How Do You Know it is Time for Therapy?

Living in New York City, it seems that everyone has a shrink presently, or met with someone at some point in their lives.

But there are so many who do not, and who would benefit from it so much.   They have seemingly legitimate excuses to not start: they do not want to spend the money; they do not have time; they work too much; their problems are high class or first world; they can speak to their friends; they can speak to their mother.

This may reveal what is happening unconsciously for a person: they do not feel deserving of help; it feels indulgent; they are afraid of what therapy might reveal; they cannot deal with what happened when they were young.

For people in their 20’s, there is the barrier of youth and time.  At this age, you rationalize that it will all just turn around. It is extremely hard to differentiate what is a real issue versus what is growing pains.  The transition from college to work, break ups to dating and finding new love, figuring out how to balance a social life with work life, the stigma therapy might all have to peers, not knowing how to negotiate for yourself or even a previous, negative experience in therapy.

A message to those reading this that are in your 20’s: if you figure it out now, it will save you in the future.  Why wait until you are in your 30’s and 40’s, when you think that you are missing milestones that you have been waiting for and feel left behind.

Although I believe everyone can benefit from therapy there are many people that do great in life without it.  So how do you figure out which category you are part of?

How many boxes do you check below?

1. You do not cope well with life’s challenges.
You experience depression or anxiety, you do not want to participate in life the same way and you stay attached to things for too long.

2. You are stuck in old ways.
You are not meeting your potential in your relationships or career, for example: love, friendship, family connections, career.  You have a hard time making career moves, breaking up with someone, finding new love, starting a new venture, etc.

3. You have difficulties maintaining close connections with friends.

4. You harbor too much anger and it comes out in the wrong places.
You are constantly getting angry.  You are aggressive at inappropriate times, a typical example is a children’s sporting game.

5. You develop unhealthy habits as a way to avoid your feelings.
You drink too much.  You work too much.  You are on social media too much.  You are eating too much.  The key words here are too much.

6. Your love life is painful.
You start to notice what is going wrong in your love life and feel that it keeps happening time and time again, even though you think the people you are dating seem different.

7. You think you know what needs to change in your life but you just cannot do it.

The reality is although we think we know ourselves, we are only 5% consciously aware.  The other 95% is unconscious and in control of everything.  What this means is that even if we know what we are supposed to do to make changes in our lives, we still struggle to do it.  This is when you need someone else to work with you to come up with new ideas that will manifest into new behaviors.

As a reminder: it is okay to ask for help when you need it. I promise you that it will be the best money and time ever spent once you feel that barrier begin to lift.