How did therapy help you? Feeling skeptical.

I just had my first therapy session, and I’m feeling so many things—mostly impatient and skeptical. I’ve heard people talk about how they’ve had these amazing epiphanies in therapy, and honestly, I was hoping for something similar right away. But of course, therapy barely started, and I realize now that I was being unfair to expect immediate breakthroughs.

At the start of the session, my therapist asked about my hopes and goals, and I immediately broke down. I ended up talking about my father’s death, my family, and all this heavy stuff I’ve been carrying. She was great—she validated my feelings and offered perspectives on my childhood, which was comforting. Toward the end, she suggested a letter-writing exercise to process grief, but I got irritated because I made it clear before that I wasn’t looking for CBT-style solutions.

Now that I’ve had some time to reflect, I realize that I need to give her—and therapy—a chance. She’s just getting to know me and trying to figure out what might help. I also realize that I have so many things I want to talk about—grief, family, relationships, everything—but 50 minutes feels so limited. It’s frustrating because I want to dive into everything at once, but I know that’s just not realistic.

I’m still skeptical about therapy, but I’m willing to stick with it. I’d love to hear from others who’ve felt this way early on. How long did it take before you started feeling like therapy was working? Did you ever have those big “aha” moments, or was it more of a slow process for you? And how do you deal with feeling like there’s never enough time in a session?