Tag: Mental Health

Connection for the disconnected: TLP experience.

I wanted to share my guest blog post on The Letter Project blog. The Letter Project is an organization that writes letters to women and girls from ages 5-100 years old to empower them when they need the extra support. Letter bundles are requested by family and friends or the girls/women themselves and sent out in hopes that they will find comfort in the kind word. Check out the entry below that I shared on my experience for this wonderful charity. If you’re interested in getting involved, please visit theletterproject.org.

The year of 2020 was a challenge for me. I was dealing with the “new normal” of a pandemic but I was also forced to confront my lowest point of mental health head-on. I began talk therapy in August 2020 and am still actively going. In therapy, I talk a lot about myself, but my first therapist decided to send me on the journey of talking to others. My anxiety was very severe at that point in my treatment and I needed to be taken out of my own head and find the connection that I was missing so much in a world where social distancing was a safety measure. To fulfill the missing connection, he wanted me to write letters to other people also in need of connection or encouragement. I went to Google and started looking for the right fit of letter writing and how I could embark on a safe and emotionally fulfilling journey, which is how I found The Letter Project. I signed up to become a letter writer and began to read through the requests for bundles from the women and girls on behalf of themselves or the family and friends on the behalf of their loved ones. After reading through the requests and writing my first initial letter, I was hooked.

I loved the idea of sending encouragement out into the world to others who needed it, just like I did and still do sometimes. I loved reading the brave stories of people who solicited help for themselves, but I am also touched by those who solicit help for the loved ones who may not always see themselves as worthy of needed encouragement. I was eventually able to request a bundle for myself, in hopes to have my very own little piece of this beautifully baked pie that this organization had created.

I didn’t really understand the impact of the bundle until over 20 plus letters from all over the world began to filter into my mailbox.

Hand-written, decorated, and beautifully written words of encouragement began to pile up and I was in awe. Let’s face it, 2020 was a challenging year for humanity globally, so the idea that so many people read my story and chose to take time out of their days to lift me up was life-changing. The bundle of letters made me feel seen, loved, and like I had a cheering section from all over the four corners of this beautiful planet.

I wanted to pay it forward in some way and offer a connection of hope, the same connection served to me in a time where I believed in so little of hope myself.

The letters offered me a chance to give myself a break from worry and stress. A chance to sit still and read over and over the importance of small but impactful gestures. Every week became my moment to pause and pray that I would deliver the same feeling to girls and women around the world. I wrote for every letter that I received and then some. A cathartic process that allowed me to realize what I had in me was not just a gift to others, but myself as well.

As I took the time from my day with a message of hope and encouragement via stamps and handwritten letters, I felt an unspoken network grow. We all need little reminders once in a while that we can achieve anything we set our minds to, no matter how big or small. It was to a point that every letter I wrote I felt a piece of myself become stronger knowing that I could make the same impact I had been blessed with. It has been a full circle process and so unexpected, just as the past year has become.

As we begin to transition back to our normal “before” lives, I gained a lasting effect to reach out and not only find the sunshine in the clouds for myself but also provide it to others who are on the same journey I am and may not even know it.

The realization of my people-pleasing.

The term “people-pleaser” is one that I learned in the past year through therapy. It’s a term that feels accusatory but it’s fitting with my anxiety and behavior patterns. This was both alarming but also disheartening to really deep dive into. My need for therapy homework struck again and the therapist suggested the book, The Disease to Please by Dr. Harriet B. Braiker. This book gives a detailed breakdown of habits of a people pleaser, a break down of how it applies in everyday life, and a detailed program created by the author to assist the reader in breaking these habits. I immediately began to overthink things and attempt perfection (which is a whole other beast) in ridding myself of these habits. 32 years of habits aren’t just going to go away over night. I was being driven by shame and anxiety that if I didn’t shake this that I would be further doomed than I was before.

