Modern Therapy Stories

Depression makes you feel dark and gloomy inside, but when you are willing to face the truth about how it affects your life, there is a bright side, and the advantages may help you focus on moving forward. Dealing with depression is more than just dealing with persistent sadness and mood swings. It involves understanding how to replace negative thoughts with positive behaviors. For example, before I sought help for my depression, I would label myself as a failure for not reaching a goal, and exaggerate the outcome. Instead of dwelling on the result and letting negative thoughts take over, I learned to challenge my thoughts.

Hi, I’m Anya and I’m depressed. I’m also a millennial and an immigrant. And I believe these latter facts have a major influence on the former.

You’re probably here because something about the title of this article intrigued you. I promise, we’re going to get to talking about being the child of a veteran and how that’s impacted my mental health. If you are the child of a veteran, I hear you and see you. We’re in this together. First, you have to know some background.

It took me about five years to finally decide to seek therapy. I'd been feeling depressed and anxious on and off since the beginning of college, and once it started affecting me into my adulthood I decided I had to do something about it. During college I had the mindset of "If I got myself into this, then I can get myself out of it." I figured I didn't need anyone's help. I simply didn't understand at the time how deep my emotional pain was. It wasn't until I matured a little bit that I realized I couldn't solve it all on my own.

I go to therapy to learn about myself, not to fix myself, but I didn’t realize that when I began. So maybe I should start at the beginning. I started therapy in the way that most people start therapy: apprehensively. I was going through a hard time, sure, but plenty of people go through hard times without the aid of a therapist. Did it make me weak, relying on someone else? Was I giving up on my own ability to persevere? Was it just going to be a waste of my time?

My journey with therapy began almost 10 years ago, when I went through a challenging break up and found myself in an extremely dark place. I did not recognize myself anymore and I received a few signs that told me it was time to seek some professional support.

I have been reflecting lately on the ways in which therapy has impacted me. I think the biggest impact has actually been a physical one. I am now really beginning to understand the mind/body connection.

My quarantine habits snuck up on me. Sometime back in early March, I told myself I would put together a daily routine as soon as we figured out how to take MyWellbeing’s in-person therapy matchmaking service fully remote. I would definitely replace my daily walks with another form of exercise.

New artists are selfish.

Do you want to come home for Christmas?

I can feel the weight behind my eyes and the heat in my throat. I know exactly what I want to write. And yet, to be honest, I have absolutely no idea how to write about the holidays because I can’t seem to remember a holiday that wasn’t traumatic.

What you need to know is earlier that year I met the man who I thought I was going to marry. You know how it goes - he kisses you on the corner of Leroy and Bleecker and you think you’re just going to faint right then and there, and he pulls away and looks at you with those ridiculous blue eyes and says...

This week, we are grateful to read MyWellbeing member and NYC therapist Sydney Rose’s perspective on body image, particularly when it feels like your body can be hard to love. An important read this summer.

When we understand grief only in association with the loss of a person, we do not fully recognize the pervasive consequences that come with a death. NYC grief therapist and My Wellbeing member Rebecca Gerstein helps us to more fully understand grief’s ripple effects, educating us about secondary losses.

Allyson Byers, therapy-goer and wellness writer, about why she is so glad she gave her therapist a second chance after a bumpy start. Sometimes, one meeting is not enough to know, and we need a friend like Allyson had to help us give our therapist another shot.

Through poetic and relatable story-telling, Barbara Baker shares about her early experiences with therapy, obstacles she faced getting started, and how she finally found the right fit.

Learning Spanish, however, allowed me to be gritty. The difference was that it was okay not to know everything. It was okay if I couldn't conjugate a word correctly, or if vocabulary slipped my mind. No one -- myself included -- expected me to be perfect at Spanish out the gate. That would be wildly unrealistic -- I was still learning.

Reflecting on Father’s Day last weekend, Joe Atanasio, a psychologist and father in My Wellbeing’s community, shares with us some foundational Freud concepts (he is the father of psychotherapy, after all), examines how they fit into his mindset as a mental healthcare professional watching his two kids grow, and why, once in a while, it all drives him crazy.

When most people envision going to therapy, the image that comes to mind is one of a tastefully decorated, if plain, room in an office suite, with a bookshelf, a couch, and a white noise machine. Somehow, my therapy journey led me to the corrugated tin room of a Spanish language school in Guatemala, struggling to hang on to a fleeting wifi signal as I talked through my feelings in my late twenties…

I’ve always been hard on myself. Guilt would weigh down on me like a rock in my chest at the end of the day. For a long time, I accepted it as part of life. I knew it wasn’t normal, but I thought there was nothing I could do about it. This is just how I am, I can deal with it. What I realized eventually was that I couldn’t. Not alone, anyway.

This past mid-March, I was riding high, literally. I stood at the top of a mountain, dressed in an insulated, neon ski suit, poles in hand, ready to ski. I was running My Wellbeing, working actively as a therapist with a number of individuals, spending quality time with friends and family, and thought things were finally coming together...

Dr. Danna Bodenheimer, LCSW, author of On Clinical Social Work:Meditations and Truths From the Field and Real World Clinical Social Work: Find Your Voice and Find Your Way, reflects on 2017 and shares her perspective and practical tips for self-care, particularly in the social work profession.

Dr. Michael Alcee, a psychologist in private practice, TedX speaker, musician, and teacher, shares his journey from "walking supervision" to learning how liberating walking, movement, and creativity can be.

Originally published by NASW Currents, Alyssa shares about the nature of trauma and first steps to approach its processing and healing.