What Are You Afraid Will Happen if You Get Better?

The question often catches people off guard. “What are you afraid will happen if you get better?” They come to therapy wanting relief from anxiety, depression, relationship patterns, or other struggles. They say they want change. Yet something keeps them stuck—a hidden resistance that doesn’t make logical sense, even to them. Why would anyone resist feeling better?

At Televero Health, we’ve found this question—what are you afraid will happen if you get better?—often unlocks crucial insights. People discover that alongside their genuine desire for relief and change, there’s another part that’s uncertain or even frightened about what “getting better” might mean. This ambivalence isn’t a character flaw or lack of motivation; it’s a normal, understandable aspect of the change process that deserves compassionate attention.

Today, we’re exploring this paradox: the ways we can simultaneously want change and fear it. Understanding these fears can help transform them from invisible barriers into conscious considerations that can be addressed as part of the healing journey.

The Hidden Benefits of Symptoms

While mental health challenges clearly cause suffering, they may also serve functions that aren’t immediately obvious. These “secondary gains” can create unconscious resistance to change:

Protection from vulnerability. Anxiety, depression, and other states can function as shields against deeper vulnerabilities. Anxiety might protect you from rejection by keeping you from taking interpersonal risks. Depression might shield you from disappointment by lowering expectations.

Identity and self-definition. When you’ve lived with certain struggles for years, they become part of how you understand yourself. The prospect of change can create uncertainty about who you would be without these familiar aspects of your experience.

Avoidance of new responsibilities. Limitation in one area often provides justification for avoiding challenges in other areas. Getting better might mean facing expectations or opportunities that feel overwhelming.

Access to care and connection. In a culture where vulnerability is often only accepted in the context of recognized suffering, mental health challenges can become one of the few legitimate ways to receive care and support.

Explanation for life circumstances. Current challenges can provide a framework for understanding why certain hopes or goals haven’t been realized. Change might mean confronting other factors that have contributed to life disappointments.

These functions aren’t conscious choices or manipulations. They’re natural adaptive responses that develop to meet legitimate needs. Understanding them with compassion rather than judgment creates space to find other ways to meet these needs as part of the healing process.

Relationship Fears in Getting Better

Many fears about improvement center on how relationships might change—a significant concern given that connection is a core human need:

Outgrowing important relationships. As you change, relationships based on shared struggles or mutual caretaking may feel threatened. You might worry about leaving people behind or no longer fitting in with certain social groups.

Others’ resistance to your change. People in your life have adapted to your current patterns and may consciously or unconsciously resist shifts that require them to relate to you differently.

New relationship expectations. Improved mental health often comes with greater capacity for intimacy and authenticity, which can feel frightening if you’ve had limited experience with these qualities in relationships.

Loss of care-based connections. If receiving care has been conditional on struggling, you might fear that improvement will lead to loss of the support and attention currently available.

Role disruption in family systems. Family systems often maintain equilibrium through established roles. Your role as “the sensitive one,” “the one who needs help,” or similar positions may be integral to family balance, creating system-wide resistance to change.

At Televero Health, we recognize that healing happens in relational contexts, not isolation. Addressing these relationship concerns directly becomes an important part of creating sustainable positive change.

Identity Concerns in Transformation

The question “Who would I be if I got better?” raises profound identity considerations that can create hesitation about change:

The familiarity of suffering. When you’ve struggled for years or decades, suffering becomes familiar territory with known rules and expectations. Health and wellbeing can feel like foreign countries with unfamiliar landscapes and customs.

Positive identity elements in struggle. Many people develop positive self-concepts around their challenges—seeing themselves as especially empathic due to their suffering, strong because of what they’ve endured, or insightful because of their psychological awareness.

Loss of purpose in healing others. If you’ve channeled your own struggles into helping others with similar challenges, wellness might seem to threaten this meaningful purpose and contribution.

The emptiness of undefined space. Without familiar limitations defining your boundaries, you might fear an initial emptiness or uncertainty about who you are and what you want.

Authenticity concerns. If adaptations to trauma or difficult circumstances shaped your personality development, you might wonder what’s “really you” versus what developed as protection or coping.

These identity questions aren’t merely philosophical—they reflect real psychological processes of integration and development that accompany meaningful change.

Practical Fears About Improvement

Beyond emotional and relational concerns, practical fears about what “getting better” might require also create hesitation:

Fear of raised expectations. If limitations have justified reduced expectations from yourself or others, improvement might seem to open the door to overwhelming pressure to achieve or perform.

Anticipated loss of accommodations. Legitimate accommodations for mental health challenges in work, education, or other contexts might feel threatened by improvement, creating practical concerns about managing responsibilities.

Worry about sustaining change. Past experiences of temporary improvement followed by relapse can create fear that any positive change will inevitably be lost, making the effort seem futile.

Financial or insurance concerns. For those receiving disability benefits or insurance coverage tied to mental health diagnoses, improvement might threaten financial stability or access to healthcare.

Fear of living without escape valves. Current symptoms sometimes function as legitimate “escape valves” from overwhelming situations. Without these options, you might worry about navigating challenging circumstances.

These practical concerns deserve serious consideration and problem-solving rather than dismissal as “resistance” or “avoidance.” They reflect real-world constraints and considerations that affect the change process.

