It’s not easy being a therapist. It’s not easy treating patients and dealing with their peculiarities. Now, add dealing with insurance companies whose primary goal seems to be to pay the least amount possible for mental healthcare, and it makes sense to me why so many therapists drop out of insurance networks.
What I appreciate most is that in putting this together, they recognize the importance of support and connection from the people in our lives every day instead of just telling people to go to therapy and not worry about the strength of their relationships. We’ve spent far too long avoiding talking directly about mental health because even saying you have a therapist is considered taboo.
Gretchen is right; they don’t tell you this when you start doing healing work on your trauma, but it’s a skill you’re going to need:
But for most people healing from trauma, it’s not about going away to get better, it is about learning to stay. Stay with the part of you that is healing. And stay with the part of you doing your day-to-day life. Healing from trauma is about learning to hold both: your life in the present and your trauma history–all at the same time.
There’s no replacement for knowing your people and keeping in touch with them in the appropriate ways. Of course, a quick text message never hurt anyone if you aren’t sure. It’s not like most of us overcommunicate with our close friends and loved ones.
If someone you know is grieving the passing of a loved one, take a look at this article and pay special attention to the ones that talk about sharing memories. I am not Jewish, so I don’t quote this exactly, but I draw inspiration from a traditional Jewish saying about death – “May their memory be a blessing.”
I find that memories are the best things to hold on to. They truly are a blessing.
Unspoken in her article but implied by the risk associated with loneliness, we’d also do well to create more community. What I think takes many of these risk factors from challenging to overwhelming is when we are left to deal with them alone. We might see these trends reverse when we have the proper support and mental health resources, but we’re not there yet. Too many people are alone.
