Why therapy is beneficial to your mental health
TW// suicidal thoughts
When I was diagnosed with major depression at 18 years old, I should have figured out early on that I would eventually need therapy to cope with its symptoms. A chemical imbalance in the brain can cause major depression — which, I believe, is a major factor in my case — but there are other factors that can trigger depressive episodes, especially in teens.
However, at 18, I didn’t understand mental illness, so I was quickly treated with medication and haphazardly joined impersonal programs at the advice of mental health professionals, hoping my symptoms would subside. I didn’t know how to advocate for myself and didn’t recognize the value of non-chemical solutions to mental health challenges. Only after suicidal thoughts, excruciating mental agony, hospital visits, and another relapse four years later, did I start reconsidering additional treatment methods alongside my medication. I then began a long journey to recovery.
Fast forward 10 years, and I still deal with the lows of depression, such as ruminating thoughts, anxiety, self-sabotage, and overall negative thinking. Depression can also be isolating if you don’t have people around you who understand what you are going through. Society has gradually come a long way regarding awareness of mental health, but culturally, my community still has some ways to go. Being black, I rarely felt my mental illness was understood by other black people, especially the older generations. When I was trying to comprehend my own mental chaos, the stigma of family members and church folk who didn’t understand made the experience even more isolating.
But over the years, as I put the pieces of my experiences together, I realized that therapy was a missing component in my journey to wellness. I’d tried therapeutic programs in my early years of struggling, but I took access to therapy for granted, not recognizing its value in the midst of combined depression symptoms and stigma. Today, I am finally at the stage where I can appreciate therapy, and since starting almost a year ago, I have improved in awareness of myself and my emotions, I’ve learned boundaries, and I feel so much less alone on my journey.
Therapy is helpful to your healing because you have a safe space to talk about everything that weighs you down without fear of being judged or dismissed. You have someone trained to listen, care, empathize with your feelings, and suggest ways you can feel better at the moment and in the future. I remember my therapist told me to write a letter to my younger self in one of my first sessions, and it was the first time someone I’d spoken with had ever identified that, sometimes, our insecurities connect to our childhoods.
Doing therapy has given me permission to feel seen, heard, and validated — and coming from a Caribbean background, this isn’t a communication style that my family is familiar with.
Therapy is helpful to your healing because you have a safe space to talk about everything that weighs you down without fear of being judged or dismissed. You have someone trained to listen, care, empathize with your feelings, and suggest ways you can feel better at the moment and in the future.
Although I’ve relied on medication to treat my depression, medication isn’t the only way to alleviate symptoms. It eases your symptoms — it helps me feel like I can breathe again — but therapy is what I needed to get over stigma, isolation, insecurities, and all the other difficulties experienced in our teens and twenties.
If you struggle with a mental illness and have considered therapy, or even if you don’t struggle and just want to try it, do it. There are so many other things we invest in and, although therapy can be costly, it’s one investment that is worth it because your healing is the key to succeeding in every area of your life.
Therapy matters because we all need support on our journeys and you shouldn’t have to heal alone.
