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Go Get a Therapist Already

Topics Discussed:

0:13 – Debating Getting A Therapist For Myself
0:39 – The Reality of Therapy and the Therapist’s Actual Job
1:30 – What Do You Have to Lose?
1:59 – Depressed Reasoning Stopping You From Getting Help
2:48 – Asking Directly for What You Need

I wake up again in the morning and feel alone.  Nobody wants to help me or hear about what’s going on.

I must suffer alone. As I go through my day, there is no chance I want to ever see a therapist.  All they are are shrinks.  They don’t know how to actually help me.

Plus, I had actually gone to one before. He didn’t cure me. I went to one session and came home still depressed….

Fast forward a few years…

I am in University and thinking about joining a support group but I’m nervous…  I’m the only one that really has depression and suffers as much as I do.

I join anyways, and can’t even express my feelings at all in front of the group because of how nervous I am.

Eventually, the therapist slowly nudges me.  It’s been a couple months since I join the group, but that day he nudges me in a way to where I decide to share…

The group acknowledges me.  Suddenly there are 4 people who have felt the exact same thing.

Whaaaaat.  Other people feel the same way too?

At the end of the year I have two close friends come from that support group.  I still maintain contact with the therapist years later.

I had so many realizations about incorrect thinking I had that the change in myself is immense…

Fast forward another few years…

I have no problem asking for help.  I see therapists for what they are, people to help me help myself.  I actively seek help when I need it and feel no shame what-so-ever.

Why is it that when I was in the depths of my depression, I felt so unsure and afraid of asking for help?  I felt like I shouldn’t ask for help.  Why?!

Ignore Everything You Have Heard about Seeing “Shrinks”

I wish I never had the weird belief that seeking help was weak and wrong.  I would have been able to start fixing my depression much sooner.

Everything you have ever heard in the media or from your friends about getting help or seeing a psychologist is crap.

Yes there are a handful of therapists out there that you won’t connect with or don’t know how to actually help you.

But there are some great therapists out there.

There are two therapists that came into my life to where my life would be completely different today if they hadn’t.

One of them I still email all the time.  Even when I am on the opposite side of the earth, I am still emailing him and getting support.

How to Actually Benefit From Therapy

Thinking that seeing a therapist is stupid is crap.  But also thinking that going to therapy once will cure everything is crap also.

Some people may have already tried therapy and deemed it worthless because they went to a session or two and were still depressed.

I know, because I was one of those people.

The thing with therapy is these people aren’t there to magically cure all the problems you experience..  They are there to help you solve your problems.

The therapist in my support group I talked about earlier in this post was amazing at seeing how I didn’t think I could ask directly for what I wanted.

He would nudge me in uncomfortable ways to share with the group.  When I would give some bullshit story or answer he would call me out for it.  He would ask me why I thought I couldn’t ask for what I needed.

It was such a different experience for me to learn how to ask for exactly what I wanted

I went from beating around the bush with every issue I had to being able to (nervously) walk in and say, “I actually don’t want any advice from any of you today.  I just want you to listen to me for a few minutes.”

I even walked in once and said, “I just need a hug from every one of you.”  Or even better, “I feel extremely nervous asking for some reason, but I just need a hug.”  That kind of stuff was extremely scary for me.

Don’t go into a therapy session thinking that that person is going to cure you, but go in there knowing what you need from them that is going to help you do it and ask them for that.

The biggest benefit I gained from therapy wasn’t quite the perspective the therapist brought to the table, but finally being able to take my wellness in my own hands and being able to ask directly for their perspective when I needed it.

The therapist might nudge you a bit.  Therapy sometimes brings out negative and difficult emotions.  It can be really uncomfortable at times.  That discomfort is what you need to feel to move forward in the right direction to finally become healthy again.

They will actually listen to you so you can express yourself fully.  Trust me, if you are depressed and no one in your life really understands what is going on, “sitting on a couch” while someone listens is invaluable.

If you are depressed They are going to provide you with an outside perspective so you can see things from angles you couldn’t see from before.

Go into therapy with that attitude.  They are going to help me help myself and I can ask for exactly what I want.  Go see a few different therapists until you find one that works.  Ask them if they can meet for 15 minutes to see if you click.

Go Find a Therapist TODAY

I am basically writing this as if I was addressing my past self.

Why are you debating getting help?!

Quit thinking about it.  Quit analyzing it and wondering if it will actually help you.  Just go try it and see!

Years and years of my life were spent feeling like I was worthless.  Years and years of my life I felt horrible and felt even more horrible about trying to get help for feeling horrible.

There is no point in not getting the support you need.

What do you have to lose?

• An hour or two of your time?
• $60?

What do you have to gain?

• Mental wellness?
• Possibly an invaluable connection with someone that cares about your success?
• The support and fuel to finally move you towards actually curing your depression?
• To not feel the way that you do for the rest of your life?
• To learn how to finally ask for help, a skill that is going to carry on for the rest ofyour life?
• Mental wellness?