That Next Step
Knowing what the next step in life is can be hard. I have been thinking about what my future will look like a little too much lately. I have been extremely anxious as I think about what my career will look like and how my mental and physical health will impact that. I often think about the timeline. Will I need to go back to work full time before I am ready? This is a long term stressor for me, but the stress it causes me hardly compares to the recent discussion I had with my therapist. My Psychiatrist asked me the other day on a scale from one to ten how close do I feel to dealing with things appropriately and approaching my mental health with clarity and coping skills. I told him I would put myself at a six. While I have been working with my current therapist for one year and have made significant strides in emotion regulation and distress tolerance we have mainly been in triage to decrease depressive symptoms and dangerous coping skills. We have not pursued the next step, dealing