Do I Need Therapy If I’m Still Coping? On Not Waiting Until It Gets Worse

Most people who email me apologise somewhere in the first paragraph.

Not for anything they’ve done. For being there at all. I’m not sure I should be taking up your time. I know other people have it much worse. It’s probably nothing. Then a list of things that are plainly not nothing, delivered in the tone you’d use to report a slightly wobbly shelf.

If you’ve been circling the idea of therapy for a while and keep stopping at the same place — is this bad enough? — I’d like to take that question seriously, because it deserves better than reassurance.