Something people don't want to talk about is therapy. People have this fear of therapy because of the negative connotation and the stigmatization that therapy gets. If you're in therapy you must be mentally ill, you must have something wrong with you and people label you as crazy.
Therapy is NOT a bad thing. It is not a bad thing at all. I know this from personal experience. I went to therapy when I was in 9th grade for reasons I won't go into. At first, I was really opposed to it, and I didn't want to go. This was mainly because I believed the negative comments I had heard from everyone and in my head I thought people would look at me differently. I thought they would treat me differently. I was afraid and therefore reluctant to go.
Therapy is what you make it. If you're like the 9th grade me and you hate it, then you're going to have an awful time. If you just try it out, and I mean really try it out, then you're already doing a lot better than most people. Something that people don't understand is that, there are different types of therapy. It doesn't have to be just you telling some stranger your life problems and them lecturing you in return. That's not the only option.
Honestly, therapy can be anything that makes you feel good (In a healthy, legal way). I stopped seeing my therapist after a while but I still do other forms of therapy. For me, my main therapy is dancing. Dancing is a huge passion of mine and it makes me feel good because I know it's something that I'm good at. I take out all of my frustrations, worries, and just everything through dancing.
Another thing I like to do is listening to music. Music is such a prominent part of my life that it feels wrong going even one day without music. If I'm having a crappy day, I go to my phone and put on some music. (Normally it's the Hamilton soundtrack or like Prince Royce.) It's something that calms me down and that I love listening to. That right there is therapeutic enough for me and some people don't even consider it a form of therapy.
There are so many different things people can do that can be considered therapy. It's time we stop with the stigmatization of therapy. It doesn't have to be the typical talking-to- someone kind of therapy. Anything that makes you feel good is therapy. Also, going to therapy doesn't mean that you have a mental problem, that you're "weird," "different," or any of those things. It just means that you are brave enough to admit that you need help getting through an experience or an issue and are not afraid to ask someone else for help.
