Therapy is not for trifling concerns. You shouldn’t be accessing it just because you fell out with your neighbour, divorced your husband or your mother died. Get over yourself. These things happen to everyone at some point or other. Surely we all have enough resilience to bounce back from them. By all means read self-help books, talk about it to anyone who will listen (the guy at the checkout, the librarian who smiled at you, the old lady at the bus stop) – but therapy? That’s a lot of money and really for people with BIG problems and serious issues with their mental health.
Or perhaps, just for this one week, we could:
TAKE ACTION – BANISH THE STIGMA
We should all be concerned about our mental health. It doesn’t matter who you are, where you’re from, what you did (sorry, got into a bit of a Backstreet Boys loop there…) you will, at times, need help to look after yourself emotionally. You might have close people you can talk to, who do not have their own agendas when listening, and you might also be very good at working out what you need and seeking it. And this is great news. But sometimes life stuff stacks up to the point where you may no longer know what you need, and the people you usually talk to are already dealing with their own issues, or too closely involved to be unbiased listeners. And on these occasions counselling might be a really good option, if only you could banish the little voice in your head that tells you “you should be able to cope” and “counselling is for those in a crisis”.
As a counsellor I can tell you, those who come in BEFORE they reach crisis point, are the ones who can easily take action and affect change in their lives and usually relatively quickly. Counselling does not have to be a long drawn-out and costly investment (there are plenty of charities offering low-cost counselling) and you may only need a few sessions to start to feel better. Studies have shown that the most change occurs in the first six sessions.
Do you have a car? If your car started making a funny noise when would you take it to a mechanic? I’m no expert in cars, but I would put money on the fact that if you get it serviced as soon as you notice the problem it will cost a lot less than if you put it off until the noise has become a gentle juddering sensation, which has then become a stuttering staggering stalling sensation. At this point it not only costs you a lot more, but you may have damaged other parts of the engine which then need attention.
Counselling is like this. If you come when you first need a bit of help, you might protect the relationships which are inevitably going to suffer when you start to feel worse. You might be able to get yourself back onto solid ground, before you sink up to your neck and need a winch to pull you out, rather than just a helping hand.
And are you going to spend more money fixing your car – an inanimate piece of metal – than you are willing to spend on your own wellbeing? If your answer to this question is yes, you might need therapy more than you realise.
It is ok to get counselling to discuss a fallout with a friend. It is ok to get counselling because a pet died. It is ok to get counselling because you don’t feel quite yourself. It is ok to get counselling because your kids grew up and moved out. It is ok to get counselling because your favourite gym shut down. Whatever the reason – whether it seems trivial or not – if you are feeling the urge to talk it through with someone, you will never be judged by any counsellor for investing in yourself. And you are not signing your life away. Come once, or come for a year, what works for you is what is important. You might only need a few sessions to feel better, or you might find that having a touch-point every week really works in terms of keeping you feeling healthy.
So, do yourself a favour
TAKE ACTION – BANISH THE STIGMA
Consider counselling when things get tough, or even when they don’t – maybe it’s just time for a bit of self-care.
Give your mental health the service that is perhaps long overdue, because you can’t buy a new brain when it fails the MOT.