Therapy Diaries
Art by Annandi.
I’m indecisive. Fickle. Whatever I’ve been told, so I figured I’d save you the guesswork by just putting it out there.
I’ll stop reading books halfway through if I haven’t fallen in love with any of the characters. I’ll leave a restaurant after being served the free chips and salsa if I’m not interested in anything on the menu. And I’ve quit more jobs than I can count because they weren’t the right fit for me (c’mon, we’ve all been there, haven’t we?!).
But I’m working on it. I still keep those half-read books on the bottom shelf of my library with hopes that one day I’ll finish them. I still thank the servers and leave a cash tip if I have the money. And I always express my concerns to my managers before I hand in my two weeks’ notice.
“What’s for me will always be for me,” I always say, and one thing I definitely know is for me is therapy. But, I know what you’re thinking—how can someone who only knows what isn’t for them be so sure about something that is?
Because I’ve run away from therapy twice, but life has a funny way of reminding me that I’m better, calmer, and kinder when I commit to it. And trust me, if you knew how those sessions with my first two therapists went down, you would slip into your closest shoes and run in the opposite direction, too.
Listen to this first one: His name was Matthew Mozzarella, or something like that, and I’d found him on ZocDoc. He was a short, older man with a soft voice, always wearing a cream-colored button-down shirt, neutral tie, and tan shoes. His earth-toned argyle socks and fresh shaven face were also predictable. You get the picture.
During my first therapy session with Matzo, I spent the entire 50 minutes talking, minus a few minutes of his facilitation and a review of his payment protocol at the end.
“So, why are you here?” he started.
“Well, I recently went through something traumatic and I want to unpack it,” I said shakily.
“Okay, do you feel comfortable telling me more?” he responded.
So I told him all about how I had quit my job and how I was trying to start my life all over again after a pivotal moment had paused everything.
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,” he said, picking his chin up so slightly, you would miss it if you weren’t paying attention. He continued: “What do you mean by starting your life all over again?”
And that was the last thing I remember him asking me before our sessions turned into me talking to myself about myself. I saw him twice a week for six months and told him all about my plans to switch careers from teaching to writing. I told him about my struggles at home with my mom and sister, about this ex-boyfriend, and that ex-girlfriend, and no, not that boyfriend, the other one (carry the one), until I was sifting through the mess of my life in the mental organizer I’d created in that sunlit room. But he was just a friendly face. A paper cone of water. A box of tissues I refused to use. Mostly quiet and probably helpful.
At twenty-three years old, I was jobless. I’d cut off my friends. I had “no life.” I spent my days alone reading library books, signing up for free hot yoga classes, and attending Spanish mass. The comfortable $1,500 check that used to come in every two weeks decreased into a monthly $1,000 whenever I got enough tutoring hours at this random little agency on the Upper East Side. And even then, that money went straight to my mother, my metrocard, my loans, and my credit card the second it hit. I was broke broke. I was sTaRtInG oVeR. This was for real for real.
Matzo had a policy: You needed to pay $75 for any session you missed, because apparently he wouldn’t be able to see someone else during a recurring session. I would be missing two sessions in the weeks to come because I was spending my tax return on a trip to Las Vegas with a friend. After months of laying low, going to church, applying for jobs and finally landing a writing fellowship, I had decided this trip would be my reward. But in contrast, that $150 was a slap in the face.
After missing those two sessions, I was late to the next few, an indicator that therapy was becoming less and less of a priority for me, I suppose. Maybe life was getting better? Maybe this was a sign?
On my last trip to see Matzo, I hopped off the bus and sped-walked up the hill, my slides slapping my heels hard like those flappy-hand toys kids get in goodie bags. I finally got to the awning and walked through the corridor, pressing the elevator button that had already been pressed by a woman with her child. I buzzed myself in and hoped that he’d still see me. Well, anyway, he had to—I had his money.
“I don’t think I’ll be able to see you anymore,” I told him, as I cooled awkwardly beneath the ceiling vent.
“Why not?” he asked.
“Well, I’ve been applying to full-time jobs and if I land one, it’ll interfere with our hours.”
This was true. But paying money for missing meetings was a chokehold and I could talk to myself at home, so those were the first two strikes. The third was this awkward situation, so naturally, he was out.
“We still have a lot of work to do and I can see you’re already making progress,” he calmly challenged.
“Am I?” I thought. Am I really when I’m still hiding at home, off social media for months, with no job and no local friends? If the goal was to start living my best life, was this supposed to be it? Whatever I said next didn’t matter, though, because that was the last time I saw him.
In therapy with Matzo, I’d unpacked the problems I had at home. I talked about my anxiety from searching for a job after my fellowship was over, and I was able to talk about my trauma, even though he never really responded to any of it.
I guess my sessions with Matzo really had paid off because I was carrying the weight of the words I shared in that room with me everyday after—and it was heavy. So a few months later, I decided it was time to go back to therapy. But not to talk about my trauma. Not again. I would give that more time. This time, I needed to talk about family.
My second therapist was a white woman, close to my age, with dirty blonde hair always pulled into a ponytail. Her name was Jessica, and she was pretty nice. Saccharine nice. But that’s all there was to her.
She was an art therapist and she looked like one the first day I walked into that baby blue building somewhere on the L line. She was wearing camel corduroy overalls and cherry Doc Marten boots—it really doesn’t get more artsy than that.
Jessica and I got to know each other on our first day. On our second, she gave me an assignment to choose colors and shapes that represented my family members. I started drawing and immediately knew that I felt like a big purple circle, my mom felt like a small red box, my little sister was a pink dot on the corner of the page, and so on.
“Take your time. You have the entire session to complete this,” she told me.
