Should I be talking to a therapist?

Taking that first step toward starting therapy can be a scary. Many people wonder if there needs to be a serious concern for them to meet with a mental health provider. As a therapist, I hold the belief that any concern you wish to address could benefit from exploring with a therapist. Within my office, I hope to offer clients the clarity they may be seeking, as well as offer support and unconditional positive regard from someone outside of a friend or family circle. There is no wrong answer in therapy.

Sometimes seeing symptoms and concerns laid out may help us determine steps moving forward in our mental health care.

Feeling constantly overwhelmed, anxious, or having intrusive thoughts

When we talk about emotions, we talk about how these emotions should visit us. Visits may come along to help us understand what we are feeling about certain stressors or situations. At some point, this emotion visitor needs to head back to their own home so you have a break from them. The Midwest Goodbye doesn't need to be a thing here. This isn't saying you hate when they visit, just that emotions are meant to be a state of flowing gentle stream, not a constant waterfall. If you are feeling as though your emotions of overwhelmed or anxious visit all the time and never leave, it might benefit from exploring therapy options to work through these. Understanding why emotions are visiting or staying for too long can help with processing past experiences and decrease a person distress overall.

Experiencing persistent sadness or hopelessness

Along with anxiety, persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness may visit every so often. Hopelessness is the emotion of feeling "there's no point" or a feeling of despair.

Again, these emotions might visit from time to time, but if we are noticing we often feel the same as Lilo consistently throughout our weeks, we may want to talk with a mental health provider to explore this emotion deeper.

Struggling with high levels of negative self-talk

Along with anxiety and persistent sadness, we often can see higher levels of negative self-talk. These are moments such as calling ourselves or others mean names if a mistake is made, often saying you "should" or "must" do something, as well as many other cognitive distortions that result in us beating ourselves or others up with our words. Negative self-talk is a normal part of the human experience, we often focus on the negative and how we could be better at things, but if these thoughts are sticking around and we're having a hard time with re-writing them into healthier and more understanding statements, we can have an increase if feeling distressed along with more anxiety and depression.

Noticing quick changes in your mood

With higher levels of stress, we also see higher levels of mood changes. People might not notice these mood changes in themselves, but others may notice a friend is more quick to become irritable or agitated. There may be more moments of feeling low or down, resulting in someone wanting to isolate themselves. People may also have moments where they appear very anxious, such as their leg shaking often, and feeling as though they cannot turn their brain off. This feeling of constantly 'running around with ideas of something bad will happen' in our brain can cause high levels of distress for an individual. These changes in mood are a sign that we are struggling with our stressors and may be in need of support.

Feeling a lack of motivation or "stuck"

Along with isolation, people may share they have no motivation to complete tasks. They may say things such as "I have energy and fidget a lot but I simply cannot complete the task of the dishes because I can't get off the couch." This is low motivation and it is very common with certain diagnoses of mental health.

A major life transition

Major changes in life can cause distress for people. This major change could be starting a new job, political climate and interactions, a shift in a relationship, or even a move to a new city. We may start to regret our choice along with this change or have a decrease in our ability to cope with everything else going on outside of this major change. Whatever change happens, it can bring along tough questions and strong emotions that may benefit from exploring with a mental health provider.

Reoccurring difficulties within relationships

Difficulties in relationships are bound to come up. No two people are exactly alike and therefore, we will not agree on every single thing. This could bring up arguments, more stress in the relationship, or struggling with healthy interactions. When these interactions continue to feeling overwhelmingly negative and reoccurring, it might be time to reach out to the therapist to work through what is having us stuck in these patterns.

Struggling with restful sleep, hypervigilance, or eating after a trauma

After an overwhelming and scary experience, someone may hope to just forget anything happened and move on from the situation. They may struggle with being able to sleep at night as a result of the experience, or have a hard time eating or potentially over-eat. They may also feel as though they are always watching over their shoulder to make sure they are still safe.

These are common behaviors for a person to engage in when they have experienced a traumatic event. Unfortunately, much of traumatic experiences can also be stored in our body, making it hard for us to move on. Processing these experiences with a trained trauma provider can greatly benefit moving through these distressing moments. Treatments such as Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), Brainspotting, and Somatic Therapy help people with moving out of this "stuck" feeling and decreasing their distress around memories of the trauma.

Using unhealthy coping skills more than healthy ones

Everyone forms habits. And some of those habits can be healthy and others, not so much. This isn't to say 'shame, you should never do that' (hello, negative self-talk); we want to make sure our healthy coping is utilized more often than our unhealthy coping. For example, if one of my coping skills is eating a piece of chocolate, every time I felt stressed and needing to use a coping skill, and I only used eating chocolate, there would be no chocolate left for anyone else in town and my body would not be happy with me. Whereas, if I had a piece of chocolate, but also engaged in deep breathing with the next stressor, and then talked to a friend for the next, and then drank some water, and took a break, I have a much better balance for my brain and my body, as well as feeling better overall as these coping skills have real scientific backing to support their healthy usage. If we are not using certain coping skills and habits in moderation, they can make for some hard habits to break later.

Simply interested in trying out therapy to see what it's all about

Some people may also seek therapy because they would like to know what it is all about. Maybe they decide to focus on bettering themselves, or want to process their childhood experiences. People may have one specific stressor they would like to address and do not wish to explore others.

However they seek support in their mental health journey is up to them and know that mental health therapists are here to help guide in any way.