How You Know It’s Time To See A Therapist

 

It’s common to feel like you need to see a therapist while going through a tough time. But how do you know if it’s just a phase or if you need help? There are a few key things to consider that can indicate whether you would benefit from therapy.

You’ve Tried To Fix The Problem On Your Own

If you’ve been struggling with a mental health issue, you’ve likely tried to fix the problem on your own. Maybe you’ve read self-help books or tried to talk to friends and family about what you’re going through. But it might be time to seek help if you still feel stuck.

You’re Struggling More Than Usual

If you struggle more than usual, it may be time to seek online therapy. Many people struggle with mental health issues, but when it starts to impact your everyday life, it may be time to get help from a therapist. A therapist can help you work through your struggles and give you tools to handle them. If you’re struggling more than usual, don’t hesitate to get help.

Your Family And Friends Have Suggested Therapy

Your family and friends have suggested therapy because they see how much effort you put into managing your mental health. It’s not that they don’t think you can do it, but they can see how much strain it’s putting on you.

They may have even tried to talk to you about it before, but you brushed them off because you didn’t want to admit that you needed help. But now, after everything that’s happened, you’re finally ready to listen. You know that therapy won’t be easy, but you’re willing to work because you want to better yourself and your relationships with those around you.

You’re Feeling Hopeless

Feeling hopeless can be one of the symptoms of depression, and seeking treatment can help you manage your symptoms and improve your quality of life. If you’re feeling hopeless, you must get help. Talking to a therapist can help you understand your feelings and develop healthy coping mechanisms. If you’re struggling with depression, seeking treatment can be vital to managing your symptoms and improving your quality of life.

You’re Self-Medicating

If you regularly rely on drugs or alcohol to cope with your mental health, it’s time to seek proficient help. Self-medicating can quickly lead to addiction, and it’s not an effective way to deal with the underlying issues. A therapist can help you understand and address the root causes of your mental health problems, so you can find healthy ways to cope.

You’re Experiencing Physical Symptoms

If you’re experiencing physical symptoms impacting your quality of life, it may be time to find help. Many people experience physical symptoms from stress, anxiety, or depression. If these symptoms prevent you from enjoying your life or completing everyday tasks, it’s essential to seek help from a therapist. Physical symptoms that may indicate it’s time to see a therapist include:

● Chronic pain
● Insomnia
● Digestive issues
● Headaches/migraines
● Excessive fatigue
● Skin problems

You’re Having Suicidal Thoughts

If you’re feeling like life isn’t worth living or can’t go on, getting help is vital. Talking to a therapist can be essential to getting through these complex thoughts and feelings. Your therapist will work with you to create a safety plan, an essential tool for managing suicidal thoughts. This plan will identify warning signs that your thoughts are becoming more intense and outline steps to take to keep yourself safe.

Your therapist can also provide resources and referrals for additional support services. If you’re struggling with suicidal thoughts, please seek help; there is hope, and recovery is possible.

Conclusion

While it’s impossible to give a definitive answer to the question of when you should see a therapist, some signs indicate it might be time to seek proficient help. If you’re struggling with anxiety, depression, or any other emotional issue, and you feel like you’ve tried everything without success, therapy could be the key to finally getting relief. Don’t be afraid to seek help. It could be your best decision.

About The Author

Tracie Johnson is a New Jersey native and an alum of Penn State University. Tracie is passionate about writing, reading, and living a healthy lifestyle. She feels happiest when around a campfire surrounded by friends, family, and her Dachshund named Rufus. First Time Parent? Why You Should Consult a Parenting Coach

 

I Have ‘High-Functioning Anxiety’ & Here’s How It Affects My Everyday Life

Most people don’t know that I have anxiety unless I tell them. I don’t seem like your “typical person with anxiety,” – or, whatever that means. Most people are shocked when I bring up my anxiety problems with them because, I don’t really struggle or function like the people in most stories, narratives or conversations typically do. But, that doesn’t mean that my anxiety problems are any less real or raw than others. Ever since I was young, I have always felt like my mind, my body and my life was on “over-drive.” I grew up in a very chaotic home and my childhood was never truly “stable.” With divorced parents, numerous financial issues, social struggles and other occurrences that most children don’t typically go through – I always felt as though I was “different.” After struggling for years, my mom thought that at 12-years-old, it’d be worth it for me to go “talk to someone” and see a therapist.

After years of therapy and seeing numerous specialists, I’ve been told by several doctors that I have what is known as “high functioning anxiety.” From an outsiders’ point of view, I’m a perfectionist, an ambitious worker, a social butterfly, a strong woman, a “happy-go-lucky” person, an organized individual. From a therapist’s point of view, I use work, conversations, risky decisions and non-stop schedules to mask my anxious thoughts.

Throughout my life, I have always been the girl from my small neighborhood that succeeded. Parents would always stop me when they’d run into me and say how “impressed” they were with how much I’ve achieved. Friends would reach out on Facebook and tell me how much they read my work and how awesome it was to know someone who writes for so many sites. My family would constantly speak about me in praise because I had pushed myself to succeed so well. If you looked at me, you’d never know that the majority of my accomplishments were parallel with an anxiety disorder I had struggled with and masked for years on end. While it may seem like anxiety typically is filled with despair, the kind of anxiety I had been told I deal with is “high-functioning,” which means, the majority of my disorder is masked with success. Along the way, I’ve learned a lot about myself, my anxiety and how to cope with it on an everyday basis.

My schedule is always packed because being busy means I have less time to think.