While the anxiety has slowed, I still battle people pleasing. The need to control situations for my own comfort or my need to overprotect loved ones still happens to me. I’d love to sit here and say therapy and a book was the cure all but it’s the application of the tools from therapy and the book that help me with this daily struggle. Finally, realizing why I do some things and that I’m not responsible for the happiness of anyone else but myself is freeing. However, it doesn’t make it any easier when situations come up. I want to help, I want to fix and knowing that I can’t always do that for everyone or even myself with my own emotions is scary to feel. It’s not easy to just let go but I know it’s going to foster better relationships with myself and the people around me.

The Silver Linings of a Pandemic

The title sounds like a fluffy crock of shit. I know, I get it. There are so many people in the world who have seen more crap in the last year and a half than they have in their entire lives. However, my therapist said something that got me thinking. “Without the pandemic, you would have never stopped to see what wasn’t working.” Honestly, they were right. Pre-pandemic I spent a lot of time bathed in distraction desperate not to feel any physical sensations or mental stress. I wanted to capture this version of myself that I wanted to be for everyone else. The reality was, it wasn’t working for me but I was too scared to say it out loud. This pandemic gave me the pause that I needed to start from the ground up. What felt like a “mental breakdown” was actually a necessary breaking point that I needed to rebuild a version of myself that was finally for just me. It’s the reframed thought that I’ve used to pull myself out of the idea that I had to be ashamed of having struggles. Nothing was wrong with me, I just needed a break to find out who the hell I was without anyone else’s approval, opinions or ideas. The distractions faded and I was bathed in the scary silence to hear my own needs, thoughts, and ideas.

Outside of the realm of me, I found the gift of connection. I’ve spent a lot of time on here sharing my mental health story and updates as time passes but I haven’t shared the other important parts of me. Truthfully, I have the best friends on the planet. From the first week of the pandemic until to this day, we’ve found a way to become closer than we ever have before. Pre-pandemic we were all wrapped up in our own lives. We’d text when we remembered, we’d make the effort to see each other a few times a year but it stayed there. Now, we talk daily and stay up to date with each other’s lives and do our best to be there for each other and share our respective lives when we can. What started as drunk zooms to make the best of a crappy situation turned into a daily updates, which I am beyond grateful for. Thanks to the Marco Polo app, we have a place to chat on our own time without the schedule coordination that Zoom took. It’s been the missing link to our friendship and I’m so glad that we’re now able to keep up with each other more than we ever have. I think being pushed to band together when it hurt the most was valuable. It was the reinforcement that we weren’t alone and one I know I’ll cherish forever.

These were the two biggest silver linings for me. It’s easy to get lost in all of the damage that this time has done. I still have to ground myself in the sadness sometimes because it can be very consuming. However, I remain grateful that I am able to find the little things that can bring light to my world. They mean everything.

The Pieces of Me – A Journey to Radical Acceptance

The concept of radical acceptance felt like conceding when I was initially told by my therapist that would be the game changer for healing. How could I accept debilitating anxiety? How could I accept the disruption my mental health was causing to myself, my wife, and family? The idea was a very confusing concept for me when she suggested it. Wasn’t the whole point of therapy for me to continue to fight this battle I was in? The thought of abandoning control and just accepting things for what they were in each moment felt so foreign. I entered therapy with the mindset that I needed to be saved and fixed. I was inherently broken in some way. How could just letting things be do anything? I had a lot of questions that were slowly answered over the course of each session we’ve had.

I fought the concept initially. I am a fixer by nature so none of this made sense. While they continued to explain this to me further they also recommended Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With The Heart Of A Buddha by Dr. Tara Branch. The first few chapters into the book gave me a lot of anxiety. The author made this all seem too easy to do. Was I missing something? Was there some sort of skill set I wasn’t mastering? The shame and fear grew larger. The idea that accepting all of the parts of myself that I found inconvenient or wrong or “too much” would make all of the heaviness of anxiety and mental turmoil go away felt counterproductive. I was in therapy to rid myself of this, not embrace what it did to me. However, once I stopped obsessing over doing everything the therapist and the book told me to do in a perfect way, the change happened on its own.

Action took the lead and I stopped myself from overthinking every step that I was given. I told myself that it’s time to stop beating myself up for being anxious about things not everyone may be anxious about, it’s time to stop labeling myself the resident “chicken shit” of any room I walk into, it’s time to experience big emotions and fully even when it makes me feel uncomfortable or vulnerable. It’s time to accept that I am a human with complex emotions and thoughts just like anyone else. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to mold myself to fit the needs and wants of other people. Life as a people-pleaser will give you that fate but everyday I try and make the conscious choice to allow myself the full spectrum of the human condition with condemning myself for it.

Is Radical Acceptance easy to do? Absolutely not. It is the hardest thing I’ve been challenged to do in therapy but it has been the most helpful. I’ve wasted a lot of time in my life living in the shame of my mental health, shouldering the burden, and not giving myself the freedom to be me even when it was hard. It’s a process that I still struggle with because of my learned patterns in my 32 years on earth. The journey for acceptance will be never ending, it’ll always be a new challenge to endure and push myself into but I am determined to love myself with the same reckless abandon that I love others with. It’s so needed and deserved.

To anyone who struggles with anxiety like I do, I see you and I feel for you. But, know that you are not alone in any way. Everything you think is annoying or inconvenient isn’t nearly as bad as your mind makes it out to be. I challenge anyone with anxiety to try for acceptance. As much as you may want to control your situation because it feels like its spiraling, I promise you there is a freedom in the ability to let go and face things as they come. There’s a freedom in being present and not allowing your anxiety to be your sole focus. You deserve to be your whole self, without the label of good or bad and just being.

My experience in finding the right therapist. (And breaking up with one too.)

Disclaimer: I am in no way qualified to give medical or mental health advice. I am simply someone who’s had their own mental health experiences and want to share my processes used for treatment. This post is in no way medical advice.

The process of finding a therapist can be daunting. Often people begin the arduous search for this unbiased resource to help them when they are at the most heightened state creating a miserable search that too many people could get burned out by. If you have insurance, there’s finding a provider that is in your network and then getting the consultation to see if they are a good match for the help you want provided. If you don’t have insurance, it’s even harder because the process often becomes about finding a therapist that remains cost effective to a budget but also suits your needs and gets the help that you’re looking for. Once the initial steps are taken, there are things I like to look for in a therapist to provide the best care for the issue I want to be maintained.

  1. Someone who specializes in goals I want to set or issues that I want to help manage for myself.
  2. Someone who listens to me without judgment.
  3. Someone who can be relatable but also not use the session to talk more about themselves entirely, but focus on the task at hand for that session while providing insight.
  4. Someone who holds boundaries in our professional relationship and doesn’t allow me to become overly attached to them.
  5. Someone who doesn’t blame me or others for my struggles but rather helps me accept myself for who I am in that moment and who I can become along the way.

This list can be added to or even subtracted but it is my baseline set of standards that I used to find my current therapist that I work with. My first therapist in 2020 was helpful but became someone who stepped outside of the standards that I wanted to set for my healing journey. “Breaking up” with this therapist was difficult because I developed an unhealthy attachment to them. After a while, it became apparent that our time together was becoming toxic, and I needed to start over with someone else. It was a scary thing to tell this person, but I gathered my courage and left a short and simple text message that while I was grateful for our time together, I no longer felt that they could help me any further. Thankfully, their response was cordial which eased my anxiety about leaving but it didn’t make any less nerve wracking to do. Change is hard especially when you’re not feeling your best, but it is possible to do. It’s important to stay true to your journey and make sure that you have the appropriate person to help you along the way.

If you have insurance, you can use your insurance’s website data base but if you want a broader search for a mental health professional, I’ve used psychologytoday.com with great success.