May is Mental Health Month, and as a counselor, I'm a big advocate for mental health. I say that everyone needs counseling, even if you feel like "everything is fine!" because even if your life is great, it never hurts to have extra support or another perspective. Counseling can be an amazing experience, and it can help you heal, become more self-aware, and learn about yourself and your world.
But I didn't always have this perspective.
Between the ages of 14-18, I knew that I needed to talk with a counselor (deep down). My mom pushed me to see someone, because she could see me struggling with anxiety and depression. I had more bad days than good days. I had days where I didn't want to exist anymore. I had days where I felt like I was living in fight/flight mode and I refused to get help. At 18, after my doctor got me to fill out some forms, he diagnosed me with high levels of anxiety (hello, Generalized Anxiety Disorder!), and I started medication. And that medication helped a lot.
But it wasn't enough.
That summer, it came time for me to start a summer job. I'd worked the previous summer at a fast food restaurant, which I really struggled with emotionally (customer service is SO hard). I'd cry before my shifts, I'd be upset afterwards. I dreaded most days. My mental health the summer I was 17 was my worst summer. So at 18, that summer before college where I was on medication, I was met with my first full-blown anxiety attack when it came for the first day at my new job (not at a fast food place, but I found the whole concept of a new job very, very triggering because of the previous summer).
I quit that job before I started, which my parents were not thrilled about. It's hard to understand sometimes, and I get that more now. So I ended up making a deal with my parents: if I didn't work over the summer at that job, I'd go to counseling. I'd attend weekly therapy and get the help that I needed, because medication alone wasn't going to cut it.
Here's a fun fact, though. I'd been to a single session of counseling before, when I was 17. The connection was not good, and I felt very judged. I left feeling worse than I did before I went in. This counselor wasn't a good fit for me, and despite still really needing therapy at 17, I refused the whole concept. So, when I agreed to seeing a new therapist, it was a big step for me.
The counselor that I started seeing when I was 18 was Erin. I haven't talked to her in years, and she moved practices so I have no way of reaching out to her (this was 7 years ago now), but if I could, I'd tell her how she changed my life. That because of her, I felt that I could become a mental health professional. She offered so much empathy. She told me about her mental health journey. She cried with me. She helped me see things from different perspectives and taught me some mindfulness techniques to help me when I was feeling highly anxious. She talked me through some of my thought patterns and helped me to reframe things. She helped me to know that I wasn't the only person who felt the way I felt, and that I wasn't alone.
All of sudden, counseling wasn't so bad anymore. It was a place that I could go where I could feel heard. It was a place that I could go where sometimes I just talked about my week, or a fight I had with my dad, or how my anxiety was making me feel.
I saw Erin for two summers. That second summer, we terminated my treatment and I was sad, but I felt that I had grown. I managed to find a job that connected with me the summer I was 19. I could recognize when I was feeling extremely down, and I learned how to reach out for help. I started saying things like "I need you to listen right now instead of give advice please" to my loved ones when that's what I needed. I stopped expecting my parents to just know what I was thinking and how I was feeling.
Erin wasn't the last counselor I saw, but she was the one who showed me that it was okay to ask for help. She showed me that it was also okay to go into counseling for extra support, and that I didn't need to be perfect. I was allowed to feel anxious, and there were ways to manage my anxiety.
Counseling really is for everybody. That first experience I had wasn't good when I was 17, and I admit I painted all therapists with the same brush. Despite my hesitation, at 18 I became a huge counseling advocate because I saw the benefits of therapy in my own life. I learned that counseling is for everybody, but not every counselor is for you. If you had a bad experience with a therapist, look for a new one. I can now see, as the therapist (as the person on the other side), that sometimes the client doesn't feel a connection, and that's okay. I'm not offended by this. Us therapists are people, and in hindsight, that therapist I had at 17 probably could've used a little more grace on my end, but it didn't mean that I had to continue meeting with someone I didn't connect with.
So, if you saw a counselor and didn't like it, look for a new one. Sometimes it takes a couple of tries and a couple of sessions before you might begin to feel a good fight. A good counselor isn't going to be upset with you for not feeling a connection. We're all people, and we all get to seek counseling for our own reasons and have our own expectations.
So, this Mental Health Month, I want to challenge you to really look inwards. Do you feel like now might be a good time to talk to someone about mental health? Do you want that extra support in your life? Are you struggling with anything? Reach out to a counselor. Even if you're hesitant, or have been in therapy before and hated it. There are licensed therapists out there who are ready to help you and guide you in your life, and maybe, like me, your perspective on counseling might just do a 180.
Here are some really user-friendly resources if you're looking to start (or restart!) counseling:
PsychologyToday: Read about individual therapists and practices near you and book and call or email a therapist https://www.psychologytoday.com/us
ZenCare: A resource similar to ZocDoc, where you can search where you live and find a therapist to match you https://zencare.co/
ZocDoc: This is to find therapists near you who take your insurance, and meet your requirements for counseling https://www.zocdoc.com
JB
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