3 Mental Health Tips From My Psychologist

Taking care of my mental health hasn’t always been a particularly easy process for me.

I was a young girl when I started experiencing stress and anxiety, which escalated in my teen years and eventually motivated me to study psychology at University.

First, I wanted to learn more about my own mind and take better care of myself. And then, I hoped to support other people who felt vulnerable, too.

However, learning about psychology and actually taking care of my own mental health were two very different things. I continued to struggle with anxiety and stress, and I saw a couple of psychologists over the years.

In 2017, I finally found a psychologist I really clicked with. I’ve learned a lot from working with her, and I’d like to share three mental health lessons that created positive impacts for me.

Lesson 1: It’s ok to grieve for things you lost or missed out on.

When I first started working with my psychologist, I still had a long way to go with self-compassion. I tried not to let myself feel and process emotions that I thought were “bad,” like sadness and anger. I squashed them down and worked harder to appear happy and calm.

I didn’t realise that sometimes, self-compassion means giving yourself space to acknowledge emotional pain and supporting yourself through those experiences.

For example, there’s a member of my family that I have a complicated relationship with, and I felt quite sad and resentful that they weren’t there for me when I needed them. They didn’t nurture our relationship or put in the effort to communicate when I reached out.

I tried my hardest to avoid thinking about it and to focus on what I did have to be grateful for (and to an extent that did help). But I also needed time to grieve that important relationship I never really had - and will probably never have.

When I finally gave myself permission to be sad and to accept that I won’t ever have that relationship, it felt strangely good; like I was finally owning my emotions and giving myself permission to feel sad and disappointed. And, my psychologist was there to support me through that process.

Lesson 2: Avoiding anxiety often makes it seem scarier than it is.

I was also diagnosed with PTSD, or post-traumatic stress disorder and it was really hard to navigate it. I struggled to even talk about it with my psychologist (fortunately, she was very kind and patient!).

Together, my psychologist and I talked about it and she gave me different strategies to try, some of which worked well and some that didn’t really resonate with me.

Gradually, I started to face my triggers, and the anxiety slowly reduced. I realised that trying so hard to avoid the anxiety had made it seem much scarier than it really was.

Now, I know that anxiety appears, peaks, and starts to fade away. If I can sit with it (despite the discomfort) and use my coping strategies, it usually decreases fairly quickly. It was a huge lesson for me, but it was also an experience I really did need the extra support to get through.

Lesson 3: You don’t need to take responsibility for other people’s actions and feelings.

Kindness and compassion are two of my most important values. I love caring for other people and being supportive, but sometimes I take it too far. I might feel like I need to “fix” other people’s problems and I shoulder the responsibility of their actions and feelings. For example, if they make a mistake, I feel like it’s my fault even when I had nothing to do with it.

It’s been essential for me to learn that other people act on their own terms and feel their own feelings. I can be compassionate, kind, and supportive without taking on responsibility.

Working with a psychologist has not only helped me cultivate better mental health over the years, but I’ve also had someone to talk to during tough times.  

If you’d also like to try working with a mental health professional, there’s a wonderful online counselling platform you can use called *BetterHelp. When you sign up at BetterHelp, you’ll answer a short survey and they’ll match you with a counsellor based on your answers (which is really great because you get to work with someone who actually has experience with the areas that matter to you!).

*If you’d like to try out BetterHelp for yourself, you can receive 10% off your first month here.

Working with someone can seem daunting sometimes, but I believe everyone should have the opportunity to have good support and a safe space to talk. It’s made such a huge difference for me over the years and I hope it makes a positive difference for you, too!

*Please note these are affiliate links and if you sign up via my link, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. I only promote things I truly believe in and I’ve been using BetterHelp myself for over a month and had great experiences with it! My counsellor is kind and supportive and she’s recommended several helpful strategies so far (plus a great book I’d never heard of before!).

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