The Therapy for Black Girls Podcast is a weekly conversation with Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, a licensed Psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia, about all things mental health, personal development, and all the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves.
This week I'm answering some of the questions you sent in about how your mental health is currently being impacted.
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Ya. Welcome to the Therapy for Black Girls Podcast, a weekly conversation about mental health, personal development, and all the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves. I'm your host, Dr Joy hard and Bradford, a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia. For more information or to find a therapist in your area, visit our website at Therapy for Black Girls dot com. While I hope you love listening to and learning from the podcast, it is not meant to be a substitute for relationship with a licensed mental health professional. Hey, y'all, thanks so much for joining me for such an one forty nine of the Therapy You for Black Girls Podcast. Today, I'm answering a few of the questions y'all sit in related to how your mental health is being impacted right now, and I'm really happy you're taking this opportunity to share how you've been feeling and to extend these conversations with our community. Remember that if you have a question that you'd like to ask, you can share it with us at Therapy for Black Girls dot com slash CV support. Here's question No. One, how do I allow myself the room to experience the hurt from the complete disruption of my life, while also dealing with the guilt that my losses seemed to pale in comparison to what is being experienced by health care professionals, those who have lost loved ones or employment due to this. I give thanks to God daily for what I know I've been blessed with, but I feel wrong for being saddened by missing my normal life where normal will never be the same for so many other people. Thank you so much for this question. I have certainly seen similar symptimistics spress related to feeling guilty about the disappointment and sadness that people are experiencing related to the disruption in their lives. And I'd invite you and anyone else who's struggling in this way to consider that there are no grief Olympics. No medals are given for whose grief hurts the most, or ways the most pain, sadness and disappointment or things that we can all connect with. What do we really get out of judging others for the things that pain them? I'd argue there's very little There is enough space for us to hold both the disappointment and sadness at the loss of what you thought your life might be like right now, and the sadness related to the loss of a loved one. A few things I'd encourage you to do to give yourself the space to work through this is one to journal about how you're feeling. What did you think your life would look like right now and what does it actually look like? How do you feel about how those things have changed? And I want you to consider if all of what you're telling yourself about the situation is entirely true. It is true that some things may look different than we expect it, But is it true that these things must be abandoned forever. Given the state of the world right now, it's very easy to go with the worst case scenario. But I wonder if there might be some areas of gray you've overlooked, and that there are perhaps pieces of your vision that can still be salvaged, or maybe there's a different route to get there than you originally intended. Sometimes we're so set on things looking one way we can't accept that they might look like something else. And this is not to say that you can't still grieve what you thought it was, just that there might still be space for a revisioning Two. I'd encourage you to talk to a trusted person, whether that be a loved one or a therapist, about how you're feeling and allow yourself to be further validated in your pain. A lot of what I've seen happening is that people are expressing their disappointments and sadness about things online in places like Twitter or Instagram, and those are not always the safest places with our deepest hurts. It's very easy for things to be misinterpreted. People don't have a full context of who you are in your life. Intentions are really high right now as lots of us are just generally anxious, and so it's easy to just yell at a stranger online. But that's not actually what will be helpful for you. It's important for you to be able to share your pain in a space where someone else can help you to hold it. And finally, I want you to practice more compassion and gentleness with yourself and practice being more present with your thoughts and feelings as opposed to being in judgment of them. Our thoughts and feelings give us valuable information, and sometimes we get so caught up in making a value judgment about them, we don't allow ourselves the space and time to fully experience them. So I want you to practice giving yourself the space to fully feel your feelings and to sit with what they're trying to say to you as opposed to what they mean about you. Thanks again for your question, and I hope you continue to take ge care of yourself. Question number two, how do I cope with feeling lonely during this social distancing when on a regular I already feel alone? So this is another question that has come up for a few members of our community, so I'm really