Therapy won't save you from your hard stuff. It will just hand you a flashlight and watch you trip over in real time. Welcome back to Brainverse Me, the only podcast where overthinking is considered cardio. I'm your host, Joshua Erickson. Today we're going to be talking about everyone's favorite topic, therapy. I've gone to therapy on and off for most of my adult life. I remember one of the first times I went to therapy as an adult. I sat down, awkwardly avoided eye contact, and within 10 minutes found myself trauma dumping like it was a speedrun. I thought I'd nailed it. I thought she was gonna be like, wow, incredible insight. Here's your certificate of healing. Instead, she just said, How does that make you feel? Which, I mean, fair, but also rude. That's when I realized therapy is less about answers and more about tripping over your own emotional shoelaces while someone holds the flashlight. And somehow, that still helps. So today we're diving into why therapy feels weird, how to know if it's actually working, and why being fixed isn't the point. Therapy is wild. Like you literally pay someone to watch you emotionally short circuit and then just nod thoughtfully. Imagine doing that in any other setting. You walk into Chipotle, start crying about your childhood, and the cashier goes, Hmm, tell me more about that Gwaks Extra, by the way. But somehow it works, sort of. Maybe, or at least it feels like it should. Honestly, that's what this episode is about. Because therapy comes with so many assumptions, some from pop culture, some from well-meaning friends, and some just built into our own anxious brains. If you've never been to therapy or you've only dipped your toe in a session or two, you probably have questions like, what exactly am I paying for? Is this going to fix me? What if I don't even know what I need? Do I have to talk about my childhood? Am I trauma dumping? Well, I have to cry. What if I don't cry and they think I'm a monster? And even if you've been in therapy for a while, you still have those what am I doing moments? Like when you're halfway into a deep story, realizing you're ugly crying on Zoom and your therapist hasn't said a word in three minutes. Am I bombing right now? Is she taking notes? Is this my villain origin story? So today, we're gonna break that down. We'll talk about what therapy is, and more importantly, what it isn't. We'll look at the weirdness of opening up to a stranger, why therapy isn't some magical fix you in six sessions situation, and what progress actually looks like when it doesn't come with a confetti cannon. Because therapy isn't just about getting better, it's about getting real. Even when that's messy, even when you're not sure it's working, even when you accidentally spiral in the middle of a metaphor. Let's get into it. Let's start here. If you're skeptical about therapy, good. You should be. It means you're thinking. It means your brain is still online. It means you're not just blindly trusting some stranger with your emotional download folder. That's healthy. Weirdly, skepticism gets a bad rap, especially when it comes to mental health. There's this whole vibe like, if you're not all in, you're not doing it right. But let's be real. When you're trying to decide whether to tell someone about your childhood trauma or the fact that you cried in a target parking lot for reasons you still don't fully understand, you're allowed to hesitate. Honestly, it would be way weirder if you weren't skeptical. You're not buying a blender here. You're walking into a room, physical or virtual, and voluntarily unpacking all the messy, confusing, unfiltered parts of your brain to a person you met like five minutes ago. And that's assuming you even know what's bothering you. Half the time, people start therapy with, I don't even know why I'm here. I just feel off. Hey, it's me. I was the problem. Sometimes we're skeptical because therapy doesn't look like we expect it to. There's no dramatic montage where you solve your life in four sessions. There's no magical aha moment by week two. You show up, you talk, and sometimes you leave feeling worse than when you started, and that makes your brain go, Wait, I paid for this? And that skepticism doesn't just show up on day one, it sneaks in weeks or months into the process. Like, am I doing this right? Is my therapist bored? Are we making progress or am I just trauma dumping on loop? Totally normal. And look. Some people bounce, the second therapy doesn't feel instantly helpful. That's fair. Not everyone clicks with it right away. But here's the thing skepticism isn't the enemy, avoidance is. If you can hold your skepticism and still show up, that's powerful. You don't have to believe therapy is life-changing on day one. You just have to be willing to give it a shot. Think of it like going to the gym when you're out of shape. You're not supposed to be great at it yet. You just start where you are, uncoordinated and a little emotionally sweaty. The goal isn't blind faith. The goal is curiosity. So if you're listening to this and thinking, I'm not sure therapy is for me, that's okay. Don't hang up on yourself just yet. You can be skeptical and ready. You can question it and try it. You can say, This feels awkward, while still opening the Zoom link anyway. That's not failure. That's growth. Or at least the beginning of it. Remember this too. You're not broken for hesitating. You're human. It's normal to question it. But that doesn't mean therapy isn't worth doing. It just means it might take a little while before it feels safe enough to actually work. So let's say you go, you show up, you sit on the couch, or more likely, slump into your chair in front of a webcam, and now you're supposed to just spill your guts to someone you've known