- Just start talking?
Okay.
(upbeat music)
- I considered getting therapy when I realized
that it's okay to wanna talk to someone else
and have someone else kind of hear your story
and help you understand maybe certain behaviors
that you have.
Personally in my family, we kind of grew up
not thinking that sharing your emotions
with a stranger was normal, but I think I hit a point
in my adulthood where I was like, "You know what,
"it's okay to talk to someone else
"and maybe have someone else who doesn't know you
"listen to your story and listen to your issues
"and help guide you to make different decisions
"for your everyday life."
I did not end up getting it, but it's something recently
that I've been considering, and I'm thinking
hopefully pretty soon here I will muster up the courage
to make that first phone call and make an appointment.
- I decided to get therapy when I was a little kid
and I was having issues with my dad.
It was an opportunity to kind of gain some confidence
as a child 'cause I had a lot of anger and a lot of sadness
and over the years it kinda helped me realize who I was
as a person and gave me the confidence to leave.
And it helped me escape a very toxic, negative situation.
And I keep doin' it to this day.
If somebody was watching this and was looking for advice
on therapy, I'd say go for it.
It's obviously not for everybody,
some people are really scared of it,
I have nothing negative to say about it,
I think everybody could use it,
but I'm not gonna force it on anybody.
- I considered getting therapy
in college during my sophomore year
because it was just a really hard time,
they don't really teach you what college is gonna be about
in high school, so when I started college
it was a very tough time for me
and I was still trying to figure out my social circles,
and when I got into college I was in a relationship
where he cheated on me and then I found a rebound
and then that broke up, and I was also
not doing well in college, so I did have a few sessions
with a counselor.
It was really nice to have someone
to talk through my internal issues
and realize that I had internal trauma
that I didn't even really think about
until it was brought to the surface
and we actually had a space to talk about those things,
and that was actually the first and last time
that I had therapy 'cause after that I was able
to find a support group outside of therapy.
But now that we're adulting, I'm getting to the point
where I'm considering finding another therapist
but the issue is, in adulthood there's no counseling service
that you can tap into that's readily available,
it's something that you kind of have to shop for
and look for so I'm kind of in that area right now
where I'm trying to find a good therapist, so.
- I considered getting therapy when I had
a ton of restless nights and I realized that I hated myself.
Right now I can't afford therapy but I've reached out
to find a councilor so hopefully I find someone
to take on my case soon.
- I wanted to get therapy for a while
but wasn't exactly sure how to do it or why to do it
or when to do it, I had always kind of been
pretty self-sufficient in I've always had a lot
of a really good network of people
to talk to about things that were going wrong
or things I needed to talk to, but I ultimately decided
to actually go to therapy after my brother died
so that was kind of my huge deciding factor, but again,
I had a really good network of people that I could talk to,
but I felt like I thought after my brother died
that everything had just been compounding,
that was definitely the cherry on top of everything
that I had gone through growing up.
It wasn't really even a decision I just kind of,
I have to do this now.
After my first session I kind of kicked myself
that I hadn't gone years before.
It was just really nice to get professional validation,
be like everything that you are saying is true
and you seem to have a good grasp on it
and everything's fine.
It makes senses that you feel this way,
and it's just been really eye opening and helpful.
If somebody out there is experiencing grief of any sort,
any relationship, I would absolutely recommend
talking to someone about it,
literally anyone, anyone you trust.
You don't necessarily need to go to therapy
but if it's an option for you
and something that you wanna invest in,
I think I would never not recommend it,
it has been incredibly helpful.
I (beep) therapy.
- I decided to start doing therapy
after a rough nine months this year.
Funny enough I haven't started it yet,
it's very hard to log down your therapist.
I feel like I've been dealing with a lot of pressure
and stress and anxiety and all that stuff
for most of my life, I think when I was in high school,
it was something I just kind of accepted how I was feeling,
but I think working as a creative in L.A.
can be very very anxiety increasing
because usually your day job isn't your only job,
you're doing things here and there, and I told myself
I was gonna work really hard during the day
and work really hard at night, and it got to a point
where I realized my body and my brain couldn't handle that.
- I decided to get therapy when I felt my mental health
was kind of at a breaking point and I needed somebody
to talk to that wasn't already in my life.