Ever since I was in high school, my schedule was jam-packed with things to do. I worked a few nights a week while in high school at a local pizzeria to keep busy. When I went to college, I picked up two more jobs while going to school full-time. Working or going to school 7-days per week kept me always running to do something and be somewhere that was important. It wasn’t the type of commitment where I could wake up and decide not to go. If I didn’t show up to a job, I would be fired. If I didn’t show up to school, I’d fail out. I kept myself preoccupied in order to keep myself constantly busy – which left my thoughts at bay and my anxieties at rest.

I have a lot of friends, yet I don’t see them very often.

Many people assume those with anxiety don’t have many friends or social circles because they get anxiety when it comes to making friends and keeping them. This couldn’t be further from the truth. I grew up being friends with several different circles and still maintain a lot of the friendships I had from middle school, high school and beyond. However, I don’t always see them. In fact, a lot of times, I don’t. Being someone with high-functioning anxiety, I feel if I’m not being productive, I’m wasting my time. Although seeing my friends is not unproductive, I do feel as though there are moments where they will cancel, or they’re late, and I have wasted my day or my time.

I have little “ticks” that most people think are just bad habits.

My mind is constantly on overdrive, and because of that, so are my habits. When I am sitting around watching TV or a movie in which I’m not doing a lot, my mind begins to scatter and I feel like I need to do something. My worst habit is that I pick skin or bite skin on my lip – it’s been a bad tick of mine since I was young. Everyone who knows me knows that it’s something I do – especially my family – and I’ve even had to get medication to heal the cuts that appear when I’ve been “picking” too much.

It sounds extremely gross, but it’s not something that I’m necessarily proud of (or feel comfortable sharing with the entire world, so congrats) but, it’s something that many people also go through. Some people pick at their cuticles or bite their nails, some people twirl their hair – and although it seems like just a “bad habit,” it can also be the sign of a deeper problem.

What No One Tells You About Therapy

I’m in therapy. Contrary to popular belief, it’s no big deal. Depression and anxiety, quite simply, run in my family, and I use whatever methods I can to combat these issues.

However, having spoken to friends and relatives who’ve never seen a therapist, I’ve realized that many people have some false perceptions about the process. Therapy, assuming you find a talented professional in whom you can place your trust, can help you to make tremendous improvements in your life. That said, there are some things you may not realize about it.

Such as. . .

It’s Not About Cheering You Up

Your therapist’s role involves providing emotional support, but that doesn’t mean that he reminds you that you’re a great person, or tells you that the problems you’re facing are not your fault. Therapy, in fact, is closer to tough love.

When you’re in a session, it’s understood that you’re taking a practical approach to addressing your mental health and behavioral issues. As such, there’s no instance in which either you or your therapist allow yourselves to pretend that you can “wish away” your problems. There are many circumstances in our lives that we simply have no control over. If your significant other is driving you crazy, you can’t reasonably expect her to change. If your job is stressful, you can’t pretend it will simply get better. If you’re struggling with an illness, false optimism will do you no good.

Therapy, in truth, is about identifying what you can change. Much of the time, this means understanding your own bad behaviors. Whether we like to admit it or not, we often play a significant role in creating the problems in our lives. According to this hypnotherapist from Dubai, therapy forces us to confront what we’ve done wrong, because, after all, that’s what we have the most control over.

This isn’t always a comfortable experience – the ego wants very much to deny the fact that we’ve created our own unhappiness – but it’s necessary for growth. And you don’t get there if your therapist simply tries to cheer you up by telling you you’re fantastic.

 

Approaches Vary

Based on what we know from pop culture, many of us assume that certain practices naturally occur within a therapist’s office: dream interpretation, Rorschach tests, maybe even some hypnotherapy.

While each therapist varies in his or her approach, the familiar staples of the experience as represented in films and on TV generally never show up. I’ve never been asked to find an image in an ink blot, hypnotherapy hasn’t come up, and we only talk about my dreams when I go out of my way to mention them. Otherwise, it’s pretty much venting about what’s bothering me, and looking for patterns in my attitudes and emotional experiences.

That said, sometimes this process does lead to clichéd – but effective – methods of therapy. For instance, it’s often assumed that therapists take a keen interest in your early childhood years; this has certainly been the case during my sessions, in which my therapist and I look at profoundly emotional memories that may have wired my brain for feelings of depression.

And, speaking of wiring the brain. . .

It’s Not Magic, But It Works

When all is said and done, many people actually don’t actually understand how therapy is supposed to work. You talk about your feelings, a professional helps you understand them, and. . .you feel better?

Seems a little too simple, right?

Well, the fact of the matter is, our brains are truly “wired” in ways that predispose us to our behaviors. Sometimes, those behaviors are healthy; your parents praised you as a child, and you developed a healthy sense of self-esteem, resulting in life choices that reflect your own self-worth. Other times, though, the behaviors can work against us; a parent’s illness during your childhood may have made you think (at an age when the world seems to revolve around you) that you’ve failed to “cure” someone close to you, and as such, you’re prone to feelings of shame and guilt.

Many people pride themselves on their positive attitude, but more often than not, it’s the physical activity in your brain – shaped by your life experiences – that dictates your attitude.

Thankfully, neuroplasticity shows us that the brain can constantly be rewired, through effort. Therapy allows us to see how our current behaviors are not accurate reflections of our reality, but instead are trends established by beliefs that have been literally physically ingrained into our brains. By understanding this, we can begin to consciously reject those behaviors. Knowing where they come from, we realize that our feelings of anxiety are not appropriate and reasonable reactions to life, but are instead the remnants of experiences that shaped our attitude so profoundly that we were never able to move past these feelings.

Altering the structure of your brain takes time – you have to, through focused practice, reject beliefs that have been at the core of your identity for most your life – but over time, the brain does rewire. Therapy doesn’t make this happen magically, but it does provide you with the tools for change.

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