- Hello friend, how are you doing today?
I am here to talk about something that is
very near and dear to my
heart that I care about a lot,
and that thing is mental health.
(soft music)
More specifically, therapy.
More specifically, the stigma
around going to therapy,
and generally getting help for any kind of
mental health issues or general concerns
that you may be having.
I love talking to people
about going to therapy
because, like, three out of five times,
their response is, "Oh my god, me too.
"Tell me about your therapist."
And the other two, two out of five,
that's the ratio I said.
The other two out of five times it's like,
"Oh interesting, tell me more about that.
"I've thought about that for myself."
Or, "My brother or my
best friend is in therapy
"and I don't know a lot about it."
And I've been in and out of therapy since
I was, like, 10 years old.
So, that's more than half
of my life that I have spent
going in little bursts to talk to people
about my feelings, because
I have a lot of feelings.
When I first started going to therapy,
I was really embarrassed about it.
Maybe not, embarrassed is the wrong word.
Maybe just like, I felt
shameful or I felt like
something was wrong
with me because that is
how society talks about
mental health in general.
When we have mental health concerns,
the message a lot of times
is that you're broken
or that you're crazy, which is a word that
I don't like to use, or that
something is wrong with you.
And really, that is not the case.
So here's the thing about therapy.
It is not necessarily the
thing that works for everyone,
but it works really well
for a lot of people,
and that's because if you
find the right therapist,
you can tailor therapy to
be really whatever you need.
For some people, therapy is beneficial
because it allows you to just vent to a
neutral third party human who
validates you and affirms you.
There's this thing called
cognitive behavioral therapy
where you learn how to
actually produce thoughts
that combat difficult thoughts
or non-productive thoughts
that you're having.
Mindfulness therapy,
there's all these different
techniques and different kinds of therapy
that you can use to
actually learn to deal with
the feelings that you're having.
I have bipolar disorder
with depression and anxiety
on and off, so that kind of explains why
sometimes I need therapy
more times than others,
and a good therapist will validate that
and want to help you work
through that and make it so
that, like, you can experience sadness
and sometimes depression and anxiety
and really heavy things
without it ruining your life.
So the stigma around
therapy comes from this
deep rooted system of ableism,
where we think that people
who are neurotypical,
as some people like to say,
or who do not deal with
serious mental health issues
are somehow better than people who do
have some kind of mental health issues.
So the reality is that none of us is ever
going to get through
life without a little bit
of mental health, like,
stuff now and then,
just like nobody goes through life without
occasionally having to go to the doctor.
Everyone is going to
go through it, and so,
to pathologize and
marginalize and stigmatize
the people who deal with it
for longer periods of time
or for whom it's a more salient part
of who they are and their day-to-day life,
that's a really crappy thing to do.
I will say it can take a
really long time to find
a therapist that is the
right match for you,
and for some people,
that can be reason enough
not to go, right?
I have had therapists that I only went to
for three or four sessions
because that's all I needed
or because I didn't like them.
When I moved to New York
a couple of years ago,
I went on five, what I call,
first dates with therapists,
which was just, like, the
first, not actual dates,
but when I just, like, went for an intro
getting to know you session, basically.
And I was like, nope, nope, nope, nope.
Like, none of you are right for me.
I don't like any of you.
We're not jiving very well.
And then the fifth one was
the one that worked out,
who is the person that I go to see now.
Part of that was also coming
out to each therapist.
One of my biggest priorities when I'm
looking for a therapist is to
come out to them immediately
and see how they respond.
And some of them, it's great,
and some of them, it's not.
I had one person who, I was
talking about my girlfriend
and I kept saying the word "girlfriend,"
and she kept saying the
word "lover" back to me,
and that was a huge red
flag, so I got out of there.
Ended the session early, never went back.
Other people, you'll come
out to them and their
first impression is like, "No, but how did
"your family take it?
"Like, are you sure it's not about that?
"Are you sure it's not
because you're gay that
"you have all these issues?"
My first therapist that I really liked,
I went to just as I was coming out,
and I was kind of struggling with it.
And she told me to write
a letter to my parents
that was, like, a coming out letter,
because I didn't really
have, like, a good,
formal coming out to my
parents that I had planned.
So she was like, here, write a letter
to your parents coming out.
And I wrote it, and I
went back, and I read it
out loud to her, and I cried,
and it was really hard,
but it was helpful.
So, that was a time when a therapist set
a really good example
for me by identifying
that there was a specific
problem linked to my
sexual orientation that I was having
that I wanted to talk
about, but after that,
the good ones have been the
ones who recognize, like,
oh, this is just like
a part of who she is,
and actually, the anxiety
is based on something
totally unrelated, so
we don't even have to
talk about that piece right now.
So that leads me to a
little footnote about, like,
the hurdles of going to therapy sometimes.
So, finding a therapist
is a big one, of course.
Some people have had traumatic
experiences with therapists
who misgender them or who
de-legitimize their identities,
which sucks and I'm sorry
that you went through that.
Other people, it's just
not what they need.
So, for me, my mental
health wellness routine
involves going to therapy and taking meds,
and also just doing regular
self-care check in things.
For some people, it's only
bits and pieces of that.
It's only meds or only
therapy or only running
or singing or whatever,
whatever your self-care
method of choice is.
Money is also obviously a big one.
Therapy can be super
expensive, depending on
how often you go, and
insurance, and private practices
and all of that.
A lot of health insurance
plans do cover therapy,
so if you have health insurance,
I would recommend going
through your provider
to find who is in your
network and who is covered
because then you can get
it for cheap or free.
If that's not an option,
then you can shop around
at websites like Zocdoc.
If you're still in
school, you should be able
to go to a school counselor
and either talk to them
or talk to them about getting references
for an outside therapist which
is totally legit as well.
I have even known therapists who have done
sessions for free if
they have clients who are
really in need of it and
who don't have the money
to pay for it.
I'm not suggesting that
you, like, ask a therapist
to give you free sessions because, like,
mental health professionals
are still, like, working people
who have to feed their families,
so don't take advantage of them.
But most people are really great,
maybe not most people, a lot of people
are really great about
working with you and
coming up with a payment
plan and a schedule
that works for you.
Therapy has been life-changing for me,
and I would recommend
it to anybody who even
remotely thinks that it might help them.
You can figure out a plan
that works well for you
and that is tailored to
exactly what you need
to just be your best self.
Not necessarily get better,
because mental health
conditions aren't things that we cure.
They're things that we learn to live with
and to accommodate into our lives.
Therapists are there
to help you figure out
how that works for you.
The moral of the story
is that mental illness
is nothing to be ashamed of and neither is
going to therapy.
Your emotions are valid
exactly as they are
and you have every right to feel them,
and if they are troubling
you, that is a great reason
to go out into the world
and to seek out help
to make you be at peace with
the brain that you have,
because it can be a really
good one and it should be.
So, hmm.
I think that's all I've got in this.
I would love to talk
more about this stuff.
I'm new to talking about
it but I think it's like
giving me a sense of strength kind of,
and so, hopefully you can
get that from it as well.
Please subscribe to this
channel and like this video
and follow me on Tumblr and
on Twitter and on Facebook
and all of those other things that exist.
Thank you for being you.
I love you.
Goodbye.
(soft music)
