While working with mental health professionals is often an important part of healing from certain events or managing mental illness, plenty of people still find the process daunting. What I want this thread to be is a space for people who have been through or are currently using counseling to share the things that helped them feel less intimidated by the process.
For me, something that helped was finally finding a provider who explained to me his thought process for treatment recommendations. It helps me understand why the approaches might help me, and also helps me feel like he's actually thinking about my specific needs rather than giving a pat recommendation.
Can you record a brief video of yourself talking about how Scarleteen has helped you? We're looking for clips for a fundraising video in the new year, and we'd love to have you involved! You can find out more, including how and where to upload your video, here: Scarleteen’s Project For Awesome 2025 submission! Our deadline for these is December 23rd 2024!
Experiences with Counseling/Therapy
Forum rules
We ask that users looking for general, ongoing emotional support post in this area of the boards, and that you use this space to both ask for, give and receive that support primarily from each other, rather than from our staff and volunteers. As a staff, we simply are often too overextended with all we need to do in running the organization and its services to do that for extended periods of time, and one of our main aims of our community at the boards has always been to facilitate peers to better be there for each other.
Users often report that they have no in-person peers they can talk to or seek support from: we want this to be a space for online peer support and somewhere everyone can get some practice asking for, getting and giving support so that doing it with people in your lives feels more doable.
Please remember that neither staff, volunteers nor your fellow users can provide or replace mental healthcare when that is something you need. Users struggling with issues like anxiety, depression, abuse or physical health issues are strongly encouraged to seek out qualified, in-person help with those issues in addition to peer or staff support.
We ask that users looking for general, ongoing emotional support post in this area of the boards, and that you use this space to both ask for, give and receive that support primarily from each other, rather than from our staff and volunteers. As a staff, we simply are often too overextended with all we need to do in running the organization and its services to do that for extended periods of time, and one of our main aims of our community at the boards has always been to facilitate peers to better be there for each other.
Users often report that they have no in-person peers they can talk to or seek support from: we want this to be a space for online peer support and somewhere everyone can get some practice asking for, getting and giving support so that doing it with people in your lives feels more doable.
Please remember that neither staff, volunteers nor your fellow users can provide or replace mental healthcare when that is something you need. Users struggling with issues like anxiety, depression, abuse or physical health issues are strongly encouraged to seek out qualified, in-person help with those issues in addition to peer or staff support.
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Sam W
- previous staff/volunteer
- Posts: 10320
- Joined: Mon Jul 28, 2014 9:06 am
- Age: 33
- Awesomeness Quotient: I raise carnivorous plants
- Primary language: english
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- Sexual identity: queer
- Location: Coast
Experiences with Counseling/Therapy
And you to whom adversity has dealt the final blow/with smiling bastards lying to you everywhere you go/turn to and put out all your strength of arm and heart and brain/and like the Mary Ellen Carter rise again.
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Catherwren
- not a newbie
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- Joined: Sat Nov 12, 2016 7:05 pm
- Age: 21
- Awesomeness Quotient: My fondness of music
- Primary language: English
- Pronouns: She/her they/them
- Sexual identity: Gay
- Location: Ontario
Re: Experiences with Counseling/Therapy
Last year, my sister and I were able to go to a therapist because of my mom's insurance benefits. My sister went to about tenish and I went to one. We had to stop because her benefits changed, but I enjoyed it. The therapist was really helpful, and I was really able to open up to them. Plus, at the beginning, she told me everything about the process, and everything.
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Alice O
- previous staff/volunteer
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- Location: New York City
Re: Experiences with Counseling/Therapy
I'm a little late to this thread, but I wanted to add: I found it helpful to realize it's really hard to shock them!
When I first started therapy in high school, I was scared that I would say something that they would have never heard before, and would somehow freak them out.
But I've learned that with a well-trained, well-experienced therapist, they will have come across it all! Or at least have learned about it. And their job is to open and non-judgmental. Once that settled in, it was way easier for me to open up, and share all the deepest darkest things.
When I first started therapy in high school, I was scared that I would say something that they would have never heard before, and would somehow freak them out.
But I've learned that with a well-trained, well-experienced therapist, they will have come across it all! Or at least have learned about it. And their job is to open and non-judgmental. Once that settled in, it was way easier for me to open up, and share all the deepest darkest things.
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RadiantRay
- not a newbie
- Posts: 11
- Joined: Sun Oct 13, 2019 4:21 pm
- Age: 29
- Awesomeness Quotient: I make sex positive/NSFW embroidery hoops
- Primary language: English
- Pronouns: she/her
- Sexual identity: Female, LGBTQ
- Location: Georgia
Re: Experiences with Counseling/Therapy
This thread is old but hopefully this will still help someone! I found it easy for myself to calm down and open up (when I was first getting to know my counselor) if I had something in my hands. So maybe the sleeve of a sweatshirt, a water bottle, just something to hold was very comforting! I also would take a coffee or pastry as a 'reward' for taking care of myself and going to therapy.
Good luck!!
Good luck!!
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Mo
- previous staff/volunteer
- Posts: 2287
- Joined: Thu Jul 31, 2014 2:57 pm
- Awesomeness Quotient: I'm always wearing seriously fancy nail polish.
- Primary language: English
- Pronouns: he/him, they/them
- Sexual identity: queer/bisexual
Re: Experiences with Counseling/Therapy
Something I've found helpful is being able to say to my therapist when I'm struggling to talk about something, or when something she says feels either wrong or true but too upsetting to deal with just then. Being able to give context and say things like "I hate talking about this even though I know it's good for me" or "I don't quite understand this method and I don't think it's working for me" helps me feel like I'm giving my therapist a better sense of who I am and how I deal with the therapy process as a whole, which then helps her figure out how best to help me.