My name is Hannah and I go to a psychologist. I also go to the dentist and I get my yearly physical because I care about my physical health as well as my mental health.
The purpose of that is not to get sympathy or dwell into my neuroticism, it’s because it catches your attention. I get it, I go to a psychologist myself and when I hear other people admit that, it still takes me back a little. One day I hope it won’t.
This isn’t because I want to have a big social fest where we all chat about our disorders and our latest session with a highly-educated individual of whom we pay a fortune to, but because I think it’s important that we treat our mental health the way we do our physical.
Going to a psychologist doesn’t require you to be severely depressed, crazy or in mourning. I personally go to a psychologist because I’ve dealt with anxiety my whole life and being a young adult can get pretty stressful.
I think that having a place where you’re not only allowed, but expected to talk about what is simply going on in your life and how you feel about it, is a really important and beneficial thing for people to do, no matter how cheesy it sounds.
Far too many times when something terrible happens like an attack or a suicide, we later find out that that person was dealing with an imploding mental disorder, whether they were born with it or if it was caused by their environment. And the worst part of it all, it seems that “none of us knew anything was wrong.”
For one, people are pretty self-concerned, not necessarily in a bad way, but 95 percent of the time I’m too concerned with my own issues to think anyone else has them too. Second, wondering if someone is going to do something lethal isn’t usually something we consider an obvious option. We let a lot of problems slip beneath us, until the whole foundation crumbles at once.
I think this is especially concerning for children. Unlike adults, most children don’t even know or understand what a mental disorder is. I experienced depression, panic attacks and separation anxiety for years as a kid, but I locked it up inside because I just thought I was crazy and weird.
Had I or other children of been able to identify our symptoms with a disorder or just know that having weird feelings is okay, I think it would have significantly improved the situation.
This is why I advocate to normalize therapy. I understand this resource can be limited because of the financial strain and I hope accessibility will improve over time, but there are resources out there. Mental disorders come in many shades of difficulty, but they are manageable unless they’re neglected, just like if you leave any other physical illness untreated.
Given the place to sit with an educated individual whose job is to listen and help, we learn how to talk about our issues and more importantly, how to cope with them.
This is why I don’t hide that I go to a psychologist. I refuse to act like something so helpful and necessary to our health is a scandalous secret because the truth is, it’s not a big deal.
If you’re struggling to find peace with your mind, then look into your options. See if your insurance covers it, your school or work offers it or just open up to a friend if you can’t afford it. We owe it to ourselves to not only validate our struggles, but to learn to overcome them.
Hannah Hamlin
Reporter