Dangerous Myths About Your Mental Health You Need to Stop Believing

Eradicating the stigma on mental health goes beyond telling your story, self-care, yoga, meditation, exercise, sharing your struggles, body image and Instagram stories and posts – its about setting an example of seeking professional help and processing your traumas with a counselor (not social media or influencers).

We are who we are because of what happened to us in the past. We are the products of our environments, our caretakers, our society. We need to process our unresolved issues by talking about what happened to you in the past. As a trauma therapist myself, I feel so honored to sit in a space with someone who can share with me the darkest times of their lives and the adversities they’ve been through to have them become the resilient human beings that they are now.

Here Are Some Myths:

Forget the past and just move on – this is so dangerous because we need to process our past so we can live in the present and then plan a fulfilling future. The more we try to bury the past and try to forget about it, the more it will try to come out or manifest in painful or hurtful ways, i.e. anxiety, depression, anger, fear, substance abuse, wrong relationships and more. We could not move on unless we resolve our unresolved issues.
Self-care Is Therapy and Can Solve Everything – yoga, mani-pedi, running, exercising more, traveling and more will NOT resolve your unresolved issues. A lot of people are using these activities to RUN away from their issues, situations, problems. I believe in self-care because we need to prioritize the things we need for ourselves but we also need to understand WHY we are getting triggered, stressed out or reacting the way we do when uncertain events happen. When we understand where our anxiety, anger, disgust, fear, and loneliness are rooted, then we prepare ourselves better during times of uncertainty or difficult situations. Using self-care to resolve your issues, ain’t gonna work!
Seek Advice From Friends or Social Media Influencers – therapists don’t even really tell you what to do with your life or give you “advice”. We, therapists, hold space, listen, empathize, educate and ask questions that will help you dig deeper in yourself for the answers. You have the answers! Therapists are equipped with the right questions to help you find those answers within you.

The sooner we process our unresolved issues, the sooner we will make changes in our lives. Our unresolved issues from the past come back as triggers to remind us that we need to resolve them. Understanding our triggers will help us cope with the anxiety, fear, sadness, anger, and disgust we feel at the moment. Learning the right coping skills will help us prepare for the uncertainties of life.