Welcome back to another episode of Dancing with Depression. I'm Adam. And today I want to talk about something I never thought I would talk about. Group therapy. Or as I said at the time, group therapy. OK. So let me rewind just a little bit.
On July 22nd, I felt like I was drowning at work. Now, I'm sure we've all felt overwhelmed before. You know, that feeling of spinning your wheels, crossing one thing off of your to-do list, only to have three more things show up.
But this felt different. Everyday responsibilities, mounting stress, and the weight of trying to hold it all together, it just became too much. And I couldn't see the light at the end of the tunnel.
The next day, July 23rd.
I found myself sitting with my psychiatrist and after that conversation, I made the decision that I've never made before. I submitted a claim for short-term disability.
I didn't fully understand what that even meant or what came next.
I didn't fully understand what that meant or even what came next. I just knew one thing for sure. The way I was living wasn't working.
My hope was that some time away from work might just help me catch my breath. You know, maybe reset. How? I had no clue.
I just knew I couldn't keep going the way I was.
As I started planning what time away would look like, both my psychiatrist and therapist suggested something I hadn't even considered. A mental health clinic. Now that was definitely not part of my plan.
Mostly because let's be honest, I didn't have one. So I did what most of us do when we're unsure of something. I did a Google search. And it was like I was choosing a restaurant while on vacation. And I went straight to the reviews. The clinic that had been recommended had received a 3.6 out of five stars, with 113 reviews, which I felt was a significant amount to gauge what kind of facility this would be.
Now, I don't know about you, but I tend to jump straight to the bad reviews so that one, I could determine if it was worth going any further. But I also, think, was subconsciously building my exit strategy as to why this wouldn't be a good fit. But I read probably 10 different reviews.
And I realized that there wasn't anything that consistently stood out. There were some challenges I'm sure people experience, but they seem to be very isolated. And many of them were about the food not being that great. That's. Wasn't going to be strong enough for me to to say no. And. I always remind myself that especially when you're reading other people's experiences and reviews that there's always two sides to every story and the truth usually lands somewhere in between.
So I decided to move on and check out the website, learn a little bit more about the different programs that they had to offer. And I read they had three options. The first one was residential. The second one was PHP. And the third one was IOP. So the website breaks down what each of those programs consist of and
Essentially, the residential program is that of what it sounds. You're living on their facility, which happens to be in 30 minutes away from where I am. But you're there for 30 days and you are in full day group therapy. You have weekly psychiatrist and therapist sessions, and then they have weekend activities like yoga or journaling or ARP. The second option was PHP, which is partial hospitalization. Again, you're going to their facility. It's a structured day, so you're there from 9 o'clock in the morning till 4 in the afternoon, Monday through Friday. But you go home. And the third option is IOP, which is intensive outpatient. It's much more flexible.
I learned later on that a lot of people step down and kind of use the IOP to transition from a residential program into kind of going back into their normal routine. The way I viewed IOP was I could still be at home and that was what was comfortable for me. My initial reaction with regards to residential was no way. And the funny part was I said to myself, I'm not mentally ready for residential. Yeah, not mentally ready for mental health treatment.
Sounds ridiculous, but this is also the same guy that admitted that he stopped taking all of his medications cold turkey. So. That's where I was at. I landed on IOP. As I mentioned, it felt like the safest choice. I could be in my own home and honestly. I didn't go in with big expectations or goals on what I was hoping to get from therapy, I just knew that I had to do something.
And like everything within the medical or healthcare systems, there was forms that I had to fill out. There was screenings and evaluations to ensure that I could benefit from the program. And eventually I did end up getting the call that I had been accepted and I was scheduled to start August 15th at 9 a.m.
In the days leading up to that, my mind was racing and asking questions like, is this really happening? Is this going to help me?
How did I even get here? But first day came and those questions shifted from curiosity to a full on panic.
I remember logging into the zoom call. And I use zoom for work all the time, so I'm very comfortable with it. But this. This was different. You see at work. Everyone centered in their frame. They have good lighting. Polished backgrounds, whether they have like a blur or a background of a place that they want to go to and you can't see everything in the background. This call started off very differently. People were laying down in their bed. Cameras were pointing up at the ceiling. Someone was on a hike. Another person was folding their laundry.
And I couldn't help but think to myself, what the hell have I gotten myself into?
Glanced at the clock. It was 906 a.m.
And I just told myself, just get through the next two hours and 54 minutes. And we can try and figure out where to go from here. But I certainly didn't think it was going to be another session.
And then the clinician welcomed everyone. And asked if anyone had something that they wanted to process.
And I remember my therapist saying to me that it's okay to just listen for a while. Don't feel like you have to participate until you're ready if you're ready. And someone started to share.