glad that you asked it. So first, I hope that you can hear that that you're not alone in this experience. There are others struggling in very similar ways. Secondly, I'm curious about your experiences of quote unquote feeling alone even before the social distancing started. I wonder if the feeling alone is about not having anyone in your life who you really feel connected you, or whether it's the idea of feeling alone even though there are lots of people you're maybe peripherally connected to. If it's the latter, then there may be some work to be done, either through processing on your own or with the therapist around your experiences of relationships throughout your life. I wonder if there's more to dig into there. If, however, it's about not having found your people, so to speak, then I encourage you to be as active as you can on social media right now. Now. I know I may be a little bit biased, but I really feel like the community on our social media pages is one of the best around. Sisters in our Facebook group and on our Instagram page consistently show up for one another and support one another, and I think it would be a great way for you to at least begin connecting with others who might have some same things in common. Even beyond our pages, there are groups on Facebook for just about anything you can think of, TV shows, hobbies, musicians, so you may want to start to search there to see if you can find a group that interests you. Something else you might want to try is getting involved with some kind of volunteer initiative. I've seen groups organizing to do things like so mass read books to kids. So if you find yourself with some extra time right now, getting involved with volunteering might both allow you to help someone else but also give you a better sense of purpose for your time, so that you're spending less time thinking about being lone. I hope that helps take care of yourself. And then question number three. I want to be informed, but every time I even hear the words coronavirus or COVID nineteen, I get super anxious and almost have a meltdown. What are some coping mechanisms to deal with what is happening in the real world and be informed without being afraid? This is another great question, So if you haven't already, then I'd encourage you to limit the amount of news you're consuming on a regular basis. At this point, the things you need to know are to stay in your house as much as possible. If you have to go out, bring wipes and hand sanitizers to wipe down anything you might need to touch, and what you need to do should you begin to experience any symptoms that are consistent with COVID nineteen. Anything beyond that might just be overwhelming for you, so you might want to ask a friend or a loved one to let you know if anything changes or if there's anything new you need to know, and otherwise disengage with the news for a while. I also want you to know that it's totally normal to be afraid right now. Lots of this feel scary and uncertain, and so being afraid is a normal response to having this situation. So when we're afraid of unknowns, the best thing for us to do is to control the things that we actually can control, like our news consumption, staying connected to our support system, and putting ourselves on some type of a schedule. These are the things that can help bring back some semblance of a normalcy to your life. It's also important to make sure that you're setting up boundaries with your support system. It's not gonna be super helpful if when you do spend time with your circle, all y'all do is talk about the coronavirus. That's actually not helpful, so make sure you let them know that you prefer to discuss other things during your time together. I'd also encourage you to look into some meditation and mindful activities that might be helpful for you. You can check out the Calm app. You can search YouTube for mindfulness videos something that will help you to practice censoring yourself and bringing down the anxiety that you experience. Continue to take get care of yourself. So those are our first set of quarantine questions. If you have other things you'd offer as suggestions for these sisters, please share with us on either Twitter or in your Instagram stories using the hashtag tb G in session. If you have a question you'd like to ask about how your mental health is being impacted by COVID nineteen, please feel free to share it with us at Therapy for Black Girls dot com slash c V support and we'll try to answer it either here on the podcast or on our social media channels. So if you haven't already, please connect with us there and turn on your notifications so that you don't miss our posts. We're at Therapy for Black Girls on both Instagram and Facebook, and Therapy for the Number four be Girls on Twitter. Remember that if you're looking for a therapist in your area, you can check out our therapist directory at Therapy for Black Girls dot com slash directory. Many of the therapists there offer options to meet virtually, which is probably something many of you're looking for right now. And if you are looking to connect with other sisters and can use some extra support, come on over and join us in the Yellow Couch Collective, where we take a deeper dive into the topics from the podcast and just about everything else. You can join us at Therapy for Black Girls dot com slash y c C. Thank y'all so much for joining me again this week. I look forward to continue in this conversation with you all real soon. Take it care.