Why You Hesitate to Start Therapy | Permission to Start Podcast

Welcome back to the deep dive everybody. I am really excited about today's topic. So today we are unpacking some fascinating excerpts from a guide called the quiet signal. Your invitation to begin therapy. Yes. Specifically the very first episode of that guide which is titled uh you've been thinking about therapy. Here's your sign. Right. And our mission for this deep dive is to really get into the psychology behind you know why we hesitate so much to start therapy. We want to figure out what's going on in our heads and then map out exactly what taking that first step actually looks like in the real world for you, the listener. Exactly. Because it's a huge step. It

is. And to set the scene for you, I want you to think about this. Have you ever found yourself um staring at the ceiling at like 2 in the morning, completely exhausted, but you just can't turn your brain off? And you catch yourself thinking, uh, maybe I need therapy. Oh, the 2 a.m. spiral. We've all been there, right? Or I mean maybe it hits you right after a super draining conversation with a partner. You know those arguments that just go in circles and seem to happen the exact same way every single time. Yeah. The cyclical arguments, they're exhausting. Totally. Or even just like you're scrolling through your phone on a random Tuesday and you see

someone talk about their therapist and you just pause. You sit there and think, "Uh, wait, could that actually work for me?" It's a very specific kind of pause, isn't it? It feels quiet, but it Well, it actually carries a lot of weight. Yeah, it really does. And you know what's fascinating here is that those fleeting thoughts, those late night reflections, they aren't random like at all. People usually just brush them off. Exactly. You tell yourself, "Oh, I'm just stressed." Or, "I had a bad day at work. I'm just imagining things, but the source text establishes this really firm clinical premise right away." If the thought keeps coming back, it is returning for a reason. It's

a signal, right? It is a signal. It's your own mind trying to communicate that you have an unmet emotional need, which makes total sense. But honestly, the timeline of that signal is what completely shocked me in our research for this. Oh, the delay between thinking about it and doing it. Yes. Because if your mind is literally sending you a signal that you need help, you'd think you'd think the logical response is to act on it pretty fast, like within a few days, maybe. You would think so. Yeah. But obviously that's not what humans do. So according to the source, how long do people usually sit with these thoughts before they actually pick up the phone?

Well, the research shows it is definitely not days or weeks. The average person considers therapy for months and honestly very frequently for years before making a single appointment. Years. I mean, just years of internal debate. Yeah. Just sitting with it. And when you think about the sheer volume of mental energy that gets burned over a multi-year period just weighing this one single action, it's staggering. It's exhausting just thinking about it, right? But the source material offers this really beautiful reframe. It says that during those months or years, you are not procrastinating. You are processing. Processing. I like that. Yeah. Because making the conscious choice to invite a clinical professional into, you know, the most vulnerable,

messy parts of your life, that's a massive psychological shift. Your brain is essentially calculating the risk. Okay, let's unpack this because I think there is a profound misconception about how that processing phase is supposed to end. Like we have this idea that eventually one day we're just going to magically feel ready. Well, the myth of readiness, right? And I was trying to conceptualize this for the listener, and it honestly feels exactly like standing on the edge of a cold swimming pool. That's a great way to put it. Yeah. Like you're in your swimsuit, your toes are on the concrete, you're staring down at the water, and you know it's going to be a shock to

the system. So, you just stand there shivering. Exactly. You just stand there shivering, waiting to somehow feel internally ready for the temperature drop. But physiological reality dictates that the only way your body actually adapts to the cold water is by jumping in. You have to get in the water. Right? The readiness doesn't happen on the edge of the pool. It happens in the water. That analogy is perfect because it gets right at the core of human behavior. Neurologically speaking, we naturally crave total certainty before we take an emotional leap. We want a guarantee. Exactly. We want our brain to say, "Hey, this won't be uncomfortable or you're going to know exactly what to say on

the first try." But waiting for the perfect moment or waiting to feel ready enough, that is a trap because there's no such thing as a friction-free experience here. I mean, if there was no friction, you probably wouldn't need the therapy in the first place, right? The readiness comes from doing it, not from waiting for ideal conditions. If you wait for the perfect moment, you're just committing to waiting forever. So, if we are standing on the edge of this metaphorical pool for months or like you said, years, what is actually happening in our heads? cuz we aren't just staring blankly, right? No, we're very busy up there. We are usually constructing these incredibly elaborate, super rational

sounding arguments for why we shouldn't jump. And the text outlines four very common mental roadblocks. Let's break those down. Started with the first one, minimization. Yeah. Roadblock number one is when we tell ourselves, "My problems just aren't bad enough." It's the classic comparison trap. We look around, maybe we scroll through our social media feeds and we see people surviving, you know, acute trauma, profound grief, major crises, and we immediately use that to invalidate our own stuff. Exactly. The brain says, "Well, I have a roof over my head. I'm employed. I'm not completely falling apart, so I don't deserve to take up space in a therapist's office." We treat therapy like a triage tent in a

war zone, right? Like only the most critically wounded are allowed in. But the guide explicitly pushes back on that. It notes that therapy is incredibly helpful for what it calls everyday heaviness. Everyday heaviness. Yes. And for the highly capable people listening to this, I think that everyday heaviness is super insidious because there's a burden to competence, right? Like if you're good at managing your life, paying the bills, keeping the kids fed, it totally masks emotional burnout. You assume that because you are functioning, you are fine. Exactly. But feeling chronically stuck or dealing with this lowgrade anxiety or just losing interest in things you used to love, those are valid reasons to go. You don't have

