On the last day of mental health awareness month, I figured I’d chime in. Both as a therapist and a frequent client.
First off, a gentle reminder- you never have any idea of what someone else is going through OR what is going on inside someone. Most of my clients are high functioning. I’ve been high functioning since I was 7. And we still suffer. So please be kind.
You never know who is screaming in pain behind the smile.
Mental wellness, as I’ve come to witness and observe, is almost always more complicated than we think. Rarely, if ever, will 10 session be enough. There’s complex PTSD that runs through our nervous systems, individually and as a collective. There’s ancestral trauma. And simply the pain of living in an unconscious world. These rivers run deeper than the mind can see. More and more, I’m realizing that the work of psychotherapy (“in service to the soul”) is the work of healing wounds of generations, perhaps since our origin story misconstrued and then either removed or belittled the Feminine. We all still want our Mother.
(I also want acknowledge the increased recognition of animals as healers as an important part of the hope and effectiveness in current therapy.)
There’s also never been more hope. Mind-body therapies like IFS, somatics, and EMDR are proving effective in conjunction with talk therapy, CBT, and other forms of subconscious work. (I will never talk negatively about talk therapy- because is you trust your therapist and you form a connection with them- finally believing there is someone gives a sh*t about you- that’s fucking healing.) Of course, there’s also the reintroduction of psychedelics- not as party drugs (you do you), but as sacred medicine for healing. (I’ve tried both psilocybin and ketamine, KA-EMDR, to be specific, and are happy to chat more about both). Which also, maybe just as importantly, offers the return of women as priestesses, taking us back not just to ancient Greece but also to early Christianity.
You are loved, just as you are.
A Dog and Her Girl 