And I remember shortly after that saying, think this is going to be helpful and looking at the clock and seeing that it was 9.10.
It's amazing what four minutes can do.
So of course...
So what changed? Well, I think first and foremost, I took a step back. I let my guard down and instead of focusing on all of these things that were different, with how they looked and their cameras and distractions everywhere, I realized that I was that person just in a different setting.
There were days that I didn't get out of bed.
There were days, not days like in a day, like multiple days where I didn't take a shower. And I was hiding from essentially being seen.
These folks were brave enough to turn their cameras on and give what they had.
And so...
I started to see the similarities as opposed to the differences.
And those differences weren't even between me and other people. was environment wise, work versus group therapy. I had a chance to listen to other people, total strangers.
share so openly.
And it just reminded me that I'm not alone.
We're not perfect. Nobody's perfect.
But we were all there for the same reason.
to find support.
And for me, that changed everything.
I do remember leading up to therapy that Bobby asked me some questions like, so what will you be doing? And will everyone there have anxiety and depression too?
And in typical Adam fashion, I said, I have no idea.
And honestly, I'm glad I didn't.
It kind of reminded me of, or maybe it might remind you of, if you're getting ready for, say, surgery, you think you want to know what the procedure is going to be like and the details of it. I had surgery on my nose and I don't say what it was called because I don't think I know the correct name. I want to say rhinoplasty. But anyways, they took some stuff out so that I could breathe better.
And I remember that I had never had surgery before. I was in my, I think 40s and decided to check out YouTube videos. Dumbest thing I could have ever done. But nonetheless, not knowing was a good thing for me because I probably would have just tried to use information
to talk myself out of going to the therapy.
The cool thing about it was I got a chance to answer Bobby's questions afterwards and the group is a mix of folks. They have different mental health diagnoses. They're in different stages of their journey. They have different backgrounds and experiences from childhood to recent and.
That to me was the beauty of it. I got an opportunity to learn from all different perspectives.
So at this time, I had attended eight sessions and a few takeaways that I want to share with you if you or you know someone who's considering group therapy or any kind of therapy. The first thing is show up for yourself.
I hope you've listened to the previous episode where Bobby shares her perspective of loving someone with depression and anxiety and how that affects them. But at the end of the day, I didn't go for Bobby.
I went for me.
Don't get me wrong, there's a part of me that knew it would help us, but I showed up for myself.
The second thing is think of group therapy like grocery shopping. When you go to the grocery store, you don't buy everything there, right? You buy what you need. And that was the approach I took with the therapy, because there's a lot of information and scenarios that are spot on to what you're feeling, what you're going through.
But there are some things that maybe you're not going to relate to. For instance, when folks were talking about their children. I don't have children, so I didn't necessarily connect the same way. And that's OK.
The third thing is don't compare your situation to someone else's. Just learn from it. I'm guilty of this. I quickly thought that I didn't really. It's not that I didn't deserve to be there. It was that I felt like I was taking up time. For some from someone else. And.
I shared that with the group and I'll talk a little bit more about that because something incredible came from that.
The fourth thing is. It's a marathon, not a sprint. You're not going to show up. Get some magic pill or. Injection or whatever. It's going to take work. And it's going to take time. In the way I think about it is think about how much time it took for some of our experiences to settle in to.
Depression or anxiety. Well, it's going to take time to get those under control. The nice part is the clinicians shared practical tools, ways to address things, and the group members themselves, man, they gave me insights that I couldn't have gotten anywhere else or on my own.
So what I was referring to earlier with regards to not comparing your situations to others.
One of my favorite moments came early on and as I mentioned, I had been comparing myself in my situation specifically to others, wondering if I even really deserved the time that therapy had to offer.
And when I shared that with the group, they didn't just respond with a, no, don't worry. Everything's going to be fine. They responded very honestly and it was positive, but the thing that one of the guys said that stood out and I'll never forget was sucks sucks.
And he went on to explain that there isn't a level of sucks that doesn't suck. And if something sucks, it's valid and it deserves to be talked about.
So I want you to remember what you're going through if it sucks.
You have the right.address it.
And that line burned into my memory forever.
And now whenever I start minimizing my own struggles, I remind myself, sucks sucks. Period.
So if you're feeling like or you felt recently like you're drowning, similar to me, I just want to encourage you to consider therapy. It might not look like what you expect.
It's probably going to feel uncomfortable at first. But let's be honest.
The things typically end up being the most valuable.
And I'll keep sharing my journey with you as long as you'll listen.
And next time I'm going to be talking about what it was like returning back to work after being away for two months. And what it felt like stepping back into my ground zero, which was work.
If you'd like to share your story or even just a thought, email me at dancingwithdepression at yahoo.com. And remember, when it comes to depression, take the leap.