for less time than it takes to order DoorDash. Cool. Totally normal. Here's the wild part. That's exactly why it works. Your therapist isn't your friend. They're not going to chime in with, oh my god, I know exactly how you feel. That happened to me once. They're not emotionally invested in your drama. They don't have an agenda, a dog in the fight, or a favorite character in the reruns of your mental spirals. And that distance, that's what makes it safe. They're just there to listen, to reflect, to gently or not so gently, hold up a mirror and go, hey, you keep doing this one thing and expecting it to not suck. Wanna unpack that? But, and this is a big butt, finding the right therapist, that's the real puzzle. I've been to a number of therapists over the years, some fantastic, some forgettable, and at least one who felt like they were mentally solving a Sudoku puzzle while I cried. Not every therapist is going to be a good fit. That's not failure, that's just shopping for your brain. And it's not all on you. Sometimes a therapist will tell you that they're not the best person to help. Maybe your issues don't line up with their specialty. Or maybe they just know someone else would be more effective. And when that happens, it totally feels like getting dumped. Like, it's not you, it's me. And spoiler alert, it literally is. Don't take it personally. They're doing you a favor. You wouldn't keep going to a dentist who only works on cats. Same energy. For me, I hadn't been in therapy for about 10 years before I jumped back in. And let me tell you, ten years of self-diagnosing with Google and caffeine-fueled introspection was not the winning strategy I had hoped it would be. So in 2024, I got serious. Before I landed with a therapist I work with now, I tried three or four others in a span of maybe two months. And yeah, it was exhausting. And yes, I started to feel like maybe this just wasn't going to work for me. Like, is it me? Do I just repel mental health? But then I found the one. And I don't mean the one like soulmates and sunsets, I mean someone I could actually be honest with. Someone who didn't try to fix me in 45 minutes, but also didn't just sit there nodding like a bobblehead. They challenged me in the right ways. They understood how my brain likes to verbally process a situation from four angles before I know what I actually feel. And honestly, that's everything. Over the years, I've worked with psychiatrists, psychologists, counselors, social workers, and even a couple life coaches who really wanted to help me start journaling more. Every one of them had a different approach. Some helped, some well, they were that'll be a fun story later. Point is therapy isn't one size fits all. It's more like genes. You have to try a few on before you find a pair that doesn't make you want to scream. And once you do, that's when the real work begins. Okay, let's talk about expectations. Specifically the ones your brain quietly installs before you even show up to your first session. Here's where people get tripped up. You go to therapy, you spill your soul, and then you leave thinking, cool, I should be fixed now. But therapy doesn't work like that. It's not our car wash. You don't just drive in sad and come out emotionally detailed. There's a part of you, don't lie, that hopes kind of hopes anyway. Therapy will be like getting an emotional oil change. You show up, you talk about some stuff, and boom, you're fixed. You walk out lighter, more self-aware. Like you unlock some secret emotional cheat code. Congrats! Your childhood trauma has now been patched in version 2.0. But yeah, no. Therapy won't save you from your hard stuff. It will just hand you a flashlight and watch you trip over it in real time. There's no off switch for anxiety, no clear cash button for generational trauma. No therapist is going to say, Alright, I've diagnosed you with having a lot going on. See you never. What therapy does is give you the space and tools to do the actual work. And if you're anything like me, that realization hits like a brick wrapped in a throw pillow. Comforting, but still very much a brick. The truth is therapy won't save you from your hard stuff. It will force you to confront it. Sometimes awkwardly, sometimes painfully, sometimes with the grace of a deer on roller skates. But you're the one doing the lifting. Your therapist isn't going to follow you home and stop you from texting your ex. Believe me, I've checked. And here's where it gets sneaky. Even when you are doing the work, you'll still have days where you spiral. You'll still feel like you're regressing. That doesn't mean therapy isn't working, it just means you're human. There was a stretch when I was showing up every week saying all the right things, digging into the hard stuff, and still having days where I'd mentally collapse over like mismatched socks or an unanswered text, and I think, is this even helping? Why am I still like this? The answer? Because progress isn't a straight line. It's a wonky, looping, sometimes flat, sometimes chaotic mess that still moves forward, even when you don't feel it. Therapy helps you understand your patterns, but understanding isn't a magical override switch. That's more like emotional subtitles. You still feel the thing, but now there's a little caption under that says, This is the part where your abandonment issues panic for no reason. That awareness, that's part of the work. But it's not glamorous. There's no applause. No, you did it, confetti drop. Just a quiet moment where you realize, hey, I handle that slightly better than I would have a month ago. And then you move on. And that's why therapy isn't a miracle. It's a mirror. And sometimes what you see in that mirror sucks. But over time, if you keep showing up, keep doing