I’m the child of two therapists and have a very healthy sense of self-reflection, which you’ve read here on this blog and on dailyhap.com. But the time had come for me to step outside of my comfort zone and own head and seek professional mental health help.
Nervous, my first foray was into online, chat-based (though you can do video, which I never did) therapy through BetterHelp. I spent about six weeks chatting with a therapist who I liked very much, during an intense period of troubled relationships, including but not limited to a romantic situation now known as The Troubles, with apologies to Northern Ireland.
Soon, though, I felt like it was time to graduate to in-person therapy. As a prolific writer, chatting was almost too easy and not pushing me where I knew I needed to go. So I sought out some Austin recommendations, and hit it off with the first therapist I met—also married to a therapist and father of two children (sound familiar?).
So I am happily in therapy now, going about every 3-4 weeks, to help me handle levels of stress I’ve never experienced before. The sessions have been surprising: I often end up in unexpected tears, and we dive into something I didn’t expect or come in to address. There’s some underlying loneliness I didn’t know I felt, and there are always, always existential questions to address.
Mental health is having a cultural moment, and there’s never been less stigma attached to therapy. Now’s the time!
As a sidebar, it’s a bit comforting to hear my therapist react to me in the same way my CEO-of-Circling-Europe brother does sometimes (guess there’s something about that Circling thing, huh?)… as in: “Let’s sit in that emotion … what is that bringing up for you?”
| Curious but need the same baby step as me? Try BetterHelp for free: Sign up using this referral link and get your first week of counseling free: betterhelp.com/rpc/85bd33605068fb2d06 |
*I think I get BetterHelp credits from the above link, but not sure I’d ever use them, so feel free to use that link or not, but it is nice to be able to try a free week out before committing.