Hi Lovebug,
Unfortunately, many people think that therapy is only for a certain group, level of support or crisis intervention when in fact it is something that can benefit anyone. I am now a huge mental health advocate; however, my parents tried for 3 years to get me into therapy before I finally cooperated. I had all of these misconceptions in my head based on what I had seen in movies and sitcoms about the “type of people who go to therapy,” and I did not fit that stereotype, so I thought there was no chance I would even try it, and when I finally did, I couldn’t have been more wrong. Therapy is widely responsible for me being here today and functioning as well as I do with everything I have to deal with because of my mental illness. That being said, it is hard not to wonder how much better off I would have been if I had just listened and gone to therapy earlier. That is why I am starting this blog series: to demystify therapy and professional mental health support while also sharing my journey and experiences seeking more help for my mental health journey.
Common misconception: it is not “Bad Enough” for me to need therapy, or I am not “crazy”, I don’t need therapy.
Seeking therapy is often viewed as a last resort, but it is actually a proactive decision, like children swimming with water wings. Rather than throwing them a floatie when they are at risk of drowning, we proactively give them floatation devices to keep them safe. You do not need to wait until your head is below water to seek help. Wouldn’t it be so much better to avoid the drowning feeling altogether? If you said yes, then therapy may benefit you. Still unsure, here are some general examples of reasons to seek out mental health support, many of which I identified with before I started therapy.
- You are managing repetitive negative thought loops.
- Your anxiety starts to shrink your world (you stop doing things, going places, because they cause extreme anxiety).
- Anxiety, low mood or other difficult emotional patterns are negatively impacting how you function in your daily life (sleep, work, relationships, hobbies, etc)
- You have lost interest in things you used to enjoy
- You are more often than not worried or experiencing a low mood.
- You don’t feel you have a safe or supportive person to talk to about what is really going on.
If what you are experiencing is not included on this list, please do not take that as me saying you are not a good fit for therapy. My general rule of thumb and suggestion is if you are considering therapy, googled “do I need therapy” more than once or are thinking you may benefit from mental health support, you should pursue it.
As I mentioned before, I have been in therapy for over 5 years and am now entering a different phase of my mental health journey, seeking more mental health support. It is a difficult thing to come to terms with. On paper, you are doing everything right and yet it still isn’t working. I have found it easy to get down on myself and feel almost defeated about needing more support. I know I am not alone in this and I am sure some of you can relate. So this is where I want to share some advice I have received during the process of accepting this part of my journey; It is not that there is anything wrong with you or that you are doing a bad job in therapy, it is simply that you were given a heavier load, but you do not have to carry it on your own. You deserve people to help you so you can live more freely. Asking for help is not something to be ashamed of or hard on yourself for.
In my recent experience, it was a mix of many of those things that led me to seek more mental health support. The other day, I looked back in my journal at some of my entries since my mental health really started declining in September, and the number of times I wrote about some new idea I had come up with that I believed so strongly could “get me out of my rut” made me feel so sad for myself. Reading over 30 journal entries from September to February, full of “okay, I have this new idea, and surely this will make me feel better” and “If I just try harder and have more discipline and do more of this or that, I can fix this,” broke my heart. I kept thinking, “I just have to keep trying until something works, something has got to work because this has to be fixable, right?!? I can’t let myself go back into that hole, so I will do whatever it takes to keep my head above water.” Well, I hate to break it to my past self, but I am back in that hole, and I am deeper than I have ever been. I wish I could hold her hands and say, “You are relapsing, and it is okay to accept that, fighting, denying and avoiding it will not get you better any faster. The first step is acceptance.”
When I say I tried a lot of ways to climb my way out of this hole, I am not being dramatic. I turned into one of those home renovation people that flip houses on HGTV, except my mental health was the run-down house they so cutely call a “fixer-upper,” and for 6 months, I tried to DIY my way out of my rut. I tried changing my environment, keeping a strict routine, exercising, going for walks, drinking more water, getting outside more, getting more sleep, getting less sleep, throwing myself into hobbies, doing absolutely nothing, a new hair cut, new clothes, reading, doom scrolling, scheduling plans, cancelling plans, journaling, taking a trip, being more social, spending more time alone, eating more healthy, treating myself and just about every other recommendation you could find in any of the 35 self help books I have on the shelf in my room.
It is hard to pinpoint the exact moment I accepted that I have been in a slump because I think I may still be working on fully accepting it. That said, in February, I decided I couldn’t keep fighting this on my own. I was feeling like I was just barely getting through the gap between therapy appointments because I would experience significant dips in my mental health during my weeks without appointments. Previously successful coping mechanisms had become less or completely ineffective. I started to leave my therapy appointments feeling no different or like I learned/gained nothing. Not because my therapist or I were doing anything wrong, but because there was so much to cover in each appointment. I would come in with pages of notes I made between appointments on “things to cover in therapy,” and it became so much that we were barely skimming the surface. Most of all, I felt stuck in the same place in my mental health journey, like nothing was changing, growing or improving. Like my feet were cemented to the ground under my personal storm cloud while the rest of the world moved forward on their sunny day.
So I had a sit-down chat with my mom, and we discussed my options. Unfortunately, seeing my current therapist more than once a month was not feasible because, to be quite frank, private mental health care costs an arm and two legs. So that was off the list, and it was time to evaluate our other options. Therapy through the clinic that I currently go to is the only mental health treatment I have ever received, so we didn’t really know what else was out there.
For a second, I felt 9 years old again, sitting in that doctor’s office after I had just been told I had anxiety, looking at my parents, none of us knowing what the next step was. I sat there for a minute, letting it sink in that I was starting this process again, and then I remembered how far I had come since then. Closing my eyes, I imagined myself grabbing 9-year-old Laura’s hand. I knew I was not walking into this new season alone. I have been here before, and I can survive it again. So we started doing research…a lot of research. Next week, I will go further into the research/referral process and how to find the right support/service for you.
I am here with you, and we are walking this journey together. Sign up to be notified when I post because you don’t have to walk this journey alone.
Until next week, Lovebugs.
P.S. I’m proud of you 😉