When my parents first told me about therapy I cursed them up and down. There was no way I was gonna go to a therapist like I'm some crazy person! I didn't want the stigma of being ‘slightly insane’ on my back. What would my friends think! What would my teachers think! Now that I understand it, I'm glad that they took me to therapy. These are the top 5 things that I wished someone told me about therapy.
These are in no particular order
Disclaimer: I am in no way a therapist or a doctor. This is all opinion and experience-based.
1. Therapists can sometimes be cool!
Not always is a therapist a person who sits and says ‘mhm and how did that make you feel?’ Yes, that is a very common phrase but it’s not always what they say. My therapist tells me her life experiences, mediates how my family feels to me when I don’t want to hear them and has actually become a normal part of my life.
2. Therapy can bring you closer to your own self.
For a long time, I spent the majority of my time trying to figure out what crowd I could comfortably fit into by changing seemingly minimal details of my life; chasing boys, wearing makeup, rocking brand-name clothes. That may have seemed the popular way but my therapist showed me the way to be completely true to myself and still make friends.
3. Seeing a therapist does not mean you're crazy
This one is pretty self-explanatory but I'm going to give my personal background about it. My mother had severe depression while I was growing up and I was often the child who had to help with the stuff that my mother couldn’t do on her bad days. From that time on, I promised myself I would never fall victim to mental illness. When I had to go to therapy I felt like I failed myself. At that time, I didn't realize the reason I was at therapy was to make sure that the problems I had from childhood didn’t become the sandbags in my future preventing me from becoming the woman I’m destined to be.
4. Be honest with your therapist
This is very simple. Being dishonest with your therapist will only inhibit your relationship with them. Not to mention they would be fixing imaginary holes. It’s best to tell them everything so they can help you mend what you need to mend.
5. This will help you in the long run
I never heard this. My parents never sat down and gave me an encouraging talk saying "this is for your benefit." This isn’t to down them for that, though, because I’m more stubborn than a car in park. I don’t know that, if they’d have given me a speech, I would have jumped into my therapist's lap, so to speak, but I think they knew what was best for me. I think not giving me that speech was probably good for me because I’m the type of person that I will ask you to test the water and go right ahead and test it myself. All that said, I know that it has changed me for the better.
If you just feel generally down and out, have thoughts of suicide, have a bad temper or you've just lost someone near and dear to your heart, go visit your doctor. They will tell you their professional opinion on whether or not they feel you need to talk to someone professionally. If you’re not comfortable talking to your doctor, talk to your parents, another trusted adult or someone you look up to. Keeping in the harmful stuff in your life is toxic. It’s best to get it out while you're young and you can bounce back to joyfulness.