But after ten minutes of doodling with the oil pastels, I said, “I’m done.” Down to my nephews, my two dead dogs, and my half-brother, too, each family member had transformed into a 2D shape which I was ready and eager to explain.
“You seem tense,” she said in a voice that seemed forcefully calm.
I guess I was, in the natural way anyone confiding in a stranger would be... I hadn’t noticed. But now I was stiff, so, “I guess I am,” I replied.
“Just relax,” she said, followed by nothing else.
“This is already not working,” I heard an intrusive thought muster. But I wanted to give it a try, so I forced a smile.
“Let’s start with you,” she continued. “Talk to me about your shape.”
“Well, purple represents the crown chakra and to me that means God, so I feel connected to Him. I’m a circle because a circle is whole, and abundant in nature from the planets in space to the rings of a tree stump. I like to think of myself this way.”
I guess she was expecting something else. Maybe confusion, a choppy answer, or a longer one. I could tell by the awkward silence that came after.
“Okay, what does this shape represent?” she eventually continued, pointing to my mother.
“Red is her favorite color, so it makes me think about her. Also, red means power and love, both of which she has. I made her a box because sometimes, she doesn’t really think outside of it. And you can’t fit a square into a circle so...” I said before mumbling off.
This was turning into “The Stephanie Show,” and I know that’s sort of what I’d signed up for, but I didn’t want Jessica to get the impression that I didn’t need help. I did need help—relief on a cosmic level—but I was sitting there sounding too sure. Too “tense.”
The next few sessions went just like this. Me cutting and pasting photos onto poster board pages. Her reminding me to relax, that I was “tOo TeNsE.” Activities that were supposed to last two sessions flew by in one because I couldn’t “SlOw DoWn.”
Jessica and I lasted less than three months. That’s half the time of me and Matzo. I didn’t even end it with her in-person—maybe I should have, but the long L train ride and awkward click-clack of the ceiling fan gave me too much anxiety. And wasn’t the point of therapy to prevent that?! So, I kept it real millennial and sent her an email instead.
In less than 24 hours, she responded, suggesting I come in for one final session that Wednesday. I “wasn’t able” to make it because I really didn’t want to feel judged for feeling uncomfortable, so that marked the end of that... which brings me to my last therapist: a small woman with big, brown eyes, and a kind voice. Her name is Maryanne, and something about her patterned blouses and cropped pants made me feel instantly comfortable.
On my first day, she asked me how I wanted the therapy session to go, allowing me to choose between meditation and mindful exercises. I chose meditation and spent the rest of that afternoon with my eyes closed, lounging by an imaginary river.
“Let your thoughts come and go,” she said softly, like a singing bowl grounding me in the present moment. And I did, watching my thoughts as they babbled down the stream. I don’t know if I was doing it right because intrusive thoughts would repeatedly pop up in my face, but I did the manual work to place them in the water anyway.
On my next visit, I created a safe space in my mind, my own apartment where I was away from the world, and learned how to come home to it when I started to panic. I also learned how to create a room in my mind full of people I loved, including my mother, boyfriend, and even Oprah, and I would escape into this room when I needed a reminder of all the love that surrounded me.
Maryanne was present and patient—that’s what I liked about her. Unlike Matzo, she inserted her thoughts and suggestions into the conversation, making it easier to engage, and unlike Jessica, she never made me feel uncomfortable for being, well, uncomfortable.
When I was ready to heal from my trauma, she taught me an EMDR technique which required me to tap on my lap back-and-forth while I recalled the traumatic experience. This exercise helped the most because instead of talking about what happened, I had to actually guide myself through it. But unlike experiencing the trauma the first time, I had my hands and her voice to ground me.
By this point, it had been years since my traumatic experience took place. I was scared to close my eyes and summon the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. But to my surprise, I found that I couldn’t remember much of it when I tried to recall the event. I know what happened and I know with whom, I know what parts of the story made me feel the most scared or helpless, and I know how certain things made me feel, but everything was blurry. Faces were smeared, voices were underwater, I couldn’t remember what happened first or next on what day. Like a dream, I felt both affected and disconnected. Was this me finally letting go?
Sessions passed and I continued to practice EMDR in her office, and then eventually through video call when the pandemic hit. The more I practiced, the more details came back to me, but it was like they were coming back in small spoonfuls, allowing me to cool them down before I swallowed. I was finally healing, and this was the first step: facing my trauma head-on.
In sessions with Matzo, I was able to vent and get to the root of my problem, and with Jessica, I was able to explore that root. But Maryanne taught me how to pluck that root and plant something new in its place.
I still see Maryanne from time to time. Whenever something comes up, be it a trigger or just my general languish, I know she’s just a phone call away. But I also have a ton of other resources now, like self-help books and Breathe magazines, that I can lean on when I need support or reflection. I have new people in my corner, like my boyfriend of three years, and people who’ve always been there, like my childhood friends, because I know it takes a village. But most importantly, I’m finally finding peace, and if “what’s for me will always be for me,” then I must be in the right place. ◆
Stephanie Nieves is a writer, editor, teacher, and personal empowerment enthusiast from Spanish Harlem in NYC. She studied writing and rhetoric in college, then went on to teach ELA and writing to middle and elementary school students. Now, she teaches writing classes to adults at Gotham Writers Workshop and runs the literary magazine, Karma Comes Before. Her work has been featured in Business Insider, Thought Catalog, FGRLS Club, GROWN magazine, and a number of literary magazines. When she's not writing, you can catch her watching reruns of RuPaul's Drag Race or ordering an overpriced dirty chai latte at Starbucks. You can connect with her on wordchefsteph.com.