For the majority of my life, I saw therapy as a “good for them, not for me” kind of thing. I had a happy childhood, enjoyed a fulfilling career, and reveled in my circle of close friends and later the butterfly stages of establishing a life with my husband.
Then, several things happened in short order: I had a baby. Then another. I developed two sudden and terrifying chronic health issues. I moved from the city, my home of ten years, to a suburb where I felt like a cardboard cutout of myself. Then, as the last straw, my family and I were physically threatened in a traumatic encounter that left me so triggered I would instinctively duck to cover my children when I saw my own reflection in the window. That resulted in me packing up my whole house and moving back to the city in a week. In the midst of this final episode, racked by stress, my clothes hanging off my body after rapidly losing weight and sleep, I texted my friends: “When this is over, I’m getting therapy.”
“It can be challenging for anyone to believe that spending time and money on something intangible will produce a healthier life.”
And yet, I didn’t. According to BetterHelp, the online therapy platform featuring 30,000 licensed and experienced therapists, there are three reasons people put off therapy: inconvenience, stigma and stress, and therapist fit. “It can be challenging for anyone to believe that spending time and money on something intangible will produce a healthier life,” says Haesue Jo, LMFT, Head of Clinical Operations at BetterHelp. “Let’s say one gets through the hurdles of scheduling, transportation, and parking—one must still consider t