Note: This post mentions suicide and depression. Please skip if those topics are particularly troubling for you to read about.
It’s my birthday today and to say the past year has been a struggle is a massive understatement. Like so many people around the world, my work, personal life, and financial stability were thrown completely off by the pandemic and its after effects. Which is one of the reasons I keep writing about it. I know a lot of people are struggling with the same things and not seeing their stories reflected because quite frankly we’re all sick of the story by now.
After the passing of a friend a few weeks ago I realized it was probably time to invest in therapy. While I don’t have suicidal thoughts, I’ve certainly understood the feeling that has led several of my friends to suicide the past few years. That sense that regardless how hard you try, no one will understand what you are going through or be able to see it fully. That you are toiling alone, endlessly, with no sign of relief in sight. That is probably why I write all this out - so I can see my experience outside my head and know it exists and is not just some fabrication of my imagination.
There’s a certain kind of virtuousness surrounding therapy that I have a huge issue with. Amongst privileged circles, there’s a common belief that “everyone should do therapy!” And yeah, I agree with that. But the inherent classicism in even saying that is beyond privileged. Not everyone has health insurance. And not every health insurance covers mental health care. The notion that “everyone should do therapy” sidesteps the fact that it is too expensive for most people.
My main stressor the past three years, the one that has caused a massive decline in my mental and physical health, is money. So the notion of spending money to try and work on my worry about money, felt kinda stupid. Yes, I have wanted to try therapy for a while. But also yes paying someone money to listen to me explain why I’m stressed about money… Feels like a waste of money to a certain degree!
Looking back at the past few years with some separation, I have realized a lot of the things thrown my way have been challenges that added together probably would have made many people lose their minds. I’ve told you about some of these things but many have remained private. And so my goal is to not be thrown off. My goal is to work with someone to create some coping skills for when times are bad. I’m bad at dealing with less-than-perfect situations and I want to get better at keeping my cool in the midst of struggle.
One thing that kept me from therapy was constantly hearing how hard it is to find a therapist these days. So after hearing ads for the therapy app Better Help on basically every podcast I listen to I decided to just try it. Worst case scenario it would be a good story I could share here to help people avoid using a bad app. Best case scenario: I get matched with a good therapist and make some progress.
Better Help has a relatively easy process to finding you a therapist. I don’t know what the experience is like on a computer, I used their app so I will be describing my experience with that. The app is pretty self-explanatory and leads you through a number of questionnaires about your life, your mental state, and your preferences for a doctor. Because a lot of the issues I’m dealing with relate to relationships, body dysmorphia, and the sometimes crushing pressure of living as a gay man, I knew I wanted to work with a gay therapist.
The app had me do a few assessments but the only one I remember is the anxiety assessment, which came up with the following result:
I mean, yeah. Seems right unfortunately. But part of me wondered if this assessment was a sales tactic, like a way of assuring people worried they might have an anxiety issue that they do in fact have an anxiety issue and should seek help. Was this some way to placate me into signing up? After all, it seems like people are often seeking validation about their feelings. Like if you tell someone you’re anxious, would you rather they be like “no you’re not” or “Dang! You’re 20 out of 21 anxious that’s bad!”
With mental health care being advertised this heavily and being monetized so blatantly, I was unsure if I was being manipulated in a way that felt inappropriate for something healthcare-related. Though to be honest, I really can’t think of another instance of feeling the app was trying to steer me in a way I didn’t want to go. It’s clear the design of the app pushes the user towards signing up to chat with a therapist. But it’s also clear that if someone downloads this app, they’ve made a decision already that they would like to talk to a therapist.
It feels a little unfair to chat specifically about my therapist outside his general qualifications because A) It’s unlikely you’d get the same therapist if you signed up for Better Help and B) Therapy is conversational so my impression of the efficacy of my therapist’s tactic might not be representative of how good a job he’s actually doing.
I’ve had three sessions with the therapist and it’s helped me in a few ways but has mostly been about filling him in on my backstory and my situation. I guess some of the guilt that comes with therapy is the idea that it’s a bit indulgent. You’re basically paying someone to be on your side, to see what you’re dealing with. And I guess part of me thinks I should be able to get this type of support from people I know. To a large degree, I can. I know a lot of very intelligent, sensitive people. But they haven’t been trained to help people strategize ways out of their own misery. They might be too close to me to truly be able to see my situation, my missteps, and ways I can improve.
I tried therapy years ago in 2013 when I was going through a tumultuous breakup and it didn’t workout. I just didn’t jive with the therapist. I felt like every question he asked me made me feel less and less understood, more alone in my feelings. I don’t think he was a bad therapist by any means, but I think generally our communication and language styles just didn’t complement each other. As with any relationship, it’s important that you speak the same language as your therapist. And by that I don’t mean that you both speak English (or Spanish or French or whatever), I mean that your sensibilities match enough that you can communicate easily.
At this point, I don’t really see a big difference between finding a therapist through Better Help and finding them through word of mouth or your insurance provider. To a certain degree, you don’t really know what you’re going to get. And even once you’ve started interacting with your therapist it takes a while to see if it’s a fit or not.
I’m chatting with a really cute guy I met on Raya who lives in New York and is a psychologist and he told me a few things my therapist said seemed like red flags and that I should consider trying a new one. I’m open to the idea but I tend to be extremely loyal, even to people I don’t know very well. I’m gonna give it a few more sessions and see how it goes, but so far my impression of my treatment has been relatively good but hasn’t “solved” any issues.
I don’t feel particularly “healed” or that I’ve had any significant breakthroughs, but I do feel like there’s value in saying these things out loud to a person trained to intake them. I’m not entirely sure what my expectations are. Mainly I’m doing this because I want to the kind of person who lets stuff roll off his back rather than the type that frets about everything all the time. Even when there are legit things to fret about all the time.
I went into this trial of Better Help (which I paid for, this is not a sponsored post) feeling a bit suspicious of an app that claimed to match you with legit therapists. Thus far, I’ve found the functionality of the whole system pretty great. It’s been easy for me to schedule weekly appointments, at this point I’m used to video chatting with doctors so that doesn’t seem weird to me.
Honestly I feel like this is kind of a non-review. Because while I think it’s pretty cool I was able to find a doctor so easily, I don’t have years of therapy to compare it with. Ultimately it’s just another tool to find the “right therapist.” In “these trying times” it seems like if you have the ability to test out therapy you should go for it, using whatever tools you have, including apps. I’ll report back and let you know if my impression of this service changes but so far it’s a solid B+.
In the meantime, I know there are probably a lot of resources out there for people who cannot afford therapy. So if you know of any, I’d appreciate it if you could share them in the comments in case they are of service to other readers.
Thank you for sharing your experience! Access to mental health treatment is definitely a major common issue. Often, universities and training programs will have very cheap therapy conducted by trainees. I had two therapy clients (weekly sessions were free but some people decided to charge $10-20 a session) that I kept for 2 years when I was in training. If people went on the have private practices, they often would “grandfather” in their therapy clients for a sliding scale cost after training. Hope this is helpful!
Thank you for sharing Orlando. I stopped therapy when the pandemic began and never went back. Part of me misses it but I don’t think I can go back to in person sessions. I always got super nervous before sessions, like butterflies. I think it was (1) fear of what might get cracked open and (2) being a shy-ish introvert was difficult in that scenario.
I never solved anything and still have much to work out but I did get a lot of answers and information. My bag of fun is a childhood trauma, anxiety & panic disorder, and eating disorder recovery. Between the pandemic and our political environment it’s been A LOT.