Hey Brossy Woman!
This week’s topic is super important to me because it is a reflection of what I am currently growing through. As you all know, I am a graduate student and I am relocating this summer to finish my program. The whole process of finding a position, committing, and now facing the challenges of remotely finding housing is a new kind of stress. I’ve been feeling all the growing pains of this transitional point in my life. I’m not complaining, because when I look back at it this is exactly what I’ve been praying for and working towards since I decided to leave home for undergrad. However unlike moving after my high school and college graduations, I’ve been preparing for this transition a lot differently. Which brings me to this week’s topic… therapy for the millennial black woman.
Disclaimer: I am in no way shape or form trained or qualified to speak on how therapy may work for anyone outside of myself. To be honest, I may be completely wrong about how therapy works for me at this point, but here’s the story as I know it today.
I first decided to try therapy during my senior year of college. I can’t quite pinpoint the reason I started, but if I had to take a retrospective educated guess, I would think it was because of my “not depression.” I say it this way because I distinctly remember myself repeating that I wasn’t “depressed or anything,” probably to convince myself as much as I was her. My primary issue is that I felt like I didn’t have full control of my moods, but I wasn’t quite ready to connect that with any type of past or current issues I was dealing with. So I quit. To my defense, I felt therapy was a waste of time because I was expecting advice and tools to fix my problem. . . & that just didn’t happen.
Fast forward to present day, I tried again at my university counseling center, only to be shut down for 3 months because of lack of availability. I finally got a “hold over” appointment at the end of the semester just for again. . . no advice, no tools. At this point I left more defeated than I was when I first made the decision to seek out help.
I decided to try ONE MORE TIME. Honestly, I was over the cycle of reaching out for help I didn’t receive. This time, my therapist is a black woman. This was important to me because opening up for me usually comes from being able to relate. The first few sessions I really thought about not going again. Me being me, I used all my time bouncing from one thing to the next. This really limited the amount of time we were able to discuss what was actually going on. But before giving up this time I thought I might as well focus on myself beyond my sessions.
I started doing yoga, which I can happily say I have been practicing for 7 weeks now. I also started reading more books that indirectly gave me the insight and power to identify the things that contribute to my life, both good and bad. What has helped as well is slowing things down, focusing on the present, and trying to make the next best decision each day. So far, I’ve found that focusing on my overall wellness has helped me figure out some of the answers that I seek myself and that I come to my sessions with clear intent and a clear mind.
I wanted to write this post as a first in an ongoing series about my journey with mental wellness. I really thought it wouldn’t be worth much because of the buzz surrounding mental health at the moment. It’s sometimes easy to get caught up in our own timlelines of people who more or less think like we do. Along these lines I felt like everybody in 2020 knew all the things that I am only recently discovering for myself and that I’m actually late to the party. Maybe I am, maybe I’m not. But, in taking the next best step I’m hoping that by the end of my sessions I’m better equipped to start on my new journey. Don’t worry, I’ll keep you updated.
To happier and healthier lives…