The Fear of Feeling

Many mental health challenges involve numbing, avoiding, or controlling difficult emotions. The prospect of wellness often raises fears about emotional experience:

Overwhelm by suppressed emotions. If you’ve numbed or avoided feelings for years, you might fear being overwhelmed by the backlog of unprocessed emotional material that could emerge in healing.

Grief for lost time. Improvement often brings awareness of what was missed or lost during periods of struggle, triggering grief that feels threatening to nascent stability.

Anger at self or others. As limitations from mental health challenges become less necessary, anger about circumstances that contributed to suffering may emerge—a powerful emotion that many fear will be destructive.

Vulnerability as danger. If vulnerability led to harm in the past, the increased emotional openness that often accompanies healing might feel threatening rather than liberating.

Loss of emotional control. Systems developed to maintain tight control over emotional expression may seem threatened by therapeutic approaches that encourage emotional awareness and expression.

These emotional concerns reflect legitimate questions about capacity and safety that deserve attention in the therapeutic process rather than being viewed as simply resistance to improvement.

Spiritual and Existential Dimensions

For some people, concerns about getting better include spiritual and existential dimensions that are easily overlooked in purely psychological frameworks:

Meaning derived from suffering. Various spiritual and philosophical traditions find meaning or purpose in suffering. Improvement might seem to threaten this framework for understanding life’s challenges.

The responsibility of freedom. Greater wellness typically brings expanded freedom and choice, which philosophers from Sartre to Frankl have recognized creates existential responsibility that can feel weighty.

Concerns about authenticity. Questions about whether an “improved” version would still be authentically you can create philosophical hesitation about change.

Changed relationship to transcendence. For some, suffering creates particular forms of spiritual connection or transcendence that might seem threatened by increased wellbeing.

Solidarity with others who suffer. Improvement might seem to threaten solidarity with others who continue to struggle, raising questions about community and shared journey.

These dimensions aren’t separate from psychological healing but interwoven with it, deserving respect and integration rather than dismissal as irrelevant to “clinical” concerns.

Addressing Fears Without Dismissing Them

How can you work with these fears productively rather than having them remain unconscious barriers to change? Several approaches help:

Name fears explicitly. Simply bringing unconscious concerns into awareness often reduces their power and creates space to address them directly rather than through unconscious resistance.

Honor the protective intent. Recognize that fears about change typically develop to protect something important—whether it’s safety, connection, identity, or meaning. Honoring this protective intent creates space to find other ways to address these legitimate needs.

Explore stepped approaches. Rather than viewing change as all-or-nothing, consider gradual approaches that allow testing and adjusting as you go, addressing concerns at each stage rather than facing all fears at once.

Include support planning in change efforts. Anticipate areas where support might be needed during transition, and develop specific plans for those moments rather than assuming you’ll have to navigate them alone.

Create space for grief within growth. Recognize that positive change often includes legitimate grief for what was lost during periods of struggle, and create intentional space for this grief rather than expecting change to feel only positive.

At Televero Health, we incorporate these approaches into therapy, recognizing that addressing fears about improvement is often as important as addressing the primary symptoms or concerns.

When Fears Reflect Real Risks

It’s important to acknowledge that some fears about improvement reflect real risks rather than merely psychological resistance:

Relationship systems may indeed resist change. Family systems, romantic relationships, and friendships built around established patterns often do resist change, sometimes to the point of relationship endings when change persists.

Financial concerns may be realistic. Benefits tied to disability status, insurance coverage for treatment, or workplace accommodations might indeed be affected by significant improvement in some circumstances.

Social connection may require renegotiation. Communities formed around shared struggles might not provide the same sense of belonging when your experience diverges through healing and growth.

New challenges do emerge with increased capacity. Greater wellbeing often does open doors to new possibilities that bring their own challenges and learning curves.

These realities don’t mean improvement isn’t worthwhile, but they do deserve honest acknowledgment and practical planning rather than minimization. Part of effective therapy involves helping you navigate these real transitions, not just addressing symptoms in isolation.

A Both/And Approach to Change

Perhaps the most helpful frame for addressing fears about improvement is a both/and perspective that honors the complexity of human experience:

You can both sincerely want relief AND have legitimate concerns about what change might mean.

You can both work toward improvement AND grieve what was lost during periods of struggle.

You can both develop new capacities AND honor the ways old patterns served important functions.

You can both grow beyond limitations AND maintain compassion for the parts of you that developed those limitations as protection.

You can both welcome new possibilities AND feel uncertainty about navigating unfamiliar territory.

This both/and approach creates space for the full complexity of the change process without requiring either dismissal of concerns or abandonment of growth possibilities.

At Televero Health, we believe that truly effective therapy doesn’t ignore or override fears about improvement but works with them as valuable information about what matters to you and what might need attention in the healing process. By bringing these concerns into conscious awareness, they can transform from invisible barriers into important considerations that inform a more integrated and sustainable approach to positive change.

If you’ve found yourself simultaneously wanting change and feeling mysteriously stuck, consider this question: What are you afraid might happen if you actually got better? The answer might open doors to a more complete understanding of your experience and what support you truly need on your healing journey.

Ready to explore what’s holding you back from the changes you seek? Begin the conversation with Televero Health today.