Safe to Struggle: Don’t be afraid to get help

graphics by Caroline Chisholm and Lilah Faye

Sitting on the blue-gray couch, I poured out my entire life story to someone I had just met. After my hour-long monologue with zero interruption, the woman in the chair thought for a moment, opened her notebook and started writing. She looked me in the eye and said, “It’s going to be okay.”

Those five words spoke volumes into the ears of someone with diagnosed depression.

Therapy is something that many people avoid — they don’t want their mental conditions to become a reality. But therapy should be something that people with a mental illness embrace, not something that they’re ashamed of.

Six years ago in October, my stepmom passed away in a car crash. The first few months after the accident were rough — my family and I were in a broken state. I went from being a constant chatterbox with vibrant emotions to silently locking myself in my pitch-black bedroom. I eventually grew tired of suppressing my tears and putting on a positive facade pretending everything was fine. I needed change.

I got the change from therapy. Being someone who has experienced three years of therapy, I can say that nothing helps more than talking to someone who is unbiased and non-judgmental.

Although it may seem intimidating to talk to a complete stranger about your endless nights crying for no reason, therapists are professionals for a reason. They’ve studied the brain and know how to alleviate symptoms of depression and anxiety, and each treatment is unique — mine consisted of drawing my emotions and listening to music. I would walk through the wooden doorway after each session feeling a little more like my outgoing and social self.

Of course therapy wasn’t my first step in my healing process. I tried talking to my mom, who knew me better than anyone in the world, but without psychological expertise she had no idea how to help me. So she looked for a therapist who had experience treating my symptoms and found one that helped me with my own problems — everything from stress over a bad test grade to a loss of self-worth.

But despite my obvious mental growth from attending sessions, my father was very against therapy. I thought that someone who had gone through so much mental trauma would need someone to talk to who could understand the situation and give options for help. But my father persisted that therapy was a terrible way to deal with depression without providing any concrete reasons, but that didn’t stop me.

According to Psychology Today, the idea of getting help from a therapist or psychiatrist strikes fears of being crazy or no longer being themselves when they walk out of the room in many people’s minds. As much as I understand these concerns, as a therapy veteran, I know they’re
not true.

Before I started therapy, I was worried that there was no way someone could make me get back into my usual daily routine of screaming Beyoncé at the top of my lungs or playing Pokémon until my mom came into my room and took my Nintendo 3DS away. I didn’t understand how someone who knew nothing about me, my family or my situation could ever help me. I thought I would never get back to my happy-go-lucky way of life.

If anything, therapy makes you more yourself when you walk out of the room. Psychology Today also states that most people don’t go to therapy for a serious mental illness, but instead for an out-of-the-ordinary event that interrupts the flow of daily life like getting fired from a job or a huge fight with a spouse. Talking about those problems helps you get back into the rhythm of how life was before, it doesn’t disrupt it.

For more serious cases like depression or anxiety, therapy can help control the chemical imbalance that exists in the brain. Depression messes with your personality, mindset and judgement. Therapy exists in order to help you get back to who you are without the cl
oud of depression or anxiety looming over.

After completing three years of therapy, I walked out of the room every week more confident and happy, knowing my mindset was i
n a much better place. My problems weren’t completely erased — that’s impossible. But I learned to channel my depression into outlets like dancing and songwriting. By that time I had outgrown my Pokémon binges and scream-singing concerts, but I was genuinely happy with my state of mind.

While therapy can’t fix every problem a patient has, talking to someone on a weekly basis helps diminish the severity of the hurricane that is life. Even after going to therapy for so long, I’m still not happy every day. But through counseling, I’ve learned how to deal with my depression in active ways so I can continue to be the most authentic and happy version of myself.

So if you’re struggling with a large-scale mental illness or stressed about a school project, go get help. Don’t be scared to talk to someone about your life, you’ll be thankful for the results that come from it.