Taking care of my mental health
I’ve been wanting to try out a therapy session out of curiosity for so long. I was inspired after watching few Youtube influencers sharing about their therapy experience. I like how they don’t stigmatise therapy with having problems, but more like a way to take care of their mental health. The argument is if you spend time and money to go to gym to be healthy physically, why don’t you do the same thing for our mental health.
I guess mental health is always something I prioritise as I meditate and journal often. But actively taking care of it becomes so apparent to me during this pandemic time. When I cannot travel like how I used to. When I can dine in but with so many restrictions. When I’m technically grounded at home. My mental health is taking a shock as it’s never prepared for this situation. This time, money can’t buy me freedom.
Though I don’t have to meet a lot of people, I have to attend meetings after meetings. And I never know it can drain my energy that much. I literally feel exhausted after just few sessions. The feeling that I don’t think I experienced before when going to office. I dreaded joining a call, ending one and joining another one just few minutes after that.
Though staying at home, I still want to plan for my future, not just work but my personal life as well. I tend to schedule to the minute / hour, even during weekend so I tend be anxious when situation is uncertain or it goes off track.
I decided to bring these 2 problems to therapy sessions.
I wanted to try out online therapy instead of the face-to-face one since it seemed to have low entry barrier. I searched online for few options and decided to go with Safespace.
The booking experience is lengthy. But I guess it’s important for people who want to address specific problems and selecting a therapist accordingly. Anyway, I got it done. The most shocking thing is probably the price. I know that it’s cheaper than a face-to-face session but a $120 price tag per session is still a surprise to me. I reason to myself that since I stopped paying for yoga classes (I changed to home yoga for free), I technically can use that money to try this out. I chose a therapist because she looks similar to me (age, race and facial feature).
On the day of the appointment, I joined the session via a video call. The therapist was friendly and struck the conversation with me naturally. I guess if someone just listened in to our conversation, it just sounded like 2 normal people having a casual conversation, with more focus on me. I really appreciated the fact that though I was talking to a stranger, I was myself more than anytime when talking to my family / friends. It gives me such a liberating feeling yet a chance to reflect myself in a deeper way. The therapist tries to ask questions to understand me, not in a judgemental way I feel, really just to understand me as who I am. I guess sometimes we need that kind of moments in our life, to be ourself, even though we have to pay for it. It’s funny to say that.
I do return to the same therapist few more session after that with 1 month plus interval. I guess I don’t have a serious problem, so I don’t really need to have a frequent chat with her. I have to say I feel lighter and more reflective after talking to her. And for me, that feeling is priceless, and I don’t mind paying money to have access to that.
On a side note, my friend gave me free credits to try a similar experience in Intellect - a habit forming app. They have something called “rescue sessions”, somewhat like a therapy session for 30 mins. I tried one once but wasn’t impressed with the service. Apart from some technical difficulties, I felt 30 mins was too short for the therapist to know me, break down the issues and gave me some meaningful advice. Also, for me, bringing a guide in the mental care journey is a long term relationship. And somehow this “rescue” concept doesn’t gel well with that. It’s like you change your personal trainer every single time you go to the gym. It’s just tiring for me so I stop using the service.