch, I found myself back in therapy, this time with a new diagnosis: Bipolar Disorder, Type II, Rapid Cycling. That diagnosis came with new medications, constant fatigue, and a revolving door of therapists. Most of them seemed to talk more than they listened, entering sessions with assumptions about who I was and what my “issues” were long before they’d taken the time to really get to know me.

The third round was much less formal. My husband and I, still newly married, began meeting with a local pastor in an effort to save a marriage that was just getting started. He was empathetic and honest about his limitations—he wasn’t a therapist, just someone trying to help. While his efforts were kind and well-meaning, they left us with only a vague understanding of our problems and no real tools to address them.

Now here we are, 17 years later, in a familiar place—but this time, we’re seeing someone trained to deal with these kinds of issues. And if I’m being honest, I hate it.

That doesn’t mean I’m going to stop. I won’t skip sessions or ignore the homework we’re given. I love my husband, and I genuinely want our marriage to become something healthy—something it honestly hasn’t been for most of these 17 years. But what’s been hardest is coming to terms with the feeling that everything I’ve built—my identity, my accomplishments, the roles I fill, the goals I chase—might not be as solid or meaningful as I thought. Sometimes it feels like I’ve wasted my time, my family’s time, and a hell of a lot of money.

I don’t have it all figured out yet. I don’t know how to reconcile all the pieces that feel like they’re falling apart. But I do know this: as necessary, helpful, and even healing as therapy can be—sometimes, therapy really, really sucks.