Therapy Hangover

Sometimes, when going through therapy, a person can experience what some call a "therapy hangover." This feeling can occur from extreme emotions experienced during therapy, from reaching a deep place during therapy, and from intense realizations or epiphanies reached during therapy. Usually this feeling doesn't come during or right after the therapy session, but a little while later.

I think that today I experienced a therapy hangover.

Today's therapy was good. I was feeling disappointed with myself for not achieving the goals I set at last week's session. I've been feeling disappointed in myself for not putting more time toward my freelance job and being behind in reaching my deadline. Those were the feelings we started off the session discussing. Fairly simple and normal stuff.

I tend to approach my sessions in a freestyle, stream-of-conscious style. I lose track of original points as some new thought or memory comes to mind and I chase after that. I've told my previous therapist and my current therapist about this tendency and given them permission to control the session more, but both of them have basically let me follow my paths and tangents.

Today, in particular, I think this tactic was useful. I went from being disappointed in my not reaching my goal for the week to disappointment in myself regarding work to having developed the feeling over years that I'm going to disappoint my employer eventually, so I might as well get it over with right away. (I tend to feel this with friends, too, but forgot to bring this up during therapy.) So I tend to do something that will disappoint: I take a sick day early in my employment, I change plans suddenly (such as not coming in on a day I was scheduled to be in the office, saying I'll work at home instead), and I don't always work as hard as I feel I should and can. I'm not just in the process of disappointing others — I'm disappointing myself.

Ideas and memories and feelings kept coming to mind as I spoke, such as my parents' insistence on straight A's, even though they couldn't do the work I was doing in school and they had no understanding for how hard math was for me, for example. I told my therapist that I'd tried not to internalize that mindset, but that I had anyway. Perfection is hard to live up to.


We touched upon my issues of trusting myself and feeling disappointed in myself, that I felt I wasn't living up to my potential. The thought came to me that I carry an intellectual arrogance of sorts. I was a gifted child, testing into the gifted program at its inception. My parents almost didn't allow me to test for it, feeling it would cause me to "become conceited." They often took me to task for "showing off" by using an educated vocabulary (some of which I don't think they understood) or by offering up my knowledge or opinions. (In contrast, they encouraged my little brother to show off his physical prowess and skills.)

I told my therapist "I'm smart. Very smart. But I don't feel very smart anymore, I don't feel capable of doing what I used to be able to do. I felt I was the best tech writer and editor I knew and I don't feel I'm living up to that anymore." And I don't really want to work anymore; I'd retire if I could. I'd rather not do deadline-driven work anymore. But my skills and talents put me in a place where deadlines are highly important.

She offered the opinion that my feeling of intellectual dullness is actually the result of the cloud of emotional issues I've been dealing with and continue to deal with. She's not disappointed with what I see as a lack of progress; she sees progress, even if it is in tiny increments.

I felt that I was going pretty deep into this overarching idea of disappointment and expectations. I came up with some new thoughts during the session. We came up with some new ideas and tactics that I wrote in my notebook. We ended the session on a good note.

I came home. I started work. I got a lot done, although not exactly what and as much as I had planned. Then, after my housemates went off to do something, I started feeling exhausted and decided to give myself a short nap; short because I was due to join some friends for our weekly video and chat online.

As I tried to get to sleep, I started feeling ill. My feeling was nothing specific, just a feeling of overall ickiness. I had a call from one of my housemates asking me to measure some things; they were at an antiques shop and apparently considering some more purchases. Then I lay down again and there were a text message and some phone calls. I wasn't completely asleep, but I wasn't awake either. I just wanted the interruptions to stop so I could sink into a deeper sleep. I started feeling hot and couldn't fall fully into my nap. Then my housemates came home and I was just done. I felt ill and hot and sweaty and cranky … and still tired. The smell of whatever they warmed up for dinner made me feel mildly nauseated. And I was done with work for the day. Out of gas.

I had a short chat with one of the friends I had been supposed to meet online; I felt that she was irritated with me, maybe disappointed. Projecting? Probably. I was able to convince myself that even if she was irritated, she still loved me and I doubt this feeling changed her feelings toward me. I'm pretty sure I'm right. Pretty sure.

I had yogurt for dinner, my go-to food if my stomach is feeling queasy. While my housemates watched videos at one end of the house, I watched some at the other.

Then it occurred to me: therapy hangover. I felt we'd pulled some things together in therapy, and that we'd gone pretty far into the idea of disappointing others and disappointing myself. I think I came to some new realizations and ideas. I think it was enough to cause a reaction in myself — it's the only thing I can think of to cause me to feel icky and cranky and unwell out of the blue.

This hangover also signals that I'm doing significant therapeutic work. It doesn't occur when I'm just skimming the surface or reiterating old work. The trick is to keep the work going, even at risk of continuing the hangover feelings. Progress is important, and I'm so tired of the years when I didn't make significant progress. I desperately want to get to a place where I feel happy and healthy and am able to maintain those myself, perhaps with just occasional check-ins. I'm over 50: it's really time to be able to cope on my own, in my opinion and in my desire. So I kind of welcome this therapy hangover as a sign of progress made and a sign that I am getting closer to my goal of no longer needing continuous therapy.

Have you ever had a therapy hangover, or an epiphany hangover? Did you recognize it for what it was?