I Tried Better Help. Then I Quit. Here's Why.

It all started out fine...

The results of the anxiety assessment I took as part of intake for Better Help.

About a year ago, I was in a really bad place. Years of incredibly intense financial stress were taking their toll on my body. I’d gained fifty pounds of pure stress fat. My feet were killing me, the result of planter fasciitis (which was the result of aforementioned weight gain and running around my cabin barefoot). My skin was red and splotchy, my sleep nonexistent. The last straw, the one that led me to finally seek out therapy, was my hair falling out in quarter size clumps, the result of stress-induced alopecia. I’d tried therapy in 2013, but hadn’t had a great connection with the therapist so ended up quitting after a few months. So my feelings about therapy were that I was open to it but not sure how to find a therapist I matched with.

In order to maintain my Adderall prescription (I was diagnosed with ADHD at age thirty-seven) I have to chat with a psychiatrist every few months. But those chats are mainly about what’s happening chemically and logistically with my body, they aren’t necessarily an opportunity to go over my life’s stressors and finding tools to keep them in perspective. So I needed additional help and I decided I should give therapy a try one more time.

I started asking around if friends had any therapists they liked. And it was no surprise that no one seemed to have any suggestions - it was a time where therapists and psychiatrists were so over-booked that no one could find one. I’d been hearing ads for Better Help on just about every podcast I listen to, so I decided it couldn’t hurt to give it a try. Plus, I figured it would be a sort of public service to try it out and write about what it was like. I was sure many other people had wondered if it was legit or not, so I figured trying it could be a way of finding a decent therapist and letting everyone know how the process worked. The results were a mixed bag, as you’ll see below.