there's a lot of reasons why i decided to pursue my career. this is the main reason.
when i was younger, i was depressed, anxious BUT had a good chunk of friends. a lot of them were also depressed and anxious, and i decided to try my crack at helping them. i wasn't the best, but i was pretty damn good for a middle schooler. this desire to help others never really went away, though. as a method of escapism, i helped my friends be the better them they could ever be. sometimes it worked, sometimes it required multiple sessions, and sometimes my patients would come out refreshed, almost anew to a degree. that brightened my day all the time.
over time, however, i painfully realized that i had no real friends. i had patients. online, irl, didn't matter. i was treated like an actual therapist, and this was my fate to carry. and it was one i carried with heavy sorrow in my heart. every day i'd spend looking for a genuine connection, looking for someone that'd listen or that i could have a good conversation with. that ended up almost never working out, and my childhood days were spent in a silent anguish as i desperately looked onwards towards the future.
that didn't mean i didn't like psychology, however.in fact, i LOVED it. i loved it so much, i got into neurological studies very early and decided to pursue psychology for the rest of my school days. when i got into college, i decided to go straight into psychology. i had some time to think, of course, but the thought of finally achieving this dream of mine shune so brightly that i just couldn't resist. what mainly boosted me was my therapist (of this year!), who helped me see things in different lens. thanks to him, i finally understood what i wanted to, and how i wanted to do it.
now i spend my days very happily. i'm still a therapist friend to many of mine, but it's a job i take with pride instead of sorrow. it's this opportunity that i have of making the people i love feel better that was just irresistible. no one deserves to go through the pains that we go through every day. being able to ease those hurdles, maybe even remove them, is something that i'll always strive to do for my patients. not even for my patients, for my friends. and that's why i'm so outgoing with saying "you can message me at any time!", even in stranger situations. whatever you're going through, you don't need to go through alone.