Anyone who has gone to therapy...

I'll expand on my answer a bit later, but wanted to say that I have gone to see my counselor off and on-- meaning, if I'm having issues I'll see her regularly for a while, but after I feel like I have things under control (or I feel like I don't have any MORE issues to discuss at that time) then I will stop seeing her.

--with the understanding that I may go back at some point in the future if things change, or if my depression gets worse, or if I have new / different issues to work through.

I don't think you necessarily need to go 'indefinitely' to a counselor... but that's just my opinion.

Perhaps you need to sit down with your therapist and discuss goals. It is very hard to see where you are going if you have no destination.

In the beginning you had the goal pertaining to your children. You seem to have met that goal. I guess you continued to go for help with your relationship with your husband. You need to know what your goal is in that direction. So setting a goal and deciding on a plan to achieve that goal should be what you are working on at this time.

It may sound simple but sometimes deciding on a goal can be the biggest and hardest part of dealing with a situation.

It may also sound selfish but you need to look at your therapy as it applies to your happiness. As wives and mothers we have a tendency to put our happiness on hold so that others can be happy. I think the time has come for you to move your happiness to the front of the line.

It is easier to deal with many things if you are in a happy place.

"So my real question is i'm looking to gain insight from others experiences - what did you take away from your experience? Did you feel like you were always learning, coping, working towards something? "


^^^ my answer is yes... and no. LOL!! I started seeing a counselor a few years ago when I was having some pretty bad depression issues (don't EVER decide on your own to just *stop* your medication!! ever!!) and had gone through a couple big life changes (relationship, move across the country, etc. etc.)

Before that, I had seen a counselor for a period of time right after having my depression diagnosed but I honestly didn't feel like I clicked with her or that she was actually helping me to figuring anything out. (that is to say, I totally get what you mean-- it sort of felt like she was just listening to me but not offering any helpful information, and just taking my copay week after week. of course, that could have been because I wasn't really in a place to actually WANT to be helped, either, so who knows.) And then we moved, so it wasn't an issue any longer.

Anyway-- when I saw my counselor more recently it would sometimes be about relationship issues- the way my BF and I communicated (or didn't) and sometimes about my own more general issues that were impacting our relationship and my mental well-being overall. Talking with her helped me to understand that a lot of my issues / fears / my outlook on life (whatever you want to call them) were due to the way I was raised-- meaning I still carried a lot of the pressures my parents put on me, limitations and fears I felt were actually *their* limitations and not my own, hearing *the voice* (usually critical) inside my head and realizing that criticism in my head wasn't MY voice but stuff my mom would say, left over from when I was a kid-- things like that.   All those realizations weren't things I KNEW I needed to figure out at the time; they came about through the course of talking to her over time, telling her about my family, my history, and the issues I was having at the time, as an adult. She helped me 'connect the dots' so to speak between how I saw the world as an adult and experiences I had as a child / childhood influences on my personality.

I also did have a specific issue she helped me with after our dog died (wrongfully) while we were gone on vacation a number of years ago-- I couldn't get over it and had started having panic attacks-- talking with her about the situation helped me to understand why I was having them and we did some desensitization therapy (which was immensely helpful) so I could move on from that experience and not feel guilty any longer about what had happened.