Dear Therapists: I SEE YOU.

This is an open letter to all mental health professionalswho have been working throughout the pandemic, holding the anxiety of otherswhile trying to manage our own, watching the isolation chip away at clients’progress, feeling the Zoom Drain both physically and mentally. 

We all went into this lineof work because we wanted to help people and now is the time where we areneeded the most. There will be a mental health crisis that comes out of thispandemic - at this point, it has already started - and our clinical resolve andability to stay fully present with clients is being put to the test. Mostpeople are not thinking about how this impacts those in our field; we are notthought of as front-line workers. Attention and resources are understandably focusedon the medical professionals who are fighting COVID-19 face-to-face everyshift. This does not negate the work we are putting in but it often leaves usfeeling invisible.

I thought about writing aparagraph about combatting this invisibility but realized that we do not needto necessarily combat it, but instead lean into the emotions that arise when wefeel unseen during this pandemic-entrenched world. While the anxiety anduncertainty leave me with uncomfortable physical sensations, the helplessness Ifeel is probably the emotion that I find most challenging to tolerate. I feelhelpless that there is nothing I can do to change this situation. I feelhelpless that the media and politicians do not focus enough on mental healthissues during “normal” times, never mind their lack of interest in it now. Ifeel helpless with how difficult it is to convey to my support network what itis like to be a therapist right now. I feel helpless when clients struggle withthe isolation of quarantine and start to use maladaptive coping skills to getthrough each day. I feel helpless when I wrap up my day and the Zoom drain hitsme and I can’t be there for my loved ones. It’s almost like I’m just feeling all the time. I’m exhausted.

So to my fellow therapistsout there - I see you. I appreciate you. We will all get through this together.