Mental Health Counselor
Mental Health > Mental Health Counselor
My primary mental health counselor, the one I was with the longest, saved my life. She—an MFT in training when we first began our work, and an MFT and Holographic Re-imaging specialist when we finished-- saved my mentality, my sanity, which saved my physicality, which saved my life. I’m telling you this because it is important to know that there is absolutely no shame in needing, contacting, using, and benefiting from mental health services and mental health counselors. And I’m confessing this because I wholeheartedly endorse the utter magic, the powerful transformative and rehabilitative abilities of a good, caring, attentive and devoted mental health counselor.
Not only did my mental health counselor save me in the first years of my wanting to die, save me by investing her skills and schooling in methods that worked for me as an individual, but she paid close enough attention to the nuances of my complex individual problems—from rageaholic step parents to incestuous biological father to obesity issues. This attention to every minutiae had her discovering and mentioning the “possibility” (since MFTs do not diagnose, per se) of my having—at 42 years old—ADD. I had had it all along, and in between times when I wasn’t able to see her was seeing other doctors who understandably were treating me for other illnesses instead of the ADD. But I had never had it revealed, exposed, and then dealt with.
To be considered to have ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, also known as ADD (no emphasis on the implicit Hyperactivity), one must be diagnosed as having most of the 69+ symptoms and must have these said symptoms notably apparent and consistently observed for at least 6 months, consistently. This, according to mental health disorder professionals and experts in print and online at mental health disorder sites, who will also tell you that not only is ADD often mistaken for other disorders but it is falsely diagnosed in many who do not have it. This, because of my having stayed for over six years with one mental health counselor (despite the few months away from her). This, diagnosis, prognosis, and the right treatment (medication and continued counseling), because I had the fortune of finding a woman who was willing to take me on as a patient for a few dollars an hour when I was broke.
So I encourage, support, and acknowledge you who are hesitant or reticent about seeing a mental health counselor. But I also urge you to do a bit of reading and devise a list of questions for that first “in-take” interview. You have the right to ask questions of a potential counselor. You have the right to counseling, in general. You have the right to have your life/mental health saved.