Recently I made the decision to return to therapy after months and years of saying I need to go back. This decision was much harder than I thought it would be, and I could not have done it without the push of other persons around me who greatly benefitted from starting and sticking to therapy. This would make my fourth time restarting, the previous three times I ghosted my therapists for various reasons.
Honestly I don’t know where to start in this story, do I start at why I couldn’t seem to stay committed to therapy or what pushed me to restarting? Let’s try the latter.
In July 2019, at the end of my studies, the start of working as a doctor and just after a breakup I decided I needed to get my life together.
It’s similar to that same feeling we get on new years eve or on our birthdays when we enter a new decade- I was looking forward to a new and improved me. For a while it worked, I took some time to get to know myself and what I liked and didn’t like to do. I also worked on my relationships with others, being deliberate with nurturing my relationships. During this period I started my series on Instagram called Self Care With Samantha where on Sundays I would share lessons I learnt in self care. You can watch the episodes on my Instagram’s IGTV.
I did see improvement with my life and got a lot go clarity on what I wanted in life. All it took was really listening to myself and not being afraid of realising the path I charted for myself initially is no longer where I wanted to be. At the start of the Covid 19 Pandemic in March 2020 here in Jamaica. Self care was becoming harder and harder, I was peeling away parts of myself that I was not yet equipped to handle and that scared me. Failure became ever present in my mind and frightened me. However, because of all the work I had put in before, I was merely delayed not stopped. The support of friends has been crucial to the start of this journey, I spoke with a trusted friend and psychologist who know my journey and about my life and asked her for suggestions on who she thought would be a good fit for me. I had slated my therapy journey to begin in March 2021 but as life would have it, it wasn’t until July 2021 where I finally took the dive.
During my first session, my now therapist asked me if I had had any experiences with therapy- I sheepishly admitted that I had and that I had quit each time. To be frank, my first two experiences I didn’t find either therapist to be a good fit for me and what I wanted. On my website “The Layman’s Doctor” I talk about the importance of finding a good fit when looking for a health professional.
My last therapist actually was excellent, she was a psychiatrist that worked at my university’s health centre (University of the West Indies) and I ended up seeing her because a dear friend of mine had died and I wasn’t doing very well with coping with the loss. Eventually we started talking about other aspects of my life and reached a point where I began to feel overwhelmed with the layers of my life that we were uncovering.
And that’s how I got here. More than two years later ready to face the big scary monster that made me run away.
By the second session we had reached the topic where I had left off and admitted to my new therapist that this is why I ran away the last time. I’m starting to see a pattern in my life, that when things get hard I start to run- something I know a lot of us can identify with. In order to keep myself committed and accountable I started yet another new series on my instagram called ‘Sam Goes To Therapy’ why I share my lessons learnt each month as I do my visits every two weeks. This series on my blog also acts as the written component that goes along with these videos, these might be more frequent… who knows?
I know for me personally, talking about mental health, therapy and destigmatising seeking help made me feel much more comfortable to start. While accountability is a big part of me sharing my therapy journey, I also want persons to know that it’s okay to get help with navigating your life and therapy is a great place to sort through the clutter and mess in your mind and heart. If you’re ready to start and located in jamaica this tweet has screenshots of a list of places that offer therapy sessions.
Thank you for spending this time with me as I share with you a vulnerable part of my life- it was hard but not as hard as I thought it would be!
With Love,
Samantha
