Psychology

Trying To Find a Therapist? Good Luck. So Is Everyone Else.

You may be on a waiting list for a while

I’ve resisted the idea of getting a therapist for a year now.

That’s despite the fact that my daughter is a therapist and has made a few hints. Just subtle ones, you know.

Like, “Mom, I really think you should talk to somebody.”

It’s been a tough few years for many of us.

The pandemic. The Russian invasion of Ukraine. Trump’s very existence. Then there’s inflation, climate change, ever-increasing income inequality and myriad bad things we all know are coming.

There’s a huge need for mental health treatment right now. We need a lot more therapists, but despite the fact that therapy is expensive, therapists are modestly paid and not enough people are going into the field.

It’s been tough in my world.

My sister died not quite a year ago in a car crash. I’m about to have a lumpectomy. One of my loved ones is undergoing a terrible divorce in which her partner has done some things so bizarre I can’t write about it without harming her privacy. If I could write her story, I’d get thousands of reads. It’s a case of truth being far, far stranger than fiction, and it hurts me to see her having to deal with it.

I’ve been white-knuckling it.

“It’ll get better,” I keep telling myself. “It will be better after I get this lump out. After I mark the one-year anniversary of Tracey’s death. After the weather improves and I can spend more time outside. After this and after that.”

The nightmares are what finally broke me.

I’ve written before about how messed up my sleep cycles are. I spend too little time in deep sleep and putz around in the REM stage more than is normal. If you’re having a lot of REM sleep and waking up a lot, you remember a lot of dreams. Some of them are entertaining. Some are fine.

But some are not so fine.

I’m a writer. I have a great imagination. That means my brain can pull out all the stops and create the greatest horror films of all time in my brain. The special effects are amazing, unfortunately. Some nights, my brain presents a double or triple feature. One dream started right back up where it had left off each time I fell back asleep. I dread that happening again.

I’ve finally had it with the nightmares. So I got a list of therapists in my area that my insurance will take and made the call … only to find that there is not a single opening.

I knew therapists were stretched thin.

My daughter, as I mentioned, is a therapist. There’s a shortage. So I knew it might be difficult to find one.

But it’s not difficult. It’s impossible. I might have better luck with telehealth, but I want to develop a rapport with my therapist, so I’d prefer to at least start out by meeting in person.

So now I’m on a waiting list. If I had made the call six months ago, I might have a therapist by now. I am kicking myself for waiting.

I carefully read through the descriptions of all the therapists and chose the one who sounded perfect for me. Ha. Turns out I’ll need to take whoever I can get.

If you are going through your own stuff (who isn’t?) and you think you might benefit from some therapy, please don’t wait.

Here’s a bittersweet but happier story for you:

About me:

I’m a writer in central Illinois. Find me on Substack, Mastodon, Twitter or LinkedIn.