Don't give up on therapy.
I often hear people talk about therapy as if it's one thing, one method, one experience. But therapy is not a monolith, it's an entire field of human connection and psychological craft, with over 500 different types of talking therapy and countless ways of practising them. Even the four "main" branches; cognitive behavioural, psychodynamic, humanistic, systemic - barely hint at the diversity within the therapeutic world. When someone tries therapy once and decides it isn't for them, it's usually because they've met one corner of something vast. "Therapy" itself is a slippery word. It means something different depending on who you ask. Culture, religion, social class, family norms, personal history - all of these shape how we imagine what therapy is supposed to feel like. For some people, therapy is a place to talk about problems. For others, it's a place to learn skills. For others still, it's a place to be witnessed, challenged, sooth...