not to get weird in the morning but another thing about therapy that I struggled with at the time but has become hilarious in hindsight is that I could not wrap my head around this woman treating anxiety like it was a real thing.

like I nearly noped out the first session when she asked 'where in your body do you feel the anxiety' bc I was like, 'ma'am, no, anxiety is a made-up imaginary villain in my head. you can't act like it's REAL. this is TOO woo-woo for me.' so when she asked me to do things like relax all the muscles in my body or plant my feet firmly on the ground I was like 'okay but this can't actually work tho?? because anxiety is just a figment of my imagination and when you talk about anxiety it's the other person's job to say it's not real.'

anyway, in hindsight I get what she was getting at, but at the time I was totally bewildered. I 100% subconsciously expected her to just say 'so you know this isn't REAL right you just have to think happy thoughts :)' even though I'd been Online for a long time and knew that wasn't right.