the work, you stop flinching when you look. Ultimately therapy gives you the tools to do the work, but the work, that's on you. And yeah, that part does kind of suck. It's on you to keep showing up, to try the uncomfortable thing, to sit with the hard emotions, to challenge the story your brain has been telling you for 20 years. Therapy opens the door, but you're the one who has to walk through it. Alright, so you've made it through the awkward beginnings. You've stopped expecting your therapist to hand you a magic fix it button, and now you're wondering, how do I even know if this is working? Like, what's the progress report here? Do I get a letter grade? A gold star? A loyalty punch card that gets me a free breakthrough after 10 sessions? Unfortunately, no. Progress in therapy is not some big dramatic reveal. There's no end of season finale where everything clicks and you become the emotionally stable version of yourself you always imagined. Progress is subtle. It's pausing before you react. It's not spiraling as hard when plans change. It's realizing, hey, I didn't completely melt down today, and I usually would have. Sometimes it takes weeks or months before you even notice a shift. And that's normal. That's still progress. There's no obvious benchmark. No one's keeping score. You don't walk out of therapy one day to a standing ovation from your inner child. Progress is quieter than that. Sneakier. Honestly, it's borderline, rude how subtle it is. You'll be in the middle of a frustrating conversation and suddenly realize you're not yelling. Or you'll catch yourself spiraling at 2 a.m. but this time you name it, breathe, and fall to sleep before you've drafted an emergency argument with your boss. That's progress. You might still have the same triggers, but your response is different. That's the work. That's the win. But here's the catch. It's really easy to miss it in real time. Your brain isn't built to notice the things you didn't do. It's not going to throw you a parade for not having a breakdown in the grocery store when they were out of your favorite oat milk. So you have to start tracking the small things. Did I pause before reacting? Did I feel a feeling without instantly trying to fix it or run from it? Did I say what I needed even if my voice shook? That stuff counts. All of it. For me, there were weeks where I'd leave therapy feeling like I'd accomplished absolutely nothing, just vibes, tears, and overanalysis. But then two days later, I'd handle the situation with my kids or at work and realize, hey, I didn't emotionally implode. That didn't happen before. And that's the shift. Not a transformation, a tuning. You start to see the patterns earlier. You notice your inner critic before it drags you into a shame spiral. You set a boundary without immediately feeling like a monster. You still mess up. You still have bad days. But there's space between the trigger and the reaction now. Even if it's just a few seconds. That space, that's where your power is. You won't always feel like you're getting better. Some days you'll swear you're regressing. There'll be three years into therapy and suddenly you're crying because someone said, We need to talk. That's normal. You're not starting over. You're just hitting a new layer. Because healing isn't a ladder. It's more like a spiral staircase. You keep circling around the same stuff, but each time you're a little higher than before. Even if it doesn't feel that way in the moment. So if you're looking for proof that therapy is working, stop searching for the grand finale. Look for the pause. Look for the softening. Look for the part of you that used to panic and now just breathes. That's what progress actually looks like. And if you're wondering whether it's working, look at your patterns. Are you responding differently? Are you becoming more aware of your own triggers? That's growth. Therapy isn't comfortable. It isn't fast. And it sure as hell isn't magic. You don't walk in broken and walk out healed. There's no soundtrack swelling when you have a revelation that fixes your entire life. Most days, therapy is quiet, awkward, and honestly, kinda weird. But it is worth it. Because it gives you something most of us never really had growing up. A safe place to tell the truth. To sit with your mess and not feel like you have to explain it away. To be human without having to perform. If you're skeptical, good. It means you're thinking. But don't let that stop you from trying. Go anyway. If it feels awkward, that's fine. Growth usually is. Keep showing up. If you are not sure it's working, you're not alone. Most progress doesn't feel like progress. It feels like frustration. Like crying in your car after a session and wondering why you're even bothered. But that's part of it too. Because therapy isn't about being fixed. It's about being honest. Being aware. Being brave enough to look at your own chaos and say, Yeah, I'm working on it. And that, that's more than enough. Thanks for hanging out with me today. If you liked the episode, go ahead and throw me a follow and ask me a question or leave a comment on Twitter, YouTube, and TikTok at the Brainverseme. Or head over to my website, Brainverseme, to read the latest blog posts or catch up on the podcast episodes you missed. And don't forget to like, subscribe, comment on this podcast. Wherever it is, you can do it on whatever platform you're listening to this on. And if you have a question you want me to read and answer on the show, definitely hit me up on Twitter. Coming up next time, am I trauma dumping or just talking? Because there's a fine line between sharing and oversharing, and apparently, I sprint across it at least once a week. And as always, remember to be kind to yourself and tell your brain to shut up.