Marking a Year in Therapy

A year ago today, June 16, 2025, I walked into my therapist office for the first time, sat down, and spent 75 minutes telling her about some of the things I was afraid of.

Since then I’ve been back fifteen more times (well, fourteen – one was virtual). I’ve talked a lot more about those fears, and slowly I’ve learned how to face them and how to be a happier person. Over the past year I’ve confronted a bunch of the things I was afraid of, and in every single case I found that my fear was either not justified or it was something I could overcome.

I started being more honest with the people around me whether it was my spouse, my family, my friends, my co-workers or my boss. If I needed something from someone, I asked for help. If I wanted someone to stop doing something, I asked them to stop.

I also started asking more of myself. Be more courageous and less fearful. Be more honest with myself. Be less scared of letting other people see the person I am, and always have been.

I put aside a lot of fear and accepted a promotion at work that I’d always really wanted but had always been too afraid to even admit that I wanted. It’s been great. I went to the dentist after avoiding it for a long time, and it was fine (even the root canal, which wasn’t nearly as awful as people make it out to be). I stopped hiding the music I actually like (Sabrina Carpenter, Olivia Dean) or the books I actually read (a lot of cheesy romance novels).

I still have a lot of work to do, but it gets a little easier every day.