In regards to going to therapy for my anxiety, I would say that therapy really helped me. Number one, it just helped me realize that I wasn't alone and that my feelings were normal and they were valid. But my therapist also really helped me to learn skills that helped me deal with my anxiety and really process it instead of just living with it, which was really helpful.
As a person with anxiety counseling, you never really know how that experience is going to go. I mean, the first time I went in, it was kind of scary. I was very guarded, wasn't sure how to open up, and that still is a problem I have. But the best advice I can give is don't keep those walls up. They're there to help you. They can bring you all the skills and things that they can best suggest to help you get through your day. You definitely want to build a good relationship and trust with that person because they're not out to get you. They're there to help you.
I guess advice is that just be open. You kind of really quickly have to just be willing to like talk about yourself and your feelings, which some people might come easy. For me, not so much. I like to talk about those things like that's kind of my personality, but it also I like to talk about it with people that I like trust. So it's hard to like quickly gain that trust with the person until you like open up, but once you do it like really helps like you do begin to trust them more and overall just helps. Like you can't really get help until you open up, talk about what you're experiencing, then act on what they want you to do. Otherwise there's no point in going, so yeah.
Something that I've started doing with my therapist that has been extremely helpful is EMDR. It helps reset the neural pathways so that you aren't triggered into that fight or fight response by the same trauma all the time because it helps you rework those thoughts connecting with that trauma so that it doesn't that everything surrounding it doesn't immediately set you off. Thank you.
So I've been seeing a regular therapist for two and a half years now and it's been extremely helpful. My therapist is great. A lot of it is finding the right therapist for you and that can be challenging sometimes. I got really lucky. I love mine. It's been really helpful to be able to recognize all these different stressors and be able to talk through them with a therapist, with a professional, and be able to really figure out how to handle each and there's just different techniques and it's been really helpful. I feel like there's all these different things in my life that are stressing me out and to be able to get them out and have someone help me work through those one at a time is really helpful.
The biggest thing that they kind of talked me through, I was like a lot of what I did was a lot of the talk therapy, but the biggest thing that they stressed was just all those grounding techniques, you know, just all those things you can think of that just appeal to your five senses, like what can you feel and what can you see and just combine with all that, kind of combine all that with just breathing. I just, I just figured out when you take the time, whether it's especially in the morning for me that helped a ton, it's just taking that time in the morning and a lot of times prayer can help you out with that too. If you're, if you're praying, you give that, you give yourself that time to just sit and think and just take some deep breaths. If you just take some deep breaths, take it easy. Just let yourself know that there's nothing that's going to kill you right now. It helps. It helps. It doesn't fix it, but it helps.
I think I had a good experience with therapy. I went when I was in middle school so it's been quite a long time now. I remember at the time I was dealing with a lot of anxiety when it came to sports, which is kind of interesting, maybe not super common, but I did club volleyball and school volleyball and I would find myself throwing up before tryouts, throwing up at games, practices, which is really getting in my head and I know that she really helped me to talk myself through that and focus on just having fun and playing the game. So I know that therapy works.
I've been in therapy for about six years now due to depression, anxiety, and I think the biggest thing that's helped me with going to therapy is someone that's not closely related to your situation, who knows exactly what to, like, they're professionally licensed to help people that are your age, that are experiencing anxiety, and I think having someone on the outside that's not necessarily part of your inner circle has helped me so much because I can have, like, a new and different perspective and more professional perspective on my situation, not something that's really helped and benefited me.
Something that I learned through therapy is grounding, which has been really, really important for how I face and deal with my anxiety, because I have several panic attacks a day if I'm not on my medication, and grounding can be incredibly helpful in situations where you're feeling the most panicked and most anxious, and so trying to find different methods of grounding, because one thing doesn't work for everyone, trying to find your own personal method of grounding can be incredibly helpful for you.
I'm a huge advocate for therapy. I went to therapy for the first time almost two years ago and it changed my life. I was about to serve a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and I was having a really hard time and I'd experienced anxiety earlier in my life but it always felt like I could kind of like handle it even though it was not the best. But right before my mission I got to the point where I thought if I try to go out on a mission when I'm struggling this bad I'm not going to be able to stay. So I ended up postponing my mission for a month so that I could go to therapy and receive help and let me tell you that changed my life. I still apply and use skills that I learned in therapy and I was only in therapy for like a month so a really short time but I wish that I'd gone earlier. I wish that I had used that tool. So if you are struggling I would totally invite you to try therapy. It really helped me.
I had a really positive experience going to therapy for my anxiety. It really helped me develop skills that helped me cope with it and just deal with it on a day-to-day basis. So I was really, really glad that I was able to do that.