When The Therapist Needed Therapy Too

 I'm not a therapist. Well, not in the professional sense. I didn't study courses, earn degrees, help people through depression. I sort of learned to read rooms by the way someone drummed their fingers against the table nervously, the way someone's smile dropped when I mentioned a name they hated, or the way someone's voice cracked when they were trying to hold back tears. 

I focused on their tears. But no one was there to wipe off my own. 

It was always like a gift, this ability to read rooms and make people feel uplifted. This ability to give people hope.

But when you looked at how and why I got this ability, it's not as pretty as it seems. 

These people I uplift, these pieces of advice I give people, and all the times I told someone that everything is going to be ok, I told myself it was just empathy. Well, I wasn't wrong. But there's another piece I missed. 

I knew exactly how it felt to be in their place. Every single time. Every word I spewed out my mouth for comforting them, it felt like I was comforting some past version of myself that felt the same way. Lost. Sad. Angry. 

Sometimes that past version of me still feels the same. Lost. Sad. Angry. But more than ever, it wishes for a shoulder to cry on.

I tell people to be kind. I tell people that words cut deeper than any blade ever could. If that is true, then I can't fathom the deepness of my wounds.

I tell people to open up. I tell people that it's ok to cry. But when I do it, I feel ashamed. I feel like I'm overreacting. 

I tell people to be themselves. But when I do it, I worry that I am too much. 

Am I?

Maybe that's when the therapist needed therapy too.