Being seen taught me how to see myself

I’m getting ready to end a six-year relationship. The safest, most consistent, and most rewarding relationship I’ve ever had. It became the first relationship where I didn’t incorporate some level of performance or curation on my part.

I am talking about the relationship I have with my therapist. We’ll call him Clark. 

In the earlier days of our work, I was on a mission to earn a gold star in therapy. I wanted to be the best client and I wanted Clark to know that. I would show up week after week with a report of what happened, the insight I’d gained from it, and how it applied to the future — this was usually something I’d already teed up for next week’s session. 

I wanted Clark to know I was smart and insightful. I wanted him to know he could count on me to show up with things to talk about and that I thought the session was helpful. I wanted Clark to have a good experience with me as a client. But I didn’t know if he was getting it. 

As time went on, Clark was underwhelming. Going to therapy was like a pat on the back that I’d done something good for myself that week, and I had done everything I knew to do. I played my part and played it well. I started to think maybe I wasn't the issue here. 

Maybe Clark wasn’t very good at his job. Maybe he didn’t know what to do with me because I really was that good of a client. I would soon come to realize that Clark was, in fact, very good at his job. So good that I had no idea he’d been doing it the entire time.

About a year into our work together my life was unraveling more than ever. It was completely unmanageable and I needed help. As if asking for help wasn’t out of character enough, I found myself texting Clark asking if we could talk, and I didn’t understand why.

I was scared, angry, lonely, and desperate. I needed someone to see me at that moment, and I knew that Clark could, because he already had. Like I said, Clark had been doing his job the entire time. 

Clark was watching me wear myself out, trusting that eventually I’d become curious about trying something else. He wasn’t underwhelming at all. In fact, he was overwhelming me with the option of doing something different: a willingness to see me as I am and an invitation for me to do the same. 

I realize now that much of my criticism of Clark at the start of our work together was actually me avoiding where he was aiming my attention: toward myself. Clark wasn’t interested in getting to know me, he was interested in getting to meet me, and you can only be met where you’re at, not where you want people to think you are. 

The work became the relationship and the ways I try to hide from being seen and seeing myself. It took time to confront the many parts of myself I’d hidden away. Clark was steady and present with me as we approached them and I came to understand there wasn’t anything he could see in me that would turn him away. Eventually I started to think that maybe I could stay with myself, too. 

Seeing myself enough to sit with myself, I saw a dream I wanted to chase and the courage to be seen chasing it. I know I am not done with the work of being seen versus being known, but being able to be honest with myself and not judge what I see is going to be square one for anything I face moving forward.

I am ending this relationship, but I am far from alone. I learned how to be in a relationship with myself, and that is better than any gold star I could get from someone else. I am grateful to Clark for seeing what I needed the entire time.