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As we’ve covered on Bored Panda recently, you may want to seek professional help if your mental health issues are causing anxiety, and panic attacks, and disrupting your daily life. It’s important to recognize that mental health experts are often very supportive and empathetic.
Though therapy can help people deal with their past traumas, heal, and move past them, far from everyone sees counseling in a positive light. For example, some people are scared that their therapists are going to judge them for their experiences or decisions. According to ‘Thriveworks,’ people do not want to be perceived as weak. However, proactively taking care of your mental health isn’t a weakness. It’s quite the opposite.
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Meanwhile, other folks are a tad skeptical about therapy as a whole. They might feel that counseling won’t solve their issues. Or that it’s simply an expensive way of talking about your feelings, something that they could do with their friends. This, of course, couldn’t be farther from the truth.
Therapy provides new perspectives that aim to reframe your past experiences, in order to empower you. If venting to your friends from time to time is all that it takes to solve all of your issues, then more power to you! But you should never assume that it’s the same as working with a qualified, experienced professional.
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Other people might be too proud to go to counseling. They believe that they should be able to solve their problems on their own. Still, others are simply scared of opening up to a complete stranger. Or they’re afraid of how their lives might change in completely unknown ways after they solve their issues from the past.
According to therapist Andrea Brandt, Ph.D., childhood trauma can stay in the body until it is processed. “The healthy flow and processing of distressing emotions, such as anger, sadness, shame, and fear, is essential to healing from childhood trauma as an adult,” she writes on ‘Psychology Today.’
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The therapist urges people to recall the situation, sense their emotional and physical response, and attach names to the emotions that bubble up. “As part of a mindful approach to healing from trauma, we need to fully accept everything that we feel. Whether it’s true to your conscious mind at this moment or not, say, ‘I love myself for feeling (angry, sad, anxious, etc.)’ Do this with every emotion you feel, especially the harder ones. Embrace your humanness, and love yourself for it.”
After experiencing and embracing these emotions, you can try to work on letting the trauma go and casting off the events that wounded you.
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