Anonymous

Photography by Devonshire

If you are reading this, it’s okay to not be okay.

As someone who wants to go into the mental health field,  it is easy to put yourself on a pedestal- to be the one who has to be okay in order to stand up for other people. Throughout my life, I have always been the one who is “okay.” The one who is doing well in school, the one who pays for her own stuff, the one who takes care of others and herself. When my family needed someone to be there, to be okay, it was always me. This caused a lot of stress and anxiety around always needing to be “perfect.” It was also very difficult to try and share those feelings with my family because it felt like they needed me to be strong.

It wasn’t until I decided that I wanted to be a therapist that I knew I needed to get a handle on my mental health. I was constantly dealing with these feelings of stress and anxiety, but not coming to a solution. It felt like things just kept building on and like I was dealing with a million problems at once.

I decided that I wanted to take advantage of the free therapy offered by VCU. This was a super helpful experience for me and helped me learn about myself. I was able to learn that what I thought were a million different issues, like dealing with body image issues as well as imposter syndrome at school, all rooted from the same issues of anxiety and perfectionism. Therapy allowed me  to have an external  perspective on what was going on.

Although therapy was helping  I only ended up  going to two sessions. It was difficult for me to talk about myself as well as my family issues. In my very first session, I was only presenting the issues that I felt were normal. I spoke about my anxiety around school and always wanting to do well but I didn’t feel any resolution. I ended up scheduling another session after I had some family issues, which went completely differently. I was very emotional and spoke about stuff that I didn’t plan on. I haven’t gone back since that session. I don’t know if it was because I was uncomfortable with how emotional I was during my last session or if I have been just too busy to book another session.

I think one of my biggest mistakes with my mental health journey was treating it like a class assignment. I booked my session because my professor told my class that all good therapists go to therapy. I think with that mindset it was difficult for me to truly do the work that improves your mental health. It is a journey, not a checklist, and definitely not something that I can “perfect.” I plan to try again with therapy and go in just simply to help myself. It is difficult to acknowledge but at this moment I am not “okay.” And that is okay. There are things that I need to work on- I need to learn how to destress, how to be better to myself, and to be comfortable not being okay.

So if you are reading this, know that it is okay to not be okay. Know that you are not the only one who struggles and feels like you need to be perfect all the time. It is okay to get help and okay to still be working on yourself.

Anonymous, Virginia Commonwealth University

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