Dr. JJ Returns to Therapy

Yesterday, I returned to professional counseling (AKA: psychotherapy) for the first time since 2018.

And I'm so glad that I did!

With my wife's work benefits, a little homework on my end of things, and by the Grace of Serendipity—I have been fortunate to find an outstanding counselor who I believe has the knowledge, skills, experience, intuition, disposition, and temperament to help me take additional steps toward the GROWTH and FREEDOM I seek in my life and career.

After just one session, I already feel my mind, heart, and soul trending back in a more positive direction than it has been going in recent weeks and months. More importantly, my therapist has already equipped me with some new ideas and skills that I have been able to apply immediately—to my benefit! Based on my past experiences, I feel confident I will continue to get out of therapy what I am willing to put into it in sessions to come. Therapy, after all, is a lot like everything else in life—we all really do reap what we sow in the end.  

Virtual Counseling Carries a Similar Dynamic to
in-person therapy, but with an added benefit of being
able to engage from the comfort of your own home.

For the first time in my counseling history, I am also experimenting with a virtual route. The idea of working with a virtual counselor over Zoom was new to me as I've always done in-person counseling in the past. But my wife's health benefits come with some great virtual counseling options, and I decided it was worth giving it a shot.

After one appointment, I really like it!

I discovered in my first session that a highly personal face-to-face dynamic still exists in virtual counseling, but both the counselor and I have the added benefit of being able to enjoy the comfort and privacy of our own home offices throughout the process.

What an AMAZING world we live in!

Truly, the COVID-19 pandemic has done much to move our culture to increasingly embrace a variety of virtual experiences and opportunities, both personally and professionally. Some of these experiences and opportunities have been negative; but many of them are full of potentially positive and productive possibilities, and virtual counseling is clearly one of them.   

Dr. JJ has suffered from symptoms of OCD for most of his life.

As regular readers of the Freedom Focused blog are aware, I have struggled throughout my life with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) along with depression and other issues that have accompanied it.

I first started experiencing symptoms of OCD when I was in elementary school back in the early 1990s. Later, in 1997, as a junior in high school, I met with a psychiatrist for the first time and received an official OCD diagnosis.

Since that time, I have met with 12 different professionals and semi-professionals who were either college-aged, student-counselors-in-training (2), licensed therapists (3) psychologists (1), psychiatrists (4), or nurse practitioners authorized to prescribe medication (2). And that is to say nothing of the lay-counselors and spiritual leaders and mentors who have further assisted me with a variety of beneficial counsel, friendly encouragement, and genuine therapy along the way. I will always be grateful to this unofficial milieu of mental health laypersons as well.

A BIG thanks also goes out to my wife, Lina, and that Higher Power, since They have been the most supportive and helpful of all. There's an old saying that goes like this: "Your true friends are the ones who know all about you and still like and/or love you!" My wife is undoubtedly my best friend, greatest supporter, and closest confidante—and a real gem for knowing all about me and still liking/loving me! I'm so grateful God blessed me with her—and so many other Serendipitous graces and mercies along my often challenging and circuitous personal life and professional career.   

Click HERE to read about Dr. JJ's Lifelong Journey with Mental Illness

I just started counseling with my 13th therapist since 1997.
Thirteen (13) is my lucky number and has
special meaning at Freedom Focused.

This is the 8th time I have entered psychotherapy over the course of my life. My newest professional therapist marks number thirteen (13), which is cool because the number 13 is my lucky number. This unique number also has a special place and meaning throughout my construction of Freedom Focused as an organization, including its Corporate Constitution.

But I digress...

Why have I returned to therapy after four years of doing quite well with my mental and emotional health? 

Good Question!  

The answer is that I have found myself STUCK in a few patterns of behavior that have plagued and stymied me in the past—areas where I had made a lot of progress, but whose symptoms have returned sufficiently to motivate me to revisit that place where I have found so much help and hope (and made so much progress) in the past; namely, professional counseling or PSYCHOTHERAPY. 

Based on my past experiences, I had already accepted the fact—and to a certain extent expected—that I would most likely need to return to therapy at some point in the future. That had simply been the pattern of the past, and was therefore likely to continue. The question was always more a matter of when than if.  

Dr. JJ's right hand as of yesterday, with two fingers bandaged

and a third (pinkie) showing slight signs of wear and tear.

Click HERE to learn more about the RING on Dr. JJ's finger.

One of the more prominent areas I have struggled a great deal with lately, and which has motivated my return to therapy, is DERMATILLOMANIA. 

Dermatillomania is an OCD-related skin picking/pulling disorder that has afflicted me to varying degrees since grade school and with which I continue to experience great difficulty in managing, much less overcoming.

It's stressful and embarrassing to have multiple band-aids on my fingers at any given point in time because I just can't stop nibbling and picking away at them. It's a gross, puerile, and admittedly uncouth obsession and compulsion; but it's REAL, and I need help in overcoming it.

I am not alone in this affliction of dermatillomania. Many others suffer similarly.

In fact, I recently found myself in a highly formal meeting with a group of well-educated, experienced, and successful professionals and I couldn't help but notice that the highest ranking member of the group had the tell-tale signs of dermatillomania on at least four (4) of his digits! As I observed him in the meeting, I felt a genuine wave of compassion and empathy flow out of me and towards him because I am well acquainted with the misery and frustration he is likely experiencing with his own dermatillomania.

As for myself, I've had as many as nine of my ten fingers and thumbs bandaged at one time in just the past few months. While my affliction is good for makers of band-aids and neosporin (SMILE), the practice is a pesky affliction that I just can't seem to get a handle on by myself; therefore, the time has come to seek out professional help for the issue.

Click HERE to buy THIS BOOK.

One of my all-time favorite authors is M. Scott Peck, M.D., the author of a world-famous book published in 1978 (one year before I was born) called, The Road Less Traveled. I have a half-dozen or so books by Dr. Peck in my personal library. I cherish his work and enthusiastically advocate it to others. Along with Dr. Stephen R. Covey's books, Dr. Peck's writing has profoundly influenced my own work as a writer and thinker.    

Click HERE to read A NextGen 7 Habits and Road Less Traveled—our blog about Drs. Peck and Covey's work and its influence on Dr. JJ's life and career.

In one of Peck's later books, The Road Less Traveled and Beyond: Spiritual Growth in an Age of Anxiety (Touchstone, 1997), he penned something that has always stuck with me (no pun intended).

Wrote Peck:

"People have frequently asked me, 'Dr. Peck, ... how do you know when [you need] to go into [or return to] therapy?'"

"My answer to them is: 'When you're stuck. There's no need for therapy when you're clearly growing well without it. But when [you're] not growing, when [you're] stuck and spinning [your] wheels, [that's when you need to seek out (or return to) therapy, a process which involves] striving toward a psychological and spiritual maturity that results in real personal power. ... [Thus] therapy's purpose is to help people become more aware so that they can think more clearly and live their lives more effectively and efficiently." (1)

Working with mental illness is typically quite
different than working with physical illnesses and injuries.

As is evident in my own lifelong experiences with mental illness, I have come a long way from where I once stood as an OCD-ridden, angst enflamed, woefully befuddled seventh grader at Poston Jr. High School in Mesa, Arizona in 1993—a lad who found himself gravely afflicted and utterly mystified by the unexpected and vicious mental malaise that had so suddenly and savagely invaded his brain.

Indeed, there is no doubt that I have made enormous progress with my mental hygiene over the years; that is the good news.   

But as I also made clear in my Personal Narrative about OCD and Depression, learning to manage mental illness is often quite different than caring for and rehabilitating a broken arm, leg, or other treatable physical malady. In the latter, physical examples, as long as you are properly treated and cared for, you will typically return to full health and strength in a timely manner following a physical illness or mishap.

Caring for one's mental health is usually a very different story. 

While total healing of a mental health issue is possible and does on occasion occur, a more common trajectory for psychological challenges involves a long-term journey that inevitably includes ups-and-downs, highs-and-lows, and ebbs-and-flows. Instead of labeling a mental issue or emotional struggle as being "over," "done," "finished," "healed," or "cured," it is usually wiser—and more accurate—to apply terms such as "improving," "progressing," "managed," and "under control" on the growth side of things and "declining," "relapsing," "revisiting," or "backtracking" when discussing backward steps, which are almost always part of the long-term growth process.    

It'd be nice and convenient if mental health issues could be
properly addressed by simply pushing the right button.
But that, of course, is usually not how it works.

Framing one's mental issues or struggles in this way is almost always the more realistic viewpoint to take. Moreover, it makes it easier to humble yourself and return to therapy when the need arises—and in my experience, the need to return to therapy has arisen (on average) every 4-5 years, no matter how much progress I may have made in the past.

As experienced and well-practiced as I am at seeking help for a wide array of challenges and difficulties in my life and career, it still isn't an easy thing to do. Doing so requires both COURAGE and HUMILITY; but it's the only viable option if you want to continue growing as an individual and team member and expanding your freedom both personally and professionally.

Because I love and value growth, freedom, and my family (and other) relationships, I really don't have any choice but to take this step whenever and wherever it is authentically required. I encourage YOU to do the same. Such actions and practices are, after all, a hallmark of authentic and proactive SELF-ACTION LEADERS.

If money is not an issue, don't be afraid to seek out appropriate and relevant professional assistance. And don't be afraid to interview your counselor as closely as he or she will interview you. Then, if you don't feel comfortable with who you are working with, seek out somebody else who will be a better fit.

Finding the right fit in counseling is an essential variable in maximizing optimal outcomes. Therefore, don't be afraid to let your therapist go and seek out another if he or she is not a good fit.    

One of Dr. JJ's discounted therapy receipts from his college-days

If money is an issue, do some research and see if you can find some more affordable counseling options in your community. For example, the most regular and intense therapy I ever engaged in was during my college years—when I was typically dead broke (and bouncing checks) financially. But I was able to find a counseling center at a local university that provided therapy for only $15 per session (or free if I couldn't afford the $15) if I was willing to work with some college-aged students who were in-training to become professional counselors. While these "Student Therapists" may not have been officially licensed yet, they were energetic, enthusiastic, and eager to help me—and they did help me a great deal. Having also worked with several licensed professionals, I can say from my own experience that the semi-professionals were nearly as good, if not as good (and sometimes better) than some of the professionals.  

If money is an issue and you cannot locate more affordable counseling options, then reach out to a trusted family member, friend, teacher, mentor, coach, or spiritual advisor. Over the years I have had even more lay-counselors than I have had professional counselors. From my parents and siblings to a variety of other individuals I trusted and held in high esteem, I have rarely shied away from seeking out help when and where I needed it. I credit these outreaches for helping me to get to where I am today.

We all need a helping hand and an upward lift
from time-to-time in our lives and careers.

I recognize that reaching out to someone else for help is not easy. In fact, it's hard! But it's sooooooooooooooooooo worth it for the growth and freedom that awaits you on the other side of COURAGE and HUMILITY.

Despite all my past experiences in counseling, I still felt anxious about seeking help this latest go-round. And I also felt nervous at the beginning of my first session with my new counselor. But like most nerve-wracking experiences in life, such anxiety tends to go way down once we are engaged in the process. Thus, my own nervous feelings about this latest round of therapy began melting away after the first few minutes of my first session. The rest of the time I found myself focused on getting to know my counselor, enjoying the process, and feeling better—and more hopeful—for thus engaging.   

All my life I have held a deep conviction that my life matters and that I am here on this Earth for a variety of important purposes and reasons. Since our beliefs absolutely drive our thoughts, attitudes and actions, you can imagine how powerful this belief has been in my life and career. 

Another conviction I hold deeply is that you and your life matters and that YOU are likewise here on this Earth for a variety of important purposes and reasons. It is my sincere hope and prayer that reading this blog—and any other blog that Freedom Focused ever publishes—will strengthen your belief of this same, great truth. 

We all feel STUCK sometimes.
When a self-action leader feels STUCK,
he or she proactively seeks out help to get unstuck.

I further hope and pray that if you are struggling and feel stuck—like I have felt so many times throughout my life and career (including at this present moment)—that you will begin TODAY to cultivate the courage and humility to do whatever it takes to begin becoming unstuck. And if that requires you seek out the help of another, and/or a professional, and/or a Higher Power, I encourage you to swallow your pride and stubbornness and seek earnestly after that help. I promise you that if you will, you will begin to experience a gradual transformation in your life that will be aided by a variety of powers both seen and unseen (Grace/Serendipity) that will greatly augment your personal and professional growth and freedom. This will, in-turn, enhance and improve the quality of your life and career in ways that seem unimaginable right now.

I know this is true because I have experienced it over-and-over-and-over again in my own life and career. And now I'm back in therapy myself—preparing myself to take another small step (or perhaps even a giant leap) in my own mental hygiene and existential growth.  And the possibilities of that growth and progress motivate and excite me!

What is possible for YOU in your own life and career as you apply Self-Action Leadership and seek out the help of others as needed? 

Only ACTION can tell that story.

     How is your story going to end?

          What are you waiting for?

Get moving TODAY!    

—Dr. JJ

June 22, 2022

Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, USA

Author's Note: This is the 271st Blog Post Published by Freedom Focused LLC since November 2013 and the 100th consecutive weekly blog published since August 31, 2020.  

Click HERE for a compete listing of the other 270 FF Blog Articles.  

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Notes:

1.  Peck, M.S. (1997). The Road Less Traveled and Beyond: Spiritual Growth in an Age of Anxiety. New York, NY: Touchstone. Pages 76-78.