So, I recently incorporated the use of both BetterHelp and Talkspace as a teletherapy service for my mental health needs. I have a five month old, and don’t have the proper transportation or way for someone to watch him in order to make different appointments I have on my calendar. Some days I do, and some days I don’t, so I thought using teletherapy may be the way to go for therapy, specifically.
I’ve been using both off and on since February of 2022. I had my child in April of 2022. My main goal was to find someone to talk to about my issues of dealing with pregnancy in the beginning. Towards the end of September of 2022, I had gained more life issues, such as my parents both developing cancer, on top of dealing with a five month old, and the various mental health issues I already have.
Initially, I was very excited to be able to be with my baby and still have the time to make a therapy appointment. I was very hopeful and eager.
The first therapist I saw flat out told me she was very excited to work with a new mom, and had also said she was very eager to work with a new mom with Schizophrenia. I sort of had to put my feelings aside because it almost made me feel like a case study in a way. Meeting with her for almost two months, it didn’t become fruitful, and while she was kind, I didn’t believe it was helping. I recently switched and saw a second person who got right down to business with CBT and had me do an anxiety awareness exercise. She had me pinpoint the anxiety of my parents dealing with cancer. She asked me “what is the worst that could happen to your parents?”. I said “they could die”. She said “Right, so don’t focus on that, which is a negative”. I just felt like it was very menial and dismissive. Especially since it was the first day of working with her. I had hoped I could spell out my troubles or at least spill out how I had been feeling as a whole. I wanted to say how I had been feeling and didn’t particularly understand the thought behind trying to get right down to getting things “fixed”. I know that’s not how therapy works in the slight, and I didn’t want to try to delve into my issues as if they were being promptly “fixed”.
I recently had switched to a third person. They are very nice and prompt with showing up on time. Although, It seems to be the same story as the last one, which was also like the first therapist.
I actually moved from a really small city to a much bigger metroplex over the summer and haven’t had the time within the last 2 months of being here to find an in-person therapist. I do feel as though, with this being the second time I tried BetterHelp, that this service may not be for someone like me. Given that I can’t find a therapist that will talk about schizophrenia symptoms, which affect me on a traumatic level. I also have trouble finding one that will in person, as well!
It’s really hard when you can’t find a provider that’s both willing and capable of helping you with a multitude of situations. I’ve always kind of wondered if maybe services such as BetterHelp or Talkspace were more configured towards people with anxiety, depression and maybe something more. I wanted to give it a try and this was my second time giving BetterHelp, specifically, a try. I want to say that I feel let down a little bit, but at the same time I’m wondering if I really just shouldn’t have expected so much out of a service such as this for all that I am going through. There’s so many facets to dealing with Schizophrenia, on top of dealing with secondary issues away from the illness, plus the trauma from it.
This article is not to call out a service, but rather to show the small interactions I had with some therapists, while using this service, dealing with the issues I had. They all were nice, but I felt that I couldn’t continue with the service having been shown that it seemed it was not going to work for me. I wanted to show my personal experience. It’s also very expensive at about a few hundred dollars a month for the type of interactions. The appointment visits given to me were only 30 minutes long. Which is shorter than an in-person therapy visit.