You Don’t Have to Have a Diagnosis to Need Therapy

Written by: @SL Serene Lee

You don’t need to be clinically depressed, have panic attacks, or carry a formal diagnosis to walk through a therapist’s door.

Sometimes, you are just tired — but not the kind of tired that sleep can fix. Sometimes, you are holding it all together in public but silently falling apart in private. Sometimes, you don’t even know what is wrong… only that something feels off, and you can’t quite name it.

A young woman once told me, “I feel like I have no right to be in therapy. I mean, nothing terrible happened to me. I’m just… tired of pretending I’m okay all the time.”

That is the thing. Therapy isn’t only for crises. It is not a last resort. It is a place to untangle your thoughts, say things you have never dared to say out loud, or finally stop minimising your own pain.

You can go to therapy even if:

• You smile around others but feel empty inside.

• You function well but feel like you are constantly on edge.

• You are “grateful for what you have” yet still feel stuck, lost, or unworthy.

• You are struggling with work, relationships, confidence, or just being you.

Therapy is not a luxury for the broken. It is not only for those with a diagnosis, a label, or a list of symptoms.

It is for the quietly overwhelmed. For the emotionally exhausted caregivers. For the ones healing from a thousand paper cuts, not just one big wound. It is for the ones navigating grief that isn’t always about death — like the grief of losing yourself.

Maybe you were never allowed to cry growing up. Maybe you had to be the strong one. Maybe you are tired of being “fine” all the time when what you really want is for someone to finally ask, “But how are you, really?”

Therapy can be that space.

Not to fix you — because you are not broken. But to support you, guide you, and walk with you until you feel steady again.

So no, you don’t need a diagnosis to start therapy. 

You just need to be human.