A Letter to My Therapist

I don’t trust you.

Let’s just start there, so we’re not wasting time pretending otherwise. I’m not saying this to be dramatic. I’m saying this because it's true—and if I am going to be honest with someone, I should probably start with that. I don’t trust you because I don’t know you. Not really. And the whole setup of therapy, at least to me, feels absurd: I’m supposed to strip my soul down in front of someone whose backstory is behind a two-way mirror.

I wanted to write this before our next session, because I don’t think I can say it all out loud without derailing into jokes or sarcasm or just silence. So here we are.

I can't even find you on the website or in a Google search, which makes me suspicious. I don’t know where you went to school. I don’t know what your major was. I don’t know if you work mostly with white women having a quarter-life crisis or people like me. I don’t know what personal hell you’ve clawed your way out of—or if you ever had to. I don’t know if your advice is rooted in textbooks or in scars. And in a world full of bad advice—some of it deadly—I don't know if I should take yours.

So no, I’m not going to be one of those patients who opens up right away, hands you the emotional keys, and says, “Fix me.” Because I’m not sure I want to be fixed. I’m starting to like who this woman is becoming. She’s mouthy, yes. She’s moody, also yes. But she’s aware now. And that kind of awareness doesn't come without cost.

This diagnosis cracked open a trapdoor I didn’t even know existed beneath my life. And since then, it’s been freefall. Talking to my partner, my three best friends, my grandma, and my barista isn’t cutting it anymore. There are too many versions of me out there—one for each of them—and none of them get the whole picture. I'm stitched together like some emotional Frankenstein, and not in the cute Tumblr way.

So what’s intriguing about therapy, at least theoretically, is this: the possibility of one place, one person, where I don’t have to perform. Where I can just complain. Unload. Swear. Spiral. Just sit. With mood lighting, preferably. Because if you think I’m baring my soul under fluorescent lighting, you’re out of your damn mind.

I know how this sounds. Like someone slamming the door while standing in the doorway. And maybe it is. But I’ve learned to survive by keeping one foot out—just in case. In case people leave. In case I say too much. In case I become too much. So this is me… half-in, half-out. Call it self-protection or call it wisdom. Either way, I’m here. And I do believe trust can be built, but it takes time. Just to keep the door open a crack wider. Right now it’s... firmly on the chain lock.

And I think what I actually want—beneath all the bravado and skepticism—is someone to look at all my wreckage and not flinch. Someone who doesn't reach for the broom. Who can witness me, messy and mid-sentence, and just say: “Yeah, I see it. Keep going.”

There’s a version of this—maybe not here, maybe not now—where therapy becomes the one room I don’t have to earn my stay. Where I can be exhausted and uncharming and still be worth listening to. Where it’s okay to not be okay, and no one rushes to fix it with breathing exercises and buzzwords.

If this is going to work, I need you to know I’m not looking for a savior. I’m looking for a witness. A real one. Someone who can sit beside me in the dark without turning on the lights too fast. Because my eyes are still adjusting, and bright light makes me defensive.

And most of all, I need you to meet me where I actually am, not where your treatment plan says I should be.

I’m not looking for you to fix me. I’m not even sure I want to be understood. But if you can sit beside me—without pity, without judgment, without trying to tidy it all up into some neat little DSM-5 code—then maybe this could be something.

Maybe.

So here I am. Uneasy. Suspicious. Slightly resentful. But here.

A blog post by Rachel Smak on grief, loss, and lessons from stage 3C rectal cancer