Therapy

[HotPotato]

Hey y'all. My anxiety, voices and other fun mental stuff has been getting worse, and to be honest I'm not sure how much longer I can handle it. I'm ok some of the time, but like once a day it'll get really bad for a couple hours, and it's a lot of why I relapsed and I know it's not as bad as most people but honestly I'm kind of scared, and frustrated and just done, so I messaged 2 places about starting therapy, I'm not sure how it'll go. Any advice, or experiences with doing therapy? Did it help with the urge to cut or did talking about it make it worse? Thanks for replying if you do and I hope everyone's doing good

[Deborrah]

It's great that you are reaching out and looking for therapy HP! It can be stressful for a lot of people and you've done the first, hardest step. You're doing great :)

Personally, I've been in mental health services since I was a child, with therapy on and off for those years, and some of it helped, and some didn't. I have been doing dialectical behavior therapy for the last year, though, and I have found it to be immensely helpful with self-harming. Where I used to do it every day, I now do it very rarely. It's a structured type of therapy that teaches you skills and I would definitely suggest to look DBT up online and try some of the skills - for myself, with self-harm what helped were mindfulness, TIPP, STOP, and self-soothe skills - it's something to try while also going to therapy, even if your therapist doesn't do DBT therapy.

My advice is, don't get discouraged. Sometimes you can meet a therapist and they may not be the right fit, this is very very very common, in this case just keep searching - someone will help.

[sherbet lemon]

Hey there, I'm sorry to hear that you've been struggling, you've mad a really good step in seeking help. Have u any services or help on place for u to talk to someone in the meantime. I suffered from trauma and anxiety and depression in the past and had therapy for it a few years bk it really helped.
What things he'll u distract from the voices and ur problems at the minute maybe making a list of them and doing some will help

[Auror.]

I've found talking about things can be really hard and sometimes make things more difficult at first, because it's stressful to talk about those types of things. But in the long run it can really help. The big thing is that you need to be able to be as honest and open about what is going on as possible. If you find in the short term that after sessions you are really struggling, ask for either a few minutes at the end of each session to decompress, or ask for help with figuring out what to do once you get home and how to manage.

For me, I generally won't schedule anything for the rest of the day after therapy. I just need to be able to go home and rest/relax. Doing mental work can be exhausting both physically and mentally, so allow yourself the time you need to recover.