My Therapist Said…

I have become that person, the person who when chatting with friends about life happenings now says, “well my therapist said”. I try to only use this to describe my own stuff, but I can’t help it if she is good. And knows things. Because she is disarmingly good and knows a lot of things and after every session I have learned something new about myself and have a thing to work on. Allow me to share how I got here. 

I didn’t plan for this to be the topic of the blog for May, which is also Mental Health Awareness Month, but it just worked out that way.  Back in March I had some (ok, A LOT) of personal things happening regarding my own health and a family member dealing with serious medical issues. This layered on top of general burnout, decision fatigue, and various illnesses running through my household, and I felt DONE. “Dead inside” as I have heard several people say to describe this feeling (Glennon Doyle has a great podcast episode discussing this exact feeling). I realized that either I could keep slogging along in survival mode, or I could get help from an expert to understand the patterns of my thinking and the core reasons I felt this way, and then learn tools to get out of this constant feeling of fight-or-flight.  

I got a referral for a therapist from a colleague, had a consult call to chat, we clicked, and I made my first appointment. Since then we have met three times but I can feel the difference in learning more about myself and how I move through the world. I also get “homework” to do between appointments and report back. 

There are a few things this experience has taught me. First is that I should not have waited so long to make the call and set up this care for myself. Really I could have benefited from seeing a counselor earlier, but I kept charging ahead waiting for “it’ll get better when school is out” or “I’ll feel less overwhelmed once this work event is done.” Turns out if you are waiting for life to quiet down so you can rest and catch up, unless you are proactive in setting up said rest and care, it is likely not going to happen. This also makes me think of something I read or heard that was about “self-care vs after-care”--that what I am doing now is “after-care”. I am in the “clean up and undo phase” of work and will go on to learn new skills that will be preventative and more “self-care” like. Kind of like how your house can be a complete mess because no one puts anything back where it belongs or things have no dedicated place to go, so it's easier to just (rage) clean one area and feel like you did something… even though all you did was pile up all the junk into that one corner or on that one side table so the general area is clean and can function. A temporary solution. I am learning how to tidy as I go to get to a place where my house (in this case my brain and feelings) aren’t a constant dumpster fire. My tidying here in this metaphor is learning new thinking patterns and coping skills. Know what I mean?

I wanted to share this here in case it resonates with anyone reading and to also share that it is never too late to start to take care of yourself. Something that I discussed with my counselor was my goals for our work together (what pros call a treatment plan) and one of them was to be a more calm parent. I said, “I want to be a warm, zen mom to my kids and want them to feel they can always come to me, and I don’t want to share and put my anxiety and stress on them (however it comes out, often as me being irritated and short).” Well guess what–later on my counselor pointed out, “what I am hearing is that you are taking care of everyone else and this one hour we are working together is the only time you are fully focused on yourself.” 

Huh. I responded, “Well I do run and exercise most days so I always make sure to fit in that time.” 

She said, “That is great! But are you also having your to-do list running in the background the entire time?” 

😅 I said, “Well not ALL the time.” 

I am finding out all the memes and sayings are true about how “you have to care for yourself first so you can care for others.” I have felt and seen a shift in just the past few weeks, and if you were or are feeling “dead inside” too, I invite you to find ways to care for yourself and make it a priority–whether it is through working with a counselor, joining a group, or finding time alone to rest that wasn’t there before. It is never too late to start, even if it is after-care. Good luck!