Everyone Needs Therapy

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Sometimes your best friend isn’t the best person to listen to your problems and while mom has always had the best advice, sometimes there are things are outside of her wheelhouse.

However, there is actually someone whose job is it to listen to you!

That’s right, someone get’s paid to listen and help you work through your issues, and with most insurances, it’s just the cost of your co-pay.

I’m talking about a therapist.

For decades therapist have been portrayed as uptight individuals who sit in chairs, take notes, and peer at their patients over their wire rimmed glasses perched on the end of their noses. The people who go to them are adults who are lost, nerdy, going through a breakup, or who have all of the advice they need, but feel obligated to pay someone hundreds of dollars an hour to tell them what they already know.

Like cauliflower, avocado, and gin, millenials have taken something like therapy that seemed boring and old school, and turned it into something that everyone can enjoy and benefit from.

The thing about therapy is everyone could probably use it. Not every session is sitting down and crying about where life is or isn’t going, but sometimes it’s just looking across at someone and letting words flow organically. Yes, friends and family are a great option to talk to, but sometimes you subconsciously hold back certain things, or you avoid topics all together because you know what their advice is already. Sometimes it’s important to get a true outside perspective, and it’s even more important to work through things without fear of hurting those around you.

Trust me, going to your mother about every issue you have with your husband may seem okay, but when you only ever showcase the negative, it can be hard for her to see the good.

Maybe you need to talk through the fight you had with your partner last night to realize your reaction started the downhill slide. Maybe you start going over what you did last week only to realize you were beyond stressed about a small project you thought you had under control. Maybe you don’t know how to talk about your drinking problems with your friends because let’s face it, they just aren’t a professional. Or maybe, you want to talk about feeling the desire for a job change that takes you out of the country, but you just want to get it out there without being asked 10000 questions about why or how.

Sometimes, it’s just helpful to have someone else in your life to go to. Therapy is not some big bad experience just for people that have mental health issues, but it can be for everyone in every stage of life.

For me, I never realized the amount of anxiety I had, until I started talking and listening to an outside viewpoint. My therapist helped me realize that not all anxiety is obsessive list making, a spotless house, or panic attacks, but sometimes anxiety is a constant feeling of wanting more, desiring acceptance, and concern about events that may or may not happen. Because society had set parameters in my mind for what anxiety was, I wasn’t dealing with my own issues, and didn’t realize how much simpler my life could be.

I haven’t been going to a therapist long, but in the few sessions I have attended I feel much more in control of myself, my feelings, and my life. This isn’t some magic pill to cure everything, but it’s helpful. Even if I don’t have something that I think is a big deal that week, I find myself walking into conversations I needed to have, I just didn’t know how to do it. Together, we are working on strategies to let go of some of the things that keep me up at night, and learning to stop and evaluate a situation before reacting, which is one of the biggest issues in my life.

In my humble opinion, I think everyone could benefit from a little therapy. It never hurts to give it a try, and maybe you don’t think you need it, but if it’s any consolation, I didn’t think I did either.

Love,

Lilly