5 Reasons Why March of 2020 is the Best Time to Start Therapy
We’re living in weird times. To be more specific, we’re living in times of ambiguous stress. How worried should you be about COVID-19? Will you have a job next week? Will your kids need childcare until August? A lot of things about life as we know it are shifting rapidly and many of us are noticing ourselves sliding out of our respective windows of tolerance and into various shades of anxiety and depression. And there’s never been a better time to attend to your mental health. Here are five reasons why March of 2020 is the best time in history to start (or restart, or continue) therapy.
1. You’re stressed. We all are. We’re facing threats at every level: plague, economic insecurity, resource scarcity, and political turmoil. If you’re not worried, you’re not paying attention. And that worry is only helpful and adaptive to a point, beyond which it can be tortuous to you and anyone who is sharing your social isolation. Worry and stress are designed to be short-term, and a good therapist can help you move it through your system and build resiliency skills.
2. Your routine is in shambles. This interruption of normalcy is an incredible opportunity to reexamine old habits and coping strategies and try practicing patterns that serve you better.
3. You’re isolated. This is not ideal for social animals and is a major risk factor for all kinds of troublesome thoughts and behaviors. The truth is that humans are a lot better at co-regulating than self-regulating and an hour a week with an empathetic listener can make an incredible difference.
4. Therapists have a lot of openings right now. The entire mental health industry is scrambling to adapt to the idea that business as usual is not possible. Most therapists are temporarily shifting to an online-based practice which unfortunately means that a certain number of clients are dropping out of treatment. This means that you’re more likely to be seen (virtually) very quickly and possibly at a reduced rate.
5. The people you care about need you to be at your best now more than ever. The reality is that the next few months will be tough. Hopefully, just a little tough, but maybe really tough. Your spouse, your kids, your parents, and your friends may really need to lean on you, or at the very least spend a lot of time around you. And now is the time to start attending to your own roots, so that you can stay steady, no matter which way the wind blows.
If you’ve found these points convincing, I’d recommend googling therapists in your area and comparing websites or profiles on Psychology Today. It’s well worth taking the time to talk on the phone or scheduling an introductory session before committing to continuing treatment. Keep your hands washed, stay healthy, and try to enjoy this strange and historic time we’re living in!