Blog Archives
Some people carry a lot of emotional pain without it ever showing on the outside. To everyone around them, nothing looks wrong, but the weight is real, it’s just directed inward instead of out. It isn’t a formal clinical category, and nobody gets diagnosed with it as such. What it does is describe one particular way that traits associated with Borderline Personality Disorder can show up — with the emotional intensity leaning more toward internal experience than…
Most mothers who reach out for therapy do not describe an emergency. They describe a Tuesday. Everyone got fed, the laundry got folded, nobody was late for anything, and somewhere in the middle of it all came the thought you cannot say out loud to anyone: I love them, and I do not recognize my own life anymore. Therapy for moms exists for exactly that gap. Not only for crisis, though it helps there too, but for…
There’s no correct way to grieve. What follows isn’t a formula or a timeline. It’s a set of general approaches people have found useful while coping with grief, offered with the understanding that some will fit your situation and some won’t, and that skipping the ones that don’t help isn’t failing at this. Most advice about how to deal with grief goes wrong the same way: it treats grief as a problem to be solved efficiently, as…
Grief doesn’t come with an instruction manual. But for decades, people have reached for one framework to make sense of the chaos: the stages of grief. If you’ve lost someone or something important to you, you may have already heard the terms denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance thrown around, maybe by a well-meaning friend, maybe in a book you picked up at 2 a.m. when sleep wouldn’t come. The stages of grief come from psychiatrist Elisabeth…
You made the appointment. Maybe you sat on the decision for a while first. You opened the contact page, closed it, opened it again a week later. And now the day is here, and you’re in the waiting room a few minutes early, phone in your hand but not really looking at it, rehearsing a version of your life that sounds coherent enough to say out loud. If that’s you, take a breath. The hardest part of…
If you’re weighing whether to start therapy and searching for a straight answer about your coverage, here it is: in most cases, yes, Blue Cross Blue Shield covers therapy. The vast majority of BCBS plans include comprehensive mental health provisions, and federal law requires that coverage to work much like coverage for any other medical visit. But “covered” doesn’t automatically mean “free,” and navigating your health insurance coverage for therapy means understanding that the details of your specific plan…
Love, family, and emotional well-being are deeply connected. Yet, in many cases, people invest their time, money, and energy in life’s big moments: the wedding, the birth of a child, or even the pursuit of love. They do so without giving equal attention to the emotional work that sustains those experiences. At Symmetry Counseling, we believe caring for your mental health is the foundation of every healthy relationship, no matter if that relationship is with your partner,…
At social gatherings or in everyday life, many people feel pressure to connect, communicate, and be perceived as confident. Take a minute to think about what kind of person comes to mind when you think of someone who is great at working the room at events. Most people may think of a person who may be charming, outgoing, extroverted, and a great conversationalist. The truth is, you don’t need to be outgoing and charismatic to be able…
Envy is one of humanity’s oldest emotions, yet today it shows up in new ways. The constant connection offered by smartphones and social media makes it easy to compare ourselves to others on a daily basis. This exposure can stir envy, lower self-esteem, and make it harder to connect with our true emotions. At the same time, many people find it difficult to understand or even name what they feel, especially if they grew up in families…
It’s safe to assume that most of us are experiencing higher levels of stress than we have in the past. We are living through challenging and unpredictable times, where we are expected to adapt to new routines while maintaining the same level of productivity. For many, this has created exhaustion and burnout. When stress builds, it can lead to overwhelming anxiety or even panic attacks. Finding ways to slow down, reconnect with yourself, and manage your thoughts…