My Search for a Therapist Part 1: 3 Reasons Why It Is So Hard

I know I need one. But the problem is...I already know what I need. I know my potential diagnoses. I know that medications would help but aren't necessary. I know I need to work on compartmentalizing my feelings. I know I need to take better care of myself and practice better self care.

The above statements are as far as I got and the only thing written on a blog post I started on April 27, 2018. This is how much of a priority I was making finding myself a therapist a year ago! Now, a year later, a baby has arrived in our family, I am set to go back to work in two weeks, my husband and I are working out our new life as parents and things feel SO different! And finding a therapist seems WAY more urgent than it did a year ago!

In my search there are a couple of reasons why it took me so long to find a person I was willing to open up and allow them into my inner most thoughts and feelings.

1. Therapist counseling therapists

These things never seems possible when you are a helping professional. Nurses and doctors having to show up to their own hospitals for treatment, teachers showing up to behavior meetings for their own children, police officers having to show up to court for family members who were arrested, all of it sounds perfect for a television show, but we as helping professionals don't think about us receiving the very services that we provide. It doesn't seem realistic, at least not to me. I am a very serious therapist, its the reason why I'm not doing it now. I take the job seriously which means I work overtime to provide top notch services to my clients. How do I know my counselor will do the same? And how can I go see someone everyday without critiquing them? Reason #1 why its taking me so long.

2. Helping Professionals: Always helping

I am the listener. Its the reason why most people in my life call me or contact me regarding things that are going on in their lives. Its the reason why I keep my circle small because I am only able to handle so much of that at one time. Because of this though, there is very rarely little time for anyone to listen to me...to us... I know there are other helping professionals out there who are the same way. You take care of everyone else except the one person that is supposed to matter the most....YOU

3. The stigma

In the African American community, at least for most, going to church is therapy, the remedy for all things. I love God. I am a Christian. Sometimes Christians have a tendency to dismiss therapy. The African American community is pretty deep rooted in Christianity, where many of us grew up hearing about "praying it out" or "taking it to the alter" or "taking it to Jesus." Being a Christian, however, does not mean you cannot receive treatment for challenges with mental health. Therapy is not a sin. If anything therapy can go hand in hand with praying and

spiritual mediation. All are excellent forms of self care and work phenomenal together. I would be amiss, though if I didn't admit I had hesitation because of my upbringing in Christianity. I didn't want to be viewed as weak or unable to consult with God. But my choosing therapy has nothing to do with that. We need to break this stigma and I am willing to be apart of that.

So now it's 2019, 1 year later and those things are behind me. That journey that I started is now actually full speed ahead and I am going to talk about it a little bit with hopes that someone else who is in a helping profession will be willing to make that step into the arena of self care and put themselves first. Trust me, not only will it help us, but those we serve as well. Check out my follow up to this blog here.