Help?- When, Where and How?

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-22-2002
Help?- When, Where and How?
3
Fri, 01-28-2005 - 7:59am
How do you go about getting help or knowing when you need it. There was a post that sounds very familiar to me in the "makes you happy" line. I sometimes feel that I have lost all contact with me an where I was or where I was headed. I am now involved in my own company (network marketing company) where one of the steps is to write goals and how you are going to attain them. I find that I really can't think of any or remember what I have always wanted.
I went through my company's Employee Assistance program once and they sent me to a therapist. It felt useless to me. I felt she was agreeing with everything I said (felt patronizing) and was uncomfortable with the "and how does that make you feel" type situation. She sent me too a Pych who felt I had social Anxiety and put me on Paxil but I didn't like the Side effects (sexual, limp-sorry).
What is the best way to go about seeing someone. Is it to go through my General Doctor? tell him my concentration, energy, general unwillingness type feelings. Is it to just ask him for the name of a psych? Should I re-try my EAP program but go to someone else? Not sure what to do and how to do it.
When my mother was on her death bed, my sisiter and iwere there one night talking and she told me that she felt mom had issues with depression. First and only time I ever talked to someone in the family about this. I am the last of seven kids and usually feel like i don't belong or don't matter. More often than not, I feel that I am the but of the joke. If I complain, well I am just being a baby (I am 40) and lighten up.
I want to feel different like everyone else, there has to be a better feeling than the one I have right now.
iVillage Member
Registered: 01-27-2004
Fri, 01-28-2005 - 9:02am

This is an area where it really pays to comparison shop.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-22-2003
Fri, 01-28-2005 - 2:51pm

Hi there!


Most people go thru at least 3 Therapists before they find the right "fit" so don't feel you have to settle for just anyone.

*hugs             

Avatar for svetlana1833
iVillage Member
Registered: 01-04-2005
Fri, 01-28-2005 - 3:40pm

Ditto what they all said.

I got REALLY lucky with my counselors - the first one I really liked, then she moved to another state! (drat) Later, I went through my agency's EAP (at their suggestion) and found another therapist, who I liked very well, although not quite as much as the first one. Anyhow, I would go back to her again if necessary.

It's hard to decide to get help. I have not forgot the Saturday morning nearly 4 years ago when I pretty much laid on the couch till noon, not saying much, feeling REALLY crappy... Mister finally said to me, "Are you all right?" And then I just came unglued.

Between sobs I managed to get out, "I'm depressed and I need to see somebody."

Well, wouldn't you know, he had suspected as much, but didn't know how to approach the subject. He has always been supportive of whatever I needed to do, whether it was counseling or medication or whatever.

The first step is the hardest, but once you take it, it's easier to keep going.