Work was getting to be a lot for me,
relationships weren't really goin' anywhere,
I was 28 years old, things were just feeling
so out of control and it felt like my life
was being controlled by many other things and people
and I just needed to sit down and talk to somebody
that could hopefully understand where I was coming from.
Of course you have your friends
and you have your family, right?
That's amazing, if those people
are there for you, that is great.
I did have friends and family that were there to me,
but it was also very hard for me to open up
about things that I was struggling with,
especially my mental health, so talking to somebody
that was disassociated with my life
and could give me different view points, it's helped me,
honestly it's the best thing I've done.
Yeah, I went to therapy when I was 16 for eating disorders,
I went again around 21 for eating disorders,
and then now at 28 for just my mental health.
I have never gone to therapy before
other than just talking about eating disorders,
so it was new to me, but I definitely wasn't stand offish,
I was like, "No, I need someone to talk to,"
and it's what I needed, so I didn't wanna suffer,
I didn't want to take other peoples time
that maybe don't understand what I'm talking about anyway,
so yeah, I knew I needed someone to talk to.
- I decided to get therapy when I realized
that I was relying on my friends
for too much psychological issues
and I didn't wanna put that pressure on them.
- I realized I needed therapy
when I was planning my wedding,
in the middle of planning my wedding.
My now husband and I were in the midst
of several premarital counseling sessions
and it really brought up a lot of personal issues
that I think I had been dealing with for a really long time.
I'm currently not in therapy but it's definitely
something that I wanna tackle in the new year.
- I decided to get therapy when my ex and I broke up.
I don't know what else you could really need.
- So I started therapy when I was going through
a really rough breakup.
I was with someone for six years
and it was just such a messy breakup,
I didn't know how to deal with it,
and I was just very emotionally confused, I couldn't sleep,
I couldn't eat, and just talking to friends,
I just felt like I was a burden to them
'cause all I did was just repeating the same story,
being like, "I really don't understand."
So I just decided to talk to someone
that is a professional that has the tools to deal with this.
After processing all those feelings,
we dove deeper into more of what my core values are
so it was more like self discovery
which was something that I totally didn't know I needed,
and I am in a much better place.
- So I thought about takin' therapy
when I first moved out to Los Angeles.
I moved out here in April of 2017
and I decided to quit all my jobs in Indianapolis
where I was at at the time, but during that time
I came out here, no jobs.
I was actually staying in a one bedroom apartment
with two other fraternity brothers, so it was a little hard,
was a little bit of a struggle but it was seven months
until I got a first full time position.
I've always been able to have a job,
to get a job and to pursue my dreams where I was,
and when I got out here it was a big culture shock.
That was seven months really testin' me
and those months were where I've thought
I needed to talk to somebody 'cause I felt like
I couldn't really relate to any of my friends
'cause they either had a job out here
or they were back in Indianapolis.
It was a time where I was needing someone to confide into.
I have yet to talk to someone and I'm almost three years in,
but since that time I've always been thinkin' about it
and that has been one of my goals to do soon,
and I've actually started makin' steps into doing that.
So by time this video comes out,
hopefully I will have said, "Yes, I am takin' therapy,"
and "Yes I am seeking help,"
because mental health is more than necessary.
- I decided to go to therapy
because I just didn't understand
why I was so angry all the time.
I was always stressed out, I couldn't handle
any stressors like a normal human being
or at least what I thought was normal.
At the time I was working at Disney, I had my dream job,
I just moved in with my now husband.
Life still sucked.
I ended up getting diagnosed
with generalized anxiety disorder,
and then later I got diagnosed with depression.
And I actually went
to The Center for Individual and Family Counseling
because I needed an affordable option
because I was unemployed.
I had just gotten laid off from Disney,
I was super depressed, and I stayed with that therapist
for three or four years.
In that time she had seen me through several jobs,
another layoff, and actually a suicide attempt.
Since then I've actually written a book
using all of the stuff that I did in our therapy.
It was basically just this journey of what it was like
to have depression and anxiety
and really make people feel like they're not alone.
It's important to me as somebody who is a suicide survivor,
and somebody who loves therapy, for other people to know
that it's totally normal to not be normal
because it was the best thing I could've done for myself.
(upbeat music)