"Overcoming the Fear of Judgment: Embracing Therapy for Your Mental Health"

In the world we live in, mental health should be on the top of everyone's priority list.

Is it on mine?? Nope! Do I have good intentions about making it a priority?? Yes!

Yesterday, I decided to turn that intention into an action and have a consultation with a therapist. I'm not exactly sure why I make it such a big deal. I have a really good family support system. But I have realized that if there is something going on within the family, it is a must to talk to someone outside of the family. Someone who is neutral and is not going through the same thing we are.

At the beginning of 2024, my boyfriend was diagnosed with stage 4 Lymphoma. For whoever doesn't know what this it, it was described to us as a " 64-year-old man disease", my boyfriend is 29. When we found this out, it not only affected him, my daughter, and I but our whole family. They would become just as involved as we were!

Treatment started very quickly because there was a mass on his brain, spine, rib, arm, and multiple in his pancreas. At the time, I was just getting started with my career in hair and my daughter had just started daycare. We had a great routine going. We had to pull her from daycare, and he had to stop working.

This is when I should have started therapy because my chaotic life as I knew it was going become something I could never have imagined. Treatments were every 21 days, and he would be gone for 5 days. Even though he was gone, I still had to keep going as life did not stop for a second. I give praise to all the women that work and have families because this s**t is HARD!

Besides the cancer, I was becoming a caretaker along with being a mother and a salon manager. How in the hell was I going to do this. The honest answer to that, is I have no idea how I did it. The past couple months have been a blur.

When things semi slowed down is when i started to see a change in myself that I was very unsure of. I thought okay this is the time that I need to take care of myself. The first step in doing that was therapy.

My life has never been butterflies and rainbows but who's has? I come from a family of addiction and I have worked every day of my life to make sure I am not a part of that statistic. I have done a couple sessions of EMDR but did not finish. I’m not sure why I didn’t finish, either financially couldn’t or i just wasn’t ready.

Now, I am ready. I will put in the work that is needed for ME. For me to be the best version of myself for ME! SO why do I have this stigma in my mind that I am weak if I go to therapy? When i truly need it why can I not bring myself to go? I wish in this world that it was more normal to prioritize mental health. I want it so it should be no question. Now that I am going to start, I am really excited but anxious. I know I have nothing to be nervous about and nothing to be anxious about. So here we go! Wish me luck! :)