You know what I love? The idea of taking care of yourself. The idea of loving yourself, body and soul. Sometimes the soul needs a helping hand and sometimes that helping hand is online therapy.
I haven’t tried online therapy myself, yet, but the idea fills me with calm. I have, however, been on-again, off-again with therapy and counseling since I was in my early teens. Whenever I have a particularly rough patch, I go back to a therapist to help me through it.
My first bout with therapy was when I was 14, after a failed suicide attempt. It used to be hard to admit that I had tried to kill myself. Now that I know help is out there, I would never do it again. But as an isolated and bullied teen, at the time I felt it was my only option- my only way to a calm and happy ending. I was so wrong!
But at 14 years old, I felt alone. When you are depressed, you fall into this black hole of emotion that you feel you can’t climb out of. Your current situation feels as if it will never end and it is unbearable. I was told over and over that my teen years would be “the best of my life” but if that were true, the sooner it ended, the better. At school, I didn’t fit in. I wasn’t nerdy enough to hang out with the nerds, not punk enough for the punks, not athletic enough for the preps…I was on my own. The skaters sort of embraced me, but I often felt it was because I owned a car.
I felt left out of every situation. Depression makes you feel even more like a round peg in a square hole. Above and beyond that, I was being bullied every single day. Classmates would trip me in the hall, steal my street clothes during gym class, put gum in my hair or write rude things in my planner. I once found a gym sock with a dirty tampon stuffed in it in my locker! In gym class I was “accidentally” hit with sticks, balls, and kicked. In class, my chair would mysteriously fall over and there were constant stage whispers about how ugly and strange I was. I was too embarrassed to tell my family how far it had gone at school.
What if there had been online therapy? I think that it would have made all the difference. Even if I would have needed my parent’s permission, it would have been okay to ask for that rather than confess all the bullying I was going through. A simple, “I just want to see what all of this is about”.
Have you asked yourself that lately? Have you given yourself permission to “see what all of this is about”? Maybe you feel like you are having a string of bad days that never end? Or you just have a mind buzzing with problems you need to talk out? That’s depression and therapy can help- whether it is online or in person!
My first therapist was a very wonderful woman. She saw through my games, my eye-rolling and my attempt at finding the “right” answers. Eventually, she won my trust and I was able to work through some of my issues and depression with her. Since then, I have used therapy whenever life gets especially rough for me. I don’t always find a wonderful therapist straight off- sometimes I need to “shop” a little to find someone who fits my personality- but it is always worth the looking around.
I love the idea of people being unafraid of therapy; especially the idea of online therapy because it is perfect for people in isolated places, like farms, or for busy people that could fit in a session online but don’t have time to drive to an office. It could also work for people in chronic pain that can’t drive or those without access to a car at all. Ah, the age of technology at its best!
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*Note: This post may contain sponsored content but all opinions are my own.*
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