to wait for the car engine to literally catch fire before taking it to a mechanic. Which logically leads us right into the second major roadblock. Once we finally admit that, okay, the engine is running rough, our next defensive move is to say, well, I should be able to handle this on my own. Oh man, I struggle with this one heavily. I really do because society literally conditions us to applaud extreme self-reliance. It feels so counterintuitive to outsource our emotional heavy lifting when we manage literally everything else ourselves. It feels like a weakness, right? We track our own macros. We fix our own syncs. We manage our own schedules. So, it feels like a failure to

admit we need help with our own minds. If we connect this to the bigger picture, that definition of self-reliance is actually totally backward. True self-reliance isn't about being an expert in everything. It's about knowing exactly when to bring in a specialist. That's a huge perspective shift. The source material uses this brilliant analogy. It points out that yes, you handle a hundred things a day alone, but if you had a persistent hacking cough that lasted for 2 months, you wouldn't just sit on your couch and say, "I should be able to cure my own respiratory system." No, I'd definitely go to a doctor. Exactly. You'd go to a doctor. Seeking help for your mental health is

exactly the same as seeing a doctor for a physical cough. The everyday heaviness is the cough. And you wouldn't feel shame about walking into a walking clinic for a cough. You wouldn't think you were morally weak because you know the doctor has tools you don't. A therapist is just a specialist with different diagnostic tools. Asking for help isn't weakness. It's taking responsibility. Okay, that makes so much sense. But all right, let's say I accept that I need a specialist. Boom. That triggers roadblock number three. What if the therapist judges me? The fear of judgment. It's so common, right? Because you're imagining sitting across from a stranger, telling them your darkest secrets, your worst parenting moments,

your weird anxieties, and you picture them just sitting there secretly judging your life choices, which is a terrifying thought, but it happens because we project normal social dynamics onto a clinical setting. What do you mean? Well, if you tell a coworker your deepest insecurities, yeah, judgment is a risk. But licensed therapists are explicitly trained not to judge. Their entire job is to create a safe space for the things you can't say anywhere else. But how do they actually do that? Like, how do you just turn off human judgment? They replace it with clinical curiosity. When you confess a destructive habit, they don't see it as a moral failing. They view it as an adaptive mechanism.

They ask, "Why did this behavior protect this person in the past? And why is it no longer serving them? Now they aren't grading you. They're just observing. Wow. Okay. So, that defangs the judgment fear. But that brings up the fourth roadblock. If they're just observing, then I have to do all the talking. People think, "I don't even know what I talk about." The pressure to have a perfect syllabus of your trauma. Yes. People assume they need to walk in with an agenda and a bulleted list of their issues, but you really don't need a plan. A good therapist guides the conversation. The guide says something so liberating here. It says that showing up and literally

just saying, "I don't know where to start." is a perfectly valid opening line. It's a great opening line. It gives the therapist the cue to start gently asking questions. Your only job is just to show up. Okay, so we've cleared the mental roadblocks, right? The problems are valid. The specialist is necessary. There's no judgment. And you don't need a script. But, and here's the kicker. Even after rationally understanding all of that, people still just wait. Why? If there's no perfect time, why not just wait a little longer? Because mental health doesn't operate on a schedule. You can't just put it on hold, right? The danger of waiting is huge here. We think waiting maintains the

status quo, but it doesn't. Waiting doesn't make the heaviness lighter. It just allows detrimental patterns to solidify. Like you just get more used to feeling bad. Exactly. The anxiety gets more familiar. The avoidance becomes routine. The earlier you start, the less there is to untangle later on. Here's where it gets really interesting because we build up this massive heavy mental mountain about starting therapy. But the reality of actually starting it is incredibly mundane. It's practically frictionless. The logistics of it, you mean? Yeah. The source material gives the exact logistics for a practice in Georgia called coping and healing counseling, which is also known as mental space therapy. And when you look at their process, it

is so simple. It's almost funny compared to the anxiety we feel about it. What does the process look like? Okay, so if you're in Georgia, you literally just visit their website, which is hhd theapy.com, and you click a button that says request an appointment. That's it. You don't have to navigate a phone menu. Nope. You click the button and then their team takes the initiative. You could expect a call back in a day or two. And they even handle the insurance verification for you. The text points out that they accept most Georgia Medicaid plans and major commercial insurers. That is a huge relief for people worried about the financial side. Totally. But the best part

is the telealth access. You get secure video sessions, meaning you can do it from your couch, from your car during your lunch break, or from your bedroom after the kids are asleep. This raises an important question about how physical barriers used to serve as convenient excuses for our anxiety. Oh, for sure. Like, I don't have time to drive there, right? You had to drive, find parking, sit in a waiting room, worry about who might see you, and we used all those physical barriers to avoid dealing with our stuff. But by removing those barriers through teleaalth, coping and healing counseling strips away the excuses. We are left only with our own readiness to heal. No waiting

rooms, no driving, no judgment. It's just you and the decision to start. And just to make sure you have it, I'll read out the contact info from the text for coping and healing counseling or mental space therapy. Their phone number is 404-832102. That's 404-832102. The email is support theapy.com. And again, the website is just aapy.com. It's all right there. It really is. So, to summarize the core message for you, the listener, if you are listening to this right now and you've been thinking about therapy, whether it's those late night thoughts or that everyday heaviness part of you already knows what you need. You really do. You don't have to have it all figured out. You

don't need the perfect words. You just have to take one small step. And that step is so much smaller than you think. It's just visiting just theapy.com and requesting an appointment. Especially with teleaalth options across Georgia and them accepting most insuranceances, including Medicaid. The door is wide open. The friction is gone. Exactly. So, before we wrap up this deep dive, I want to leave you with one final thought to mle over. Yes. We discussed how waiting allows the everyday heaviness to solidify into familiar patterns. If that quiet signal is your mind asking for a change today, what familiar but uncomfortable patterns in your life might finally begin to untangle simply by admitting out loud, "I

don't know where to start.