“What’s wrong with me?” is a question that I first asked myself when I began consulting a therapist few years back and later came across from children, adolescents and adults alike, in my practice as a therapist. Some people like to word their question a bit differently such as:
“Oh! That’s why I have landed here!”
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me?”
“Can you tell me what other clients of yours have spoken about so that I can figure out what’s wrong with me?”
“Am I not ok since I had to come here?”
Somehow its assumed that visiting a therapist/counsellor is a confirmation of a” not okayness “ of a person while consulting a doctor for any physical ailment is fine, rather it’s quite widely discussed in social circles. Consulting a therapist or seeking help for our own emotional wellbeing is akin to taking tuitions for any subject. It’s just that the subjects here are the thinking and feeling aspects of ourselves, which also originate in our bodies as any physical ailment.
“What’s wrong with me?” doesn’t have an answer since it isn’t a right question. What we need to be asking is “What happened to me? What am I feeling and thinking ,and how is it impacting me?”
Rakhi Solanki is a counsellor based in Delhi. She works with adolescents and children