Let me acknowledge this first, as soon as I saw the headline of this article, I immediately thought, “who gets to choose what time of day they go to their therapy appointments? You take whatever you can get!”
Is There A Best Time Of Day For Therapy? Here’s What Therapists Say
That’s not wrong. On the other hand, I think there are some good points to consider when you choose, if you have a choice, about the time of day.
As children in an abusive situation, we may have learned a lot of things that helped us survive that situation. Outside of that situation, as adults, however, it may be time to unlearn some of those things.
For example, we can’t learn to trust a person as an adult until we first unlearn that “fact” we took from childhood that no one was to be trusted. We can’t learn to love ourselves until we unlearn the blame and shame we took upon ourselves due to the abuse.
When my wife and I both lost our parents in a short period, I was thankful that there were people in our lives who gave us space to grieve and checked in on both of us. I’m also acutely aware of how different the reactions were as well. Part of that was the difference in relationships, my wife was much closer to her parents than I was to mine, but there was also an undertone where I was expected to be less emotional about it than she was. Again, plenty of people did better, but it was still there.
I also recognize that I was lucky to have people in my life who saw that. Many men do not have any space to grieve or process emotions other than anger. For those men, read the whole thing and learn how to create space.
We do need each other. There is no replacement for the support of another human being, regardless of what that support might look like. Just not being left alone with our struggles is a source of support.
This then brings Ben to another important point. Imagine if we all had a modicum of education about mental health and could not only show up for each other but show up with some educated actions to take.
We never get to see other people’s thoughts if they choose not to share them. We see ALL of our thoughts, however. That puts us at a disadvantage when deciding what we “deserve” compared to others. We might do well to assume that everyone has the same kind of thoughts that we do at times because we all do. We just don’t talk about them and share them with the world. (Most of us, anyway)
And we all deserve self-care.
I have two takeaways after reading the rest of the article.
1. Difficult things seem easier when there is someone with us. The lack of friendships can make life seem more difficult than it really is. When life seems too difficult, we might be more likely to give up, or for the stress to have health impacts that lower our life expectancy.
2. The best thing you can do for someone struggling is simply showing up beside them.
