A Friendly Reminder: Therapists Are Human, Too
Let's chat.
As many know, I am a mental health therapist, and something we don't talk about enough in this industry is how deeply this work can affect us personally. Graduate school prepares us to support others, but not always for the emotions, thoughts, and behaviors this work can bring up within ourselves.
This is a friendly reminder that your mental health therapist, counselor, and social worker is also dealing with their own bullshit. And it is okay, as a mental health professional, to take mental health days when you need them.
Yes, your clients are depending on you. But how are you supposed to actively stay centered and be a soldier to lean on when you can't even depend on yourself? Ultimately, you can't show up as your best self for your clients if you are not showing up for yourself.
These past few weeks of September, I've been overwhelmed by my anxiety, leading to frequent and unusual thoughts associated with my OCD. Therapy is something that can either be really refreshing or really draining. For me, these past few sessions have been emotional, kind of like a "rat out of the cage" feeling.
I never thought I'd have to process this again, but here it is. And I just think that's something that's a part of life.
Right...?
Like, we are not what defines us, you know? The challenges that life throws at us don't define who we are as people. But these barriers are a part of life, and the only way to get through them is to work with them, understand them, feel them, and then heal them.
Something I've learned is that when we are constantly fighting all these feelings while simultaneously trying to process them, we create so much more chaos for ourselves and our brains. Ultimately, this can lead to the constant battle of the "what if" thoughts.
We begin nitpicking at all those little things, wondering why we are believing these unrealistic, intrusive thoughts while still in the midst of experiencing the emotions that come with them.
And that, in itself, is mentally draining.
It's like you're in a constant battle between the rational and emotional mind and can't quite find the balance just yet.
So, how do we separate all of this?
Sometimes, we get so caught up in trying to understand our thoughts and feelings that we forget we don't have to figure everything out in the moment.
We can allow ourselves to feel uncomfortable without immediately trying to make that discomfort go away. We can acknowledge a thought without needing to analyze it, understand why it's there, or figure out what it means.
So, when you're dealing with something stressful that brings up a lot of not-so-fun feelings, I want you to just STOP.
S: Stop. Pause whatever you are doing.
T: Take a deep breath.
O: Observe. Become the observer of your thoughts. Where are you feeling this within your body? What thoughts do you notice?
P: Proceed mindfully. What's one thing you can focus on right now? What can you do to help yourself feel more centered?
Something I've been doing recently is trying to feel the feeling while simultaneously trying to process it. I was driving myself crazy because it wasn't working, and it made me so frustrated that I was wasting so much of my energy.
Until my therapist said……..
“A person goes to the hospital to get better, right? But getting better doesn't mean they immediately feel better. There's a process they have to go through before they can heal.”
And that got me thinking.
To heal is to feel. But feeling doesn't mean we have to dissect every emotion or figure out every thought. Sometimes, healing means allowing ourselves to experience the discomfort, acknowledge how you are feeling but not letting the anxiety control you instead, just sitting with it.
And sometimes, the first step toward feeling like we can finally breathe is giving ourselves permission to just be in the moment, even when that moment is uncomfortable.
Because we don't have to understand everything we're experiencing to get through it.
