Therapy #Q15

We’ve talked about fitness, we’ve talked about nutrition and now, we gotta talk about mental health. These last nigh five months have been draining, stressful, taxing, you name it. That’s just accurate even if you’ve been blessed enough to have your job and a healthy family, right? I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to look back at this time and not think of those beginning few weeks - where the news was updated (and worse) by the literal hour. Even now, we’re settled into our…whatever this is, it’s not good or normal or un-unsettling, right? We’ve just gotten a tiny bit more used it but there’s a layer of stress there, that wasn’t there before.

“Selfs, you’re bumming us out. We know that.” Right, which is why when we’re trying to right our health ship, as it were, we most assuredly have to include, if not prioritize our mental health. There’s a lot of ways to do that and I’ve talked about mental health plenty before but one thing that wasn’t on my list previously was therapy. But I gotta tell you, when the going started getting rough, I was very glad to have those tools in my toolbox.

Cost

One oft-discussed deterrent to therapy is it’s viewed as prohibitively expensive. However, a lot of workplaces offer what’s called EAP - Employee Assistance Programs - designed to assist for a specific issue for a set amount of time. Most importantly, it’s free. I know that something like 2 million people in the US have lost their health insurance and more than that, their jobs. So I will also point out, that this can be offered through your spouse’s work as well, even if you’re not on their insurance. Other options include finding therapists through your insurance. You are probably well acquainted with the new text-based (like Better Help) and video therapy - that is obviously how the vast majority of sessions are at the moment. I haven’t tried any of those products but if you’re more comfortable communicating in that fashion, that may be a good choice for you.

Things to Know

On that note, if you’re nervous about therapy because you’re new to it or have had a bad experience*, I feel you. A few things that helped me include knowing that there are no hard feelings if you feel like you’re not compatible with the person in front of you. In fact, most counselors will ask if this is a good fit for you and whether you want to come back. If the answer is, no, say no! Additionally, you may know that I’m a huge nerd who likes to research and read before I do literally anything. As such, ** reading the book Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb really helped me. And I was able to talk about how uncomfortable I was by using that book as a bridge.

Finally, it helped me a lot to get started when I knew it wasn’t forever. I talked to my friends who went to therapy and I talked to my counselor about it. I was able to “move on” in April and I was nice to know that I really felt ready and more aware of how I deal with stress and hard feelings and with new strategies to deal with that. With an EAP, you’re necessarily given 8 sessions - it was one of my many New Year’s plans*** to finish the full 8 weeks which I did over the course of several months.

At any rate, I have previously noted that therapy is not my jam. It’s not my fav but again, I’m very grateful to have done the work. Because real, real talk, life is FAR too short and too precious for your stress or anxiety or your grief to be eating you alive. If I take nothing else for this year, I will endeavor to be far more present when we get to have the experiences that fill us with joy instead of letting the wear and tear of everyday life leave me with any less gratitude than this beautiful life deserves.

XO,

Selfs

I know not everyone likes to talk about therapy so, feel free to talk about whatever you want in the comments! How are you keeping/striving for sanity/presentness/gratitude during 2020?