15 Signs It’s Time to Start Therapy
Thankfully, the stigma that counseling is only for “crazy” people has greatly diminished through the years. Yet there remains a common belief that a person needs to hit rock bottom or have their life completely torn apart before starting therapy. Unfortunately, that hesitation often results in people remaining in a state of unhealthiness or unhappiness for far too long. Then when we feel that it is time to start, the original issues have often progressed to cause far more damage than necessary in our lives.
Counseling, also called therapy, talk therapy, psychotherapy, or mental health counseling, can greatly benefit any person that is struggling with emotional difficulties, life challenges and mental health concerns. Additionally, counseling is a great practice for any person wishing to participate in all types of self-exploration or personal growth. Research shows that the positive effects of, and skills taught in counseling often last longer than medication alone. By providing a safe place and a mental health expert, therapy clients can explore fresh perspectives, better understand their own emotional experience, and learn communication skills that are essential to healthy relationships and conveying emotion. Therapy is proven to increase self-esteem, better personal and professional relationships and introduce a more hopeful outlook on life.
15 Signs You Should Start Counseling
1. You Feel Constantly Overwhelmed
While things may not always be easy, and no one has everything figured out, it is not healthy to constantly be overwhelmed. Feeling constantly overwhelmed can often create a paradoxical cycle in our lives where we know that things are not working, but we can’t summon the energy or the creativity to make a significant change. It’s possible that you may not even know why you are stressed out each day, but constant stress and feeling overwhelmed is your mind and body’s way of communicating to you that something needs to change.
2. You Feel Anger, Sad, or Just Plain ‘Not Yourself’
At times, feeling angry, sad or ‘not yourself’ is completely normal and an essential part of being a human. But if these emotions have persisted, or you feel they are out of control, it is usually time to seek counseling. Out of control anger or feeling depressed are some ways that your mind and body are communicating that something is not right and needs to change. Counseling provides a safe place to explore these feelings and can help to get you back to a place of control.
3. Nobody Understands You
Let’s just go ahead and say it together: Feeling misunderstood is the absolute worst. Feelings of alienation or loneliness can be debilitating and a constant weight on your health. Therapy is a great way to explore this disconnect and address what issues may be contributing to it. Fear of intimacy, difficulty with communication and subconsciously choosing people that don’t (or won’t) understand us, are issues that run deep and require exploration. Also, one of the main jobs of the therapist is to understand you, so simply working with a counselor can help solve that problem right away.
4. Something Traumatic Has Happened to You
Terrible things happen in the world on a daily basis and many of us are unlucky enough to get caught in the crossfire. Abuse, neglect, accidents, crimes, natural disasters, assault, and chronic illness can have huge impacts on our mental health. The sooner you can talk to someone about your trauma, the sooner you will be able to begin the process of healing, and potentially even grow to levels stronger than you previously were.
5. Your Emotions Are Out of Control
If you find that your emotions are increasing in intensity, especially if they are disproportionate to the situation at hand, it may be a sign that something deeper is going on. Emotions are an essential and healthy part of life, but they are designed to help us keep a solid understanding at what is going on under the surface. Explosive emotional responses are often a sign that we have been neglecting ourselves in some way. Counseling can help to uncover and address some of that neglect and explore whatever experiences may have contributed to the neglect in the first place.
6. You Are Abusing Alcohol, Food, Sex, or Drugs to Cope
It is an understatement to say that life can be stressful at times. Often, we turn to harmful substances or behaviors to make ourselves feel better but often find that relief comes at too high a cost. If you are unable to stop these harmful coping behaviors despite their negative impacts on your life, it is time to seek out help.
7. You Need to Understand Why You Do the Things You Do, Think or Feel
Understanding ourselves is one of the greatest joys and greatest challenges in our lives. We often view ourselves through highly biased viewpoints and can be blind to areas in which we are damaging ourselves or others. Working with an unbiased therapist can often create a pathway to viewing ourselves in a newer and healthier light. Therapy can function as a mirror to help identify the areas in our life where we need to grow.
8. Your Relationships Are Not Going Well
Our relationships are often near-perfect measuring devices for how we are doing in life. Relationships are some of the greatest joys that we can experience as they offer connection and intimacy, yet they are often the first casualty of mental unhealth. A therapist can help you understand your blocks to intimacy and relational unrest.
9. You Often Experience ‘Funks’
Ups and downs are a completely healthy and normal part of life. However, sometimes our downs can hit much harder than we would like or than we expect. Seeking counseling when things are going well can help predict and prevent those times of feeling in a funk. The good news is that even if you are currently in a funk, therapy can greatly benefit you in getting back to some stable ground. You will learn strategies and principles that will help to keep the next low from being quite so low.
10. People Keep Telling You to Seek Out Counseling
Family and friends are not always correct when they are telling you that you should go to therapy. And to be completely honest, if you do not want to come to therapy, or you do not feel that it will be helpful, therapy won’t be nearly as effective. But if friends or family are pointing out that you don’t seem like yourself, or that you might need help, it may be worth considering. Friends and family have an outside perspective of us and can sometimes spot patterns and red flags before we can spot them ourselves. Therapy is completely confidential, and your friend and family never even have to know that you have started to come. At the end of the day, counseling is for you and you alone. Giving yourself the time and space to work on yourself can be very powerful.
11. An Issue Has Decreased Your Quality of Life
Life is not always easy, and nobody has all the answers, all the time. Perhaps you’ve run out of strategies for how to deal with a life that increasingly feels out of control. Perhaps you aren’t even sure exactly why you feel stressed every day, but you just know that the sense of overwhelm is increasing.
The good news is that therapy isn’t just for those who feel sad, it’s also great for stress and anxiety, and a counselor can help you figure out the reasons behind any unexplained overwhelm as well as help you make life choices that work better for you.
12. You Feel Stuck
Sometimes, we can feel like we are trapped on the same loop over and over. Perhaps it is not seeing eye-to-eye with those around us, or perhaps the situation we are stuck in isn’t even that bad, it just isn’t where we want to be. Often when we are in a situation we can’t control, our answer is simply to increase the intensity of our efforts. Yet we find that while that solution might work in some situations, it does not work in all of them. Counseling is a great tool for helping to identify the reasons that are causing you to feel trapped and address them in a meaningful and lasting way.
13. You Have Lost Someone or Something Important
Grief and loss are two of the most terrible experiences in life. It can be a difficult process to endure, especially alone. It is okay to not be okay, but if you are feeling stuck in your grief and want to begin the process of moving forward, it is probably time to start seeing a therapist.
14. You Are on This Website Right Now
Seeking out therapy, and therapeutic resources is usually a very clear sign that a person is considering and moving towards accepting the fact that they could benefit from counseling. Trust yourself and your gut intuition here. If you are reading this right now and have gotten this far in the list, let’s acknowledge (and celebrate) the fact that you are likely looking for help. The therapists at Renewing Life Center really want to speak with you and hear about whatever might be going on in your life.
15. You Are Ready to Heal
The healing process is not nearly as complicated or intimidating as a person might think. Often the first step is reading up on resources that may be beneficial. Seeing a therapist is a wonderful process that has been proven to have lasting effects and can greatly increase the quality of your life. Life shouldn’t be endured; it should be enjoyed. At Renewing Life Center, we really enjoy getting to work with clients through their pain and help them to build a more healthy and hopeful future. If you can see yourself starting the work of therapy or just want to learn more about the process, please feel free to Contact Us at any time.