How Group Therapy made me Love People Again

If you would have told me five years ago that one day, one of the weekly tasks I would look forward to most would be openly revealing my ugliest, most intrusive thoughts, feelings and behaviours to a room full of complete strangers…I would have asked what you’ve been smoking.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who did some desperate things amidst those deep, dark days of COVID-19 isolation. As someone who errs on the side of introversion, I tend to roll my eyes anytime I come across yet another study boasting the benefits of social connection. I am often quite comfortable residing inside my little bubble of me, myself, and I, and there are times where it takes a full moon to get me to actually step outside of that.

When my therapist suggested that I try doing some group therapy (a commonly used treatment modality for those struggling with eating disorders), I may have actually laughed out loud.

My most recent attempt at bravely opening up to someone very close to me about the things that I had been struggling with ended in a burst of tears, a slammed door and an additional ten pounds of shame slapped upon my already sore shoulders.

From that point on, I vowed to never again let anyone have a peek into the overflowing chair of laundry that existed inside of my head.

I would continue stepping into the content and well put-together public facing costume that I fit into so well, only ever removing this sturdy iron suit when required for a doctor that I had an appointment (or was paying a hefty amount) to see.

Alas, we were a year into the pandemic, and even I was starting to feel the impact of a serious lack in human interaction.

So, the night of the first group meeting came around and I begrudgingly turned on my camera.

At least it’s online, I figured, so if things went as horribly as I imagined they would, I could just blame poor internet connection and quietly exit the tab.

We started the group with what the moderator called a ‘check-in,’ where she went around one-by-one asking each of us to share our ‘feelings’ in that given moment along with something that we were currently ‘struggling with.’ Without revealing too much about their information for privacy purposes, the most I will say is that the group participants varied greatly in age, gender, and location.

I sat there in my iron suit, trying to quickly piece together a flowery story regarding my current contented state, before my name were to be called upon by this positively perky person that definitely had nothing in common with any of us.

“I only purged once a day every day this week, which is the least I have since my husband committed suicide. I haven’t gone back to work and my daughter still won’t talk to me, but I am hoping that once I go back into inpatient I can start to get my shit together again.” confessed the first woman.

I hope my eyes didn’t widen as much as I felt they did.

As the moderator made her way through the participants, the responses increased in their intimacy: abusive partners, illegal activities, the most socially unacceptable feelings and behaviours.

At this point I was still naively unaware that these strangers would end up being some of the most crucial pieces of my recovery journey.

Feeling strangely inspired by the transparency of the other women, I mentioned the fact that I was in the middle of another relapse in my eating disorder, had simultaneously lost every close relationship in my life, and was on the verge of dropping out of my undergrad.

As I muted my mic I felt my eyes burn with tears, shocked at what I had said aloud.

Within seconds, however, chat messages started to flood in.

“I feel you, Julia”

“I am going through the same thing with my partner currently - thank you for sharing this!”

“You’re not alone in that, I haven’t talked to my parents in months”

As the twelve weeks of scheduled group sessions went on, I looked so forward to every Thursday night at 7 pm. I cancelled any social plans that were to come up around that time and I rearranged my work schedule with my boss. I even kept up with the groups as I went on vacation, looking forward to seeing the familiar faces of these people that I had little in common with, other than perhaps our biggest, most shameful struggles.

Now, here I am consistently writing posts on a public blog space about some of my most challenging personal battles, and anytime I receive a private message that whispers, “thank you for talking about this, my journey has been so similar,” it reminds me of why I do so.

While I am still learning the careful dance between being vulnerable and plain oversharing, it is crucial that we remind ourselves that we are in fact not the only human in existence who is messy, complicated, confused, afraid, REAL.

There are billions of people on this planet currently and billions who have lived before you - if there is one thing I know for sure is that it is actually impossible for you to be the only one to have ever gone through what you are going through.

Seeing and hearing the strength of those women that night continues to be the reason why I changed that vow from one of staying silent in my struggles, to one of showing up authentically and genuinely as often as I can.

If you are interested in being part of a small social support group, please send me a private message!

“You are imperfect, you are wired for struggle, but you are worthy of love and belonging.” Brene Brown

Here’s to stepping outside of your shell every so often to see what exists on the outside,

J