SELF: Healing
Therapy
Therapy
Honestly, therapy isn’t natural. I gotta be real. Talking about your innermost struggles with a total stranger? Seriously who came up with this? You don’t know this person, you have no reason to trust them, you don’t know if they’re good at what they do (and some of them aren’t btw). That being said, therapy is proven to help people. Proven. Like it works. And it might be awkward at first and you may never grow to love it despite knowing it’s good for you, but you should 100% try it.
You Can Do This
We are afraid to talk about the painful things that have happened to us. That is completely normal. But if we let this fear keep us from talking, the painful thing grows and gets worse. It morphs and creeps and crawls into every part of our life. Overcome this fear and find your voice. How? —>
One of my favorite depictions of therapy is in the Apple documentary The Me You Can’t See- go to episode 2, around minute 40. A therapist is working with a group of children who had to flee their homelands and they are now living as refugees in a strange land, many without any family members. The therapist says to them “What makes us different is that we have the good and the bad [experiences] right? There is joy inside of us and there is sadness as well.” One of the children responds, “We have to kick sadness away and keep happiness.” He responds, “Correct. To kick it out, we have to talk about it. Like embers sitting inside of us and we do not know how to extinguish them. We have to bring it all out, all of it, until it is out completely. So we could pour some cold water on it.” You can see the hesitation in one of the boys- his fear in talking about what happened to him, his family, what he saw, and what he had to do to survive. It is one of the most powerful depictions of the painful simplicity of therapy I’ve ever seen. Watching this is a great way to overcome your hesitancy to try therapy.
Getting Ready, Mentally
I love this article as an intro to getting comfortable with the idea of therapy: People Who’ve Been to Therapy are Sharing What They Wish They Knew Before Starting.
I also loooooove this instagram account igototherapy
Finding (and affording) a Therapist
If you have health insurance:
If you have health insurance, look for a therapist that takes your insurance. You’ll either need to call your insurance company and ask for a list of licensed counselors and/or psychologists, or if you have online access to your health insurance, look for a list on their website. Also, check how much it costs and if there’s a limit to how many sessions they’ll cover per year.
Once you have a list, you may want to google them and select which ones line up with what you’re looking for- gender, age, specialties, etc.
Then start calling The first question to ask - “are you taking new patients”- cause they might not be, unfortunately.
If you don’t have health insurance, there are places that offer a sliding scale fee based on income which is helpful because therapy is expensive.
Online Therapy Companies
I think these are great, especially if you don’t have insurance but also if you just want convenience. Check them out and compare pricing and what they offer and find what works for you.