Feeling Powerless and Overwhelmed?

Feeling Powerless and Overwhelmed?

Mary sits in her kitchen wondering how she is going to get through the day. Her spouse is drinking too much, her teenager is angry and taking it out on her, the little miss perfect who is ten years old is so tense she wets the bed and the house is a mess. She beats herself up because she “should be able to fix it,” because she knows she cannot keep doing this day after day, and yet making decisions, weighing it all up, and taking any action at all seems overwhelming. Surely a smart, capable person such as herself can “get on with it!” Mary, however, is paralyzed, overwhelmed and feels utterly powerless.

If Mary seems familiar in any way, it may be because this kind of experience is all too common. The sense of powerlessness and helplessness is not because you are crazy, stupid, or incapable. It is often because you are doing it alone. That includes, sometimes, feeling even more alone and overwhelmed because you tried reaching out to family or friends and, well, let’s just say that did not turn out as you hoped. Sometimes family and friends are awesome companions on our journey. Sometimes these wonderful, loving people are too close to the situation to be who we need at this particular time.

There are some clear signs that we need outside help. If our sense of powerlessness and feeling overwhelmed is situation-specific and we already know that it will pass when the current reality changes, then we might well be able to wait it out with just a little help from my family and friends. If what we are experiencing lasts more than a few weeks, or if the causes are more generalized in your life than specific, if it involves multiple family members and/or friends, or if we just cannot seem to get ahead of it no matter what we do, then its probably time to call for outside help.

For a person already feeling powerless and or overwhelmed calling a clinic to choose a therapist should be an experience that brings relief. We made the hard decision to make the call. Now the call itself should engender some measure of gaining control over our life. In other words the call to a clinic should make us feel welcome, respected and offer us options in a way that tells us that we are in charge of our life.

So once the hard decision to call for outside help is made, how do I choose a therapist that best fits my needs? It is important to realize that we do have choices: we are in charge. If this is our first experience of asking for help, choose a clinic that offers multiple therapists with a range of backgrounds and experience. Most clinics offer a website that allows us to browse therapist backgrounds. The best clinics have trained their reception people to take us through the process of choosing a good match. At CenterLife Counseling, for example, each reception person is experienced and is trained to help walk a person who calls through the options available, taking into consideration such preferences as for female/male therapist, range of experience and specialties, convenience of appointments, insurance coverage, age of the therapist, and multiple other factors that help pick a good fit the first time.

If Mary’s circumstance is familiar to you, keep an open mind about calling for outside help. It’s simply one means for getting ahead of what is overwhelming you. It takes courage to make that call. Give yourself a gift of hope, finding out that you can make changes, and that you do not have to do it alone.