Have you ever decided to go to therapy in order to “get rid” of a disorder, a set of symptoms, or a challenging situation? If you have, first of all, no judgment. It makes sense to think of things this way. After all, we might go to the doctor to get something to get rid of a nasty cold. But when you think about it, yes, the cold medication certainly helps. But there are other things we learn how to do in order to help our bodies heal as well, like resting, drinking lots of fluids, and taking steam showers. The same idea goes for our mental health too. Learning techniques in therapy can help our minds and bodies heal, along with any medication or other interventions.
We can get really frustrated with ourselves, however, when we show up to therapy expecting that we are going to “get rid” of our challenges. We crave this “all-or-nothing” approach: our disorders, symptoms, etc. feel like they should just go away completely. As you might have found in therapy, the disorders or symptoms often do not just disappear. When this happens, we can turn inward with shame, such as saying to ourselves, “I know better, so why can’t I stop doing this?”
But your disorder showing up does not mean that you’re doing therapy “wrong”. Instead of framing this as a failure to control yourself or to control your thoughts, we can reapproach how we understand our own therapeutic goals. Maybe the goal, for example, is not to “recover” from your disorder, but to instead accept that some patterns might come up, and that the tools that are learned in therapy can be used to respond to those patterns differently. When the cold comes back, we now know the things we need to do in order to make ourselves feel better again.
Acceptance does not have to mean liking your disorder, agreeing with patterns, or giving up on your growth. Acceptance can mean acknowledging what is happening for you in the present moment without trying to fight it. It’s noticing, “Oh, that thought is here again.” “I recognize this pattern.” without layering on the self-criticism and shame. We can gain more flexibility when we stop trying to fight all our symptoms as if they were something to be eliminated.
Losing hope on hard days can turn into opportunities for working on not only our challenging patterns, but how we are responding to ourselves during these times. And kindness in these moments helps to remind ourselves that your therapeutic progress is not measured by perfection.