A Mental Health Journey
Almost exactly four years ago, I was sitting on my bedroom floor sobbing.
I was in an extraordinarily emotionally draining, entry level job just a few months after college graduation. After only a few weeks on the job, I felt like I was about to either implode or explode. The internal chaos I felt was getting pushed to the forefront by my emotionally taxing job. The job wasn't causing the turmoil though – that turmoil was already present in my mind and heart.
My thoughts raced as I thought about my mom’s break down two years previously that had caused so much pain in my family, the unexpected divorce of my parents who had been married for 40 years, my own years of unresolved emotional pain and dysregulation, and the knowledge that I was a mostly poor, idealistic, anxious, and depressed college graduate with no idea where her life was headed.
As the tears rolled down my face, and as I sat rocking back and forth on my carpet, I knew I needed help. I was hurting and felt like there was nowhere to go. Around that time, a friend, who had been through some struggles of her own, suggested I think about therapy for my own healing and well-being. In theory, I was all for therapy. I was a psychology major in undergrad, with plans to become a therapist until life happened, and I got a Master’s in Shakespeare (but that story is for another day).
I had a heart for those suffering from mental illness, because I had seen it so many people from a young age, but I realized I wasn’t willing to give that same empathy to myself as I got older. I did want to go to therapy when I was much younger, but my mom, ironically enough, always said that I would be labeled and that I shouldn’t go. Therapy had a weight attached to it for me.
People might judge me.
Maybe it would be a waste of money.
People wouldn’t like me.
What was the point in talking about my problems?
Was it vain?
Those were thoughts that came up when therapy came up – an odd mixture of anxiety itself and the all too common Christian confusion about what therapy really is.
I had been to one psychiatrist one time before my mom’s breakdown. After enough disagreeing and anxious meltdowns with my mom, she agreed I should try therapy. That psychiatrist basically Freudian-ly summed all of my anxieties into the fact that I was a lonely youngest child. While that may have been true at the time, it didn’t really hit to the heart of the issues. So my confusion on psychology as a whole remained lingering for a while, and I didn’t go back to him.
I didn’t yet realize that, just as there are teachers that we understand better, there are therapists and psychiatrists that can help our individual hearts better.
That summer after graduation, at the suggestion of my friend, I continued to mull over trying again and reaching out to a recommended therapist. I finally did. And it radically changed my world.
While I think some stereotypes make therapy look like a passive blame game, and perhaps some misguided therapists encourage that, I wouldn’t know because my time in therapy was more of a workout for the mind and heart. I learned coping skills, journaling exercises, how to ask myself what I need in a moment of stress and be able to give it to myself, how to set boundaries in order to love better, and how to be real with people instead of keeping all of my boundaries too tightly wound up around my heart. My therapist gave me insights that I had never heard before. My favorite quote from her has always been: boundaries are teaching people how to love you better. In my people pleasing younger years (I’m sure a cause of a lot of anxiety in and of itself), I thought that saying “no” was always mean and bad. When in fact, prudently being able to say no to things you can’t handle, is a way of loving yourself and gently calling the other person to love better.
I worked with my therapist for about a year on many different subjects, unraveling hard emotions and built in lies that I had told myself for years. Then I went off to grad school where I couldn’t really afford nor focus on my mental health, unfortunately. This was probably one of my poorer decisions in life, as I don’t think there’s been a time where I have needed a good therapy session more than graduate school, but thankfully I moved back to the same area as my old therapist after I graduated.
The circumstances surrounding my move weren’t exactly ideal, and the move triggered a lot of old issues, but God works in mysterious ways. I started working with my therapist again after my grad school hiatus, and I got my official ADHD diagnosis from a wonderful psychiatrist. I started taking medication for both ADHD (a non-stimulant that helps with emotional regulation) and an antidepressant. While some worry that medication is a Band-Aid that keeps you from progressing, I have found that it has given me the ability to function and choose the good without my brain telling me not to. For instance, my ADHD medication has greatly helped with a symptom called “Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria.” I now know to take a step back and examine the situation before allowing myself to dwell on what I perceive to be a rejection. These perceptions, and the emotional pain of these perceptions, have lessened due to the workings of my medicine.
Choosing the good for myself is still difficult, but with the medication, it’s a difficulty I can strive towards without feeling like I’m carrying the entire world on my shoulders as I do it. I take the medicine for my hurting brain; I go to therapy for my hurting heart; and I go to the chapel for all of the above.
My therapist is also a Christian. I don’t think that is necessary for everyone’s therapy experience, but she beautifully integrates reminders of who God sees me as with practical steps for mental well-being. I want to encourage anyone that feels like they might benefit from a professional un-doer of mind knots to think about reaching out. A healthy mind is a peaceful mind, and a peaceful mind is able to hear God so much more clearly.
And if not therapy, I challenge you to ask yourself how you can love yourself better today. Because God loves you and wants you to know that you are worthy of a healthy soul, body, AND mind.
About the Author
Paula Shute is a work in progress who is grateful God is patient and loving. She has her BA in Psychology from Ave Maria University and her MLitt in Shakespeare and Performance from Mary Baldwin University.
She works full time in the Advancement office of her undergraduate alma mater, and after work, you'll find her teaching theology or directing Shakespeare plays.