The belief that you must be “bad enough” to deserve help is itself one of the frequent reasons people delay for years. It has two consequences, both poor: therapy is reached far later, when the problem has deepened, and people leave the first session feeling they are taking the place of someone who really suffers.
Perfectly ordinary reasons people come, with no diagnosis at all:
- a big decision — moving, separating, changing career, having a child
- a pattern repeating in relationships that you can no longer explain by bad luck
- a loss, including one others do not consider large
- a transition: divorce, children leaving, retirement, emigration
- difficulties at work, recurring conflicts on the same themes
- wanting to understand something about yourself, with no crisis at all
There is also a timing argument. The more recent the problem, the less interwoven it is with the rest of life and the less time it takes. A two-year pattern changes faster than a twenty-year one, and waiting does not make it simpler.
Comparison does not work in psychology. Someone else going through something harder does not make your situation easier or reduce your need. Suffering is not allocated by quota.