How and Why Carolyn Turned to Therapy
In an effort to dismantle stigma and shame, and takedown therapy taboos, we’re asking *you*, our Tia community, to share your story. We’re collecting real stories from real women about how therapy has helped them through a hard time. Here’s Carolyn’s story:
I’ve always been high-strung with anxious tendencies, but I never thought of myself as someone struggling with mental health. But then again, no doctor had ever asked me about my mental or behavioral health. I “look” healthy on the outside, so I must be healthy on the inside, right? Or at least that is what the healthcare system told me. The only thing “wrong with me” according to my health record is that I have Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, which a quick Google will tell you is often associated with anxiety and depression.
About one year into starting Tia, I started to experience panic attacks — something I’d read about but never experienced myself. They were paralyzing and I didn’t understand them. It felt like they came from outer space and didn’t directly connect to the moments of extreme stress in my day-to-day. The delayed physiological reaction confused me — panic would take over my body completely randomly and at totally inappropriate times (I suppose there is really not ever an “appropriate time” for a panic attack).
The whole thing baffled me — I couldn’t connect the dots or understand what I was so anxious or stressed about. I couldn’t map them to any logical “if this then that” equation, which was particularly aggravating for a rigid, logical thinker like myself. It was like my mind and body had lost connection, with no signal to be found (though I knew better than to believe that to be true).
On top of this I felt a sense of shame in the incongruity of my reality and the facade I felt I needed to uphold. I was a first-time founder and CEO who had never failed at anything before; I’d raised venture capital, had 10 employees, and by many other metrics, seemed to be doing more than okay. Yet, on the inside, I lacked the tools to function or handle my “new normal.” And the burden of trying to create something far bigger than myself, carrying Tia’s success and failures weighed heavily on me.
The irony of ironies was that despite working in healthcare, I didn’t have a dedicated Primary Care Provider or OB/GYN — I had started Tia in part to solve that problem! Beyond that, I didn’t have a therapist or psychiatrist or know how to find one. Up until this point, I had always felt I could (and should) cope with things on my own. People that know me know that I wear my emotions on my sleeve — in other words “not processing,” isn’t really a thing for me. I’d always thought, why do I need a therapist, if I have great girlfriends to talk to?
Yet, like many people struggling with mental health, there is one, extremely vivid moment — a fulcrum — when you suddenly realize that your struggle is not just a “struggle” but something that must be addressed with help from others and with a sense of urgency. That moment happened for me during an early morning Lyft-line en route to my office in San Francisco. I was hijacked by my most severe panic attack yet, out of nowhere and amidst total strangers, too. In this moment, I realized I couldn’t fix or continue to try to “deal” with this on my own.
I was desperate. Lacking a doctor, I turned instead to my friends (like most women do) in search of a therapist — any therapist — prioritizing one that I could see right away. A close friend connected me with a Cognitive Behavioral Therapist who I clicked with, which is a struggle in and of itself for many. It wasn’t a perfect situation though — she was pricey, cash-only, and didn’t even know how to send an invoice that I could attempt to submit for reimbursement to my insurance. I was fortunate, I was able to pay cash and did so reluctantly, too overwhelmed to attempt to find an alternative, more affordable option. I recognize that the fact that I had this option, even if subpar, is an enormous privilege not on the table for most women.
Over several months of work with my therapist, I unpacked a lot of stuff, developed a toolkit to better manage my anxiety, and my panic attacks waned.
I learned that my stress was distinct from but related to my anxiety. I learned that my panic attacks were a physiological manifestation not totally in my control, but that talk therapy and digging into the root causes of my mental and emotional state was a powerful way to modulate my anxiety.
While I feel more equipped to cope in the face of heightened stresses in my daily life, I’ll be honest — managing my anxiety continues to be a persistent and imperfect struggle with good days and bad days. And while my therapist was an incredible partner for me, the fact that she operated completely outside of the healthcare system meant that I never could (and still haven’t really) connected the dots to my PCOS, birth control, other parts of my health. I know there is a connection, but the current system doesn’t make it easy to figure out the bridge.
Looking back on this, the process feels so broken, yet still incredibly privileged. My mental health should have been considered by the gynecologist who diagnosed me with PCOS years ago or asked about by any of the countless Primary Care Providers or specialists I saw each year after my diagnosis. I should have been given options that included, but were not limited to, medication, and I shouldn’t have had to make a “choice” between paying an inordinate sum to see a therapist I liked each week and other aspects of my health.
My story is not an exception or anything unique, really at all. It is the norm. Whether you are one of the 1 in 5 women in the U.S. who struggle with a clinically defined “behavioral health disorder,” or you are just having a hard day or hard chapter, you are not alone in your struggle and you deserve to find and get quality, affordable care.
At Tia, we believe that you don’t need to have a behavioral health diagnosis or hit a rock bottom to seek support. You can and should talk about your mental, physical, and emotional wellbeing with your healthcare provider. And there’s incredible value in your therapist being connected to your physical health, too.
We are not parts. We are connected minds and bodies. We are flawed, inside and out. We have good days and bad days. We have physical and emotional scars that bubble up at inopportune times but can also lead to really beautiful discoveries.
We all deserve support, a safe space, and a trusted ear.
We all have stories to tell that need to be told and need to be heard.
And now, more than ever, we all need to talk.
Do you have a story you’re willing to share about a time in your life when therapy helped you get through a hard time? We’d love to hear it! And, of course, you can choose to share anonymously. Share your story with Tia and be a part of taking down therapy stigma, shame, and taboos!
