Why More People Are Choosing Counseling Today | Episode 431

Why More People Are Choosing Counseling Today | Episode 431

The word “therapy” shouldn’t make us flinch. Justin opens up about the moments that nearly broke him—a teenage overdose, a life-altering hospital stay in 2017—and the choices that rebuilt his life: seeking counