Why I See a Therapist (And You Should Too)

Therapy quite literally saved my life, but it's not a popular topic of conversation. I'm here to tell you I see a therapist every month. I pay cash to talk to her and I believe you, Tired Mama, should too. Here's why.Why I See A Therapist

Once a month, I drive 30-minutes each way to meet with a trained professional who lets me talk for an hour and occasionally gives me advice or explains why I may be feeling the way I’m feeling. She hands me tissues when I cry. She listens as I pour my heart out, complain, and even brag occasionally. My insurance doesn’t cover it. I pay cash to talk to someone. And it’s worth every cent. By most standards, I might not even need therapy anymore, but I have no plans of ending our regular meetings in the near, or distant, future.

Let me back up a year or so. Before I started seeing my therapist, I was in a really, really dark place. And I mean dark. I would often stand in the shower crying because I just knew my husband and daughters would be better off with someone else as their mother. I felt as inadequate as it is possible to feel. Hopeless, misunderstood, spiteful, and irrationally angry were a few of the dominant emotions from that time period. I hated myself. But I didn’t understand why.

At First, I Was Too Afraid To Admit That I Needed Therapy

I tried calling a helpline to find a therapist. He started to make me an appointment with some counselor in my area, but I got really freaked out and hung up. I don’t hang up on people, but I did that day. I hung up and I cried.

Why did I cry? Because I was so worried about what people would think. I couldn’t swallow the idea that someone would know that I had to see a therapist. The label, Mental Illness, terrified me. I was sure that I would show up and sit on some dingy chaise with a condescending, pen-in-hand psychologist who would give me a load of drugs to make me numb.

So What Changed?

One day last August, I lost my $#!&. I don’t mean that in the cutesy way that moms Instagram say it. I mean, I totally lost it. Basically, what happened (and this is pretty embarrassing to even talk about) was I wanted, no, needed to get out of the house but felt like we were broke. We weren’t. I asked my hubby if we could go to Costco. Long (and irrational) story short, the conversation devolved until I screamed at one of my kids and stomped up the stairs like a fourteen-year-old girl, huffing and puffing worse than the big, bad wolf. As soon as I closed the door behind me, my violent anger turned to wracking sobs and I hit the floor of my closet on my knees. That’s where my husband found me. It was the first time I realized how much my emotions controlled me.

Therapy quite literally saved my life, but it's not a popular topic of conversation. I'm here to tell you I see a therapist every month. I pay cash to talk to her and I believe you, Tired Mama, should too. Here's why.

Therapy Wasn’t What I Expected It To Be

The very next day, I called the therapist my best friend sees. Six days after that I found myself on a comfortable couch in a relaxed, even cozy, room in a historic building a few towns over. She didn’t write a single thing the whole time I was there. She smiled, she listened, she assured me that I didn’t have to continue to see her if I didn’t feel like we clicked. She sent me in for blood work to see if there might be something chemical going on. (I secretly hoped there was because that meant the solution was a pill a day and I would be ‘fixed’.) She asked me questions when I ran out of things to say or didn’t know how else to continue. And she never once made me feel like my problems were smaller than they appeared to me. She also never diagnosed me. My blood work came back normal, but she didn’t make me feel like it was all in my head (like I told myself upon getting my results). In short, she was nothing at all like what I expected. And I couldn’t have been more happy to be mistaken.

Therapy Isn’t Just For ‘Crazy’ People

In my darkest days, when I wanted to wander out in a blizzard and never come back, I told myself I was just tired, that life was too busy, and I just needed a small break. I was lonely, I felt like I didn’t fit in my body anymore, like the life I’d built around me was somehow too narrow and too roomy at the same time. So, on this side of my healing journey, I’m here to tell you that therapists and counselors are NOT only for crazy people. They are not only for those who have a diagnosable mental illness. A therapist may not be for everyone, but I am convinced that a therapist can help EVERY mom. I mean it. We are a lonely, exhausted bunch. Parenting advice is slung in our faces at every single turn and mom guilt served up each time we open our eyes. We give our entire beings to the tiny humans we co-created and then sacrifice our time, energy, attention, emotions, and mental space to the care and development of these little people.

Therapy Is For Every Mom

Add to that the fact that our children are nearly incapable of self-regulation and we are, essentially, training them to not need us anymore, and you have a recipe for burn out. So how do we combat all that wear and tear? We need to deal with it.

The way you deal with your burnout and the way I deal with mine are going to be completely different, even if they look the same from the outside. We might both need ‘alone time’ but how you spend your time and what helps you cope in the midst of anxiety or depression is going to be unique to you, to your personality, to your history. I can’t blog about how to help you help yourself. I’m not a trained professional. I’m just a mom who’s spent the last year healing with the help of a trained professional.

Therapy Is The Most Undervalued Tool In The Self-Care Arsenal

My journey has shown me that therapy is an incredibly undervalued tool in the self-care aresenal. I don’t shy away from telling people I see a therapist because a year ago, it’s what I needed to hear. I needed to know that therapy didn’t make me a bad mom, that talking about my feelings wouldn’t risk losing my kids to the state, that having a mental illness didn’t mean I was broken. My depression and anxiety are just as much a part of my journey as my poor eyesight or my weak hip. I don’t feel ashamed to see a chiropractor every month, so why should I feel ashamed of seeing my therapist? She helps equip me to fight the battle going on in my mind. She handpicks the most applicable weapon for the job and teaches me how to use it properly so that when those blue days overcome me, I can keep swimming, I can keep fighting, I can keep living.

Blessings,
Jessi

For help finding a therapist in your area, click here.

For help choosing a therapist to work with, click here.

For the national suicide prevention hotline, dial 1-800-273-8255

 

10 thoughts on “Why I See a Therapist (And You Should Too)

  1. Thank you for such a raw, honest post on such an important topic! It is SO beneficial to talk through our emotions with an impartial third party to help us identify limiting beliefs, correct thought patterns that no longer serve us, and help get to the root of why unhelpful emotions seem to be surfacing and interfering with joy in our lives and the lives of those we are close to. Love your candid perspective, and so glad you are in a better place and getting quality help along the way! <3

    1. Thank you, Traci! I’m really grateful to be able to share my experience from a healthy place too 🙂 Isn’t it crazy how seemingly small things about our personalities or our pasts can so affect our current lives!? It continues to blow me away every day!

  2. Great and concise. I saw a therapist for a year and a bit before I moved away. I hope to find another therapy relationship this fall. Thanks for the reminder.

    1. Absolutely! I can only imagine how much I would miss my current therapist if I had to leave for some reason! I wish you the best of luck finding a new one!

  3. Thanks for this! I really want to see a therapist, and have wanted to in the past, but I just can’t seem to afford it 🙁 for now im just listening to and reading self help videos and books.

    1. That is a great place to start, especially when insurance won’t cover it and finances don’t allow for it. I really hope health coverage will soon swing to include mental health care as well! I’m so grateful to live in a time where the taboos surrounding mental health are starting to crumble!! Have you looked into online counseling? I can’t say I have experience with it yet, but I’ve heard some good things. Specifically that it’s more affordable 🙂

    1. I used to see it that way too 🙂 I’m glad you’re reconsidering, both for yourself and for those in your life who might benefit from therapy and your encouragement to take that step 😉 Thanks for reading!!

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