Balancing Life’s Tightrope: Signs You Might Benefit from Therapy

Imagine you’re walking a tightrope. On one side, there’s your demanding job with its looming deadlines and high-pressure tasks. On the other side, there’s your personal life, brimming with family responsibilities and the need for self-care. While trying to maintain balance, feelings of worry, anxiety, frustration, or sadness start to weigh you down.

This is a common scenario in adult life, isn’t it? And while these struggles may be temporary for some, causing minimal disruptions, for others, it feels as if they’re about to lose their balance. So, how can you tell if it’s time to seek professional support?

The American Psychological Association offers two guidelines that can help inform your decision:

• First, is the situation causing you distress?
• Second, does the issue impact how you function on a day-to-day basis?

If you answered yes to any of the above questions, it might be helpful to consider therapy. These questions aren’t meant to diagnose. Instead, they help assess the magnitude of your current stressors and the type of support needed. Now, let’s delve into some specific concerns that might indicate the need for therapy.

We all experience prickly emotions such as irritability, anger or sadness from time to time. One way to monitor your emotional health is by observing how long it takes to return to your emotional baseline after experiencing intense emotions. Are you staying angry, sad, disappointed or guilty for hours or days on end? Do you feel easily irritable or frustrated? If your emotions affect your relationships and daily activities, it might be time to consider therapy.

We all experience intrusive or racing thoughts from time to time. However, if you’ve noticed: increased rumination, overanalyzing potentially embarrassing situations, persistent racing thoughts, or intrusive thoughts, it might be time to consider seeing a therapist. Prolonged and unmanaged thought disruptions can affect many functions such as concentration, sleep, appetite, regulating emotions, work, study, and even relationships. Therapy can help you process past events, develop skills to cope with uncertainty or reframe everyday concerns.

When we experience stress, our body’s stress response system remains engaged until the stressful situation subsides. However, our bodies are not designed for long-term stress. Chronic stress can wreak havoc on our bodies triggering unexplained headaches, muscle tension, fatigue, and joint pain. Learning how to bring mindful awareness and bridge the gap between your mind and body can be enhanced through body-centred therapies. But first, seek medical advice to rule out any medical conditions that might trigger similar symptoms.

Are you sleeping too much, too little or waking up multiple times at night? Is it difficult to fall asleep because your thoughts keep you awake? Do you sleep but don’t feel rested in the morning? Sleep concerns that are out of the norm may be triggered by conditions such as chronic stress, anxiety, depression, PTSD or ADHD. Left unmanaged, sleep deprivation can affect concentration, mood, and memory, making it difficult to function daily. Luckily, different types of therapies can help improve sleep hygiene.

Grief can occur in many forms: the death of a loved one, the loss of a pet, the loss of opportunity, the loss of a job, relocating houses or a country, or even grieving your childhood. While not everyone needs therapy during these times, grief can feel isolating when it feels like no one understands what your going through. Therapy can provide space to process loss, find meaning, and integrate the loss as part of your life.

Many individuals who’ve experienced traumatic events describe feeling like the “rug was pulled right from under their feet”. Life after a traumatic event can feel disorienting, making it difficult to utilize our usual coping skills. While not everyone who goes through a traumatic event needs therapy, persistent symptoms such as flashbacks, intrusive memories, nightmares, and mood changes may require professional support. Therapy can help you process the emotional and physical impacts of the traumatic event, find meaning and build resilience.

Early adverse experiences can have long-lasting consequences on how we relate to ourselves and the world. A few indicators of unresolved trauma include chronic low self-esteem, attachment difficulties, poor sense of self, self-doubt, self-abandonment, chronic shame, dissociation, chronic depression or anxiety, feeling indifferent, and substance misuse, among others. Working with a therapist can help you understand how these patterns show up, develop skills to address unhelpful patterns, and grieve your childhood.

Are you having difficulties establishing boundaries? Difficulties saying no? Constantly feel responsible for other people’s feelings or needs? Are these patterns showing up at work, in friendships, in the family or in intimate relationships? Therapy can help you identify factors that maintain the cycle of unhealthy relationship patterns, find your voice, establish limits, and learn to ask for what you need.

When we experience increased stress, our usual coping skills may become ineffective. We might find ourselves utilizing other forms of coping like food, alcohol, substances, video games, or distracting ourselves using social media. These forms of coping provide temporary relief. However, long-term use of these coping skills may disrupt other areas of your life. Therapy can help you develop tools to self-soothe, tolerate, or manage challenging thoughts and behaviour. such

In conclusion, therapy isn’t just for treating mental health conditions. It offers a space where you can develop insight into your thoughts and behaviours, build and maintain healthy relationships, and develop healthy coping skills. If you’re still contemplating if therapy is right for you, I encourage you to take the next step towards a healthier you by scheduling a consultation.

Until next time,

Zahra