I didn’t plan this.
I was on a 6 week therapy waitlist, couldn’t afford private sessions, and I started getting panic attacks a few nights a week. At some point I just opened ChatGPT at like 2am and started typing.
I’ve been doing that on and off for 8 months now.
I’m not saying it replaces a real therapist. It doesn’t. But some parts of it actually helped more than I expected.
What worked:
Asking it to reflect what I said and point out the fear underneath it. That alone made me notice patterns I was missing.
Telling it not to give advice at the start. If it jumps straight into solutions it’s useless. If it asks questions first, it’s way better.
Being very specific. Not “I feel anxious” but “I woke up at 2am thinking I’m going to mess up my career and here’s the exact spiral I went into.” The more raw I am, the better it responds.
Starting with “I just need to process this, don’t try to fix it.” That changes the whole tone.
What didn’t:
Using it like Google. Generic questions get generic answers.
Using it when I actually needed a person. Sometimes you don’t need insight, you just need someone there.
The memory problem. This is the worst part. It forgets everything, so every session starts from zero. Hard to see patterns, hard to feel progress. I tried pasting context every time but it gets tiring fast.
I used to feel weird about doing this, but I’m pretty sure a lot of people are doing the same thing quietly.
Curious if anyone else has tried this and what actually worked for you.
[Edit: for anyone asking what I switched to ,I'm on the early access waitlist for Mira , An app being built specifically for this, with memory built in. Free to join.]
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