#lcsws

“This is a PSA for your friends who are mental health therapists. We might not be ok. We aren't picking up new hobbies or cleaning our houses. We aren't organizing closets. We are losing sleep thinking about the massive toll this virus is taking on the mental health of the world. We're worried about our clients with whom we may be the only point of connecting during their week, and now we can't see them in person. We're holding the grief of High School Seniors who just lost all of their proms and graduations and regular schedules and routines. We're walking newly unemployed clients through rights and applications for assistance. We're working with other therapists who are navigating a completely bonkers system around rules and regulations. We're talking to clients about how to navigate technology in order to say hello, and in some cases, goodbye to aging parents and grandparents. We're navigating our own grief, our own disruptions, our own pain and if we're lucky and brave enough, letting it take up space just like we're making room for our clients. AND we're providing trauma counseling while staring all day into blue lights on computer screens that may be making us go blind. So if you know and love a therapist - say a little prayer. We're not in an ER or on the front lines of the virus, we're on the front lines fighting like hell for your lives and emotions and processes and sanity. And our own too. And we love you. And this is really really hard.” Bethany L Lynne