Online Counseling so far in Musings

A couple of you told me to report back on how online counseling is going because you might be interested.

So here goes:
The way Better Help is you have a tab called “Session” where you and your counselor have a running conversation. Mine usually writes 2-3 messages a day. At first the messages felt a little canned but they have gotten more personal as they go on.

They can also send you “worksheets” based on what you’re telling them you want to work on. Which are basically little articles with tips and advice that get saved in another tab and you can access them whenever.

Then on another tab you have the option to schedule a live session with your counselor. You can look at the calendar and see their open time slots and then click on the one you want. It’s super easy. And you also can choose between messaging, video, and phone call. I have only done messaging so far.

Then on the day of your live chat you log on and the counselor initiates the session. The messaging is done to where you can see what they type as they type it. It’s interesting. I had an issue on our first live session where i accidentally logged out and there was no way back in. I reported it to customer service. They were nice about it and even extended my free trial a few days. They just need to polish up that technology a bit. I hope they work on it.

Anyways. I had my first non interrupted session tonight. It was good for the most part. I will say an hour doesn’t get you as far when you’re typing instead of talking. But I still feel much less pressure this way. She did start going in a direction I wasn’t wanting to focus on and it was easier for me to feel confident enough to say that on a screen rather than in person when I tend to shy away.

As far as the subject matter, we mainly focused on me having angry outbursts at my children. She kind of started going in the direction of parenting advice which I wasn’t really wanting. I get lots of parenting strategies from books I read, podcasts I listen to, and articles I browse on the daily. I wanted to get more at the root of the matter so we talked about my childhood (of course lol) and that my dad yelled at me a lot as a kid.

She also told me anger is a secondary emotion and it helps to idenify and deal with the first emotion to help alleviate the anger. In my case it’s usually fear. Fear that I’m failing or not doing well as mom etc. Which leads to me acting out that kind of as self fulfilling prophecy.

Then when she realized that this is something that isn’t happening every day or even every week she told me I need to be waaaay less hard on myself. And she’s basically been on me from the start about making more time for myself. For alone time. For times with friends. And that I need to do the things I want to do even if it’s not necessarily what the kids want to do. Which feels selfish but I know it’s not. Like I wanted to go for a walk and Alex wasn’t too keen but we went any way. We ended up puddle jumping and it was so fun and I’m glad I did it.

So basically I’m going to continue working on that “first emotion” of my anger and doing what is best for myself more often so I don’t feel so drained every day.

I feel like I’ll probably stick it out for a month (my free trial ended up being 10 days I believe so I’ll only pay for a few weeks) and then go from there. It’s $45 a week but there are ways to get discounts and free trials. (#notsponsored lol. I feel like an ad right now)

There’s pros and cons but I am glad I made the effort to try it out. I’ll let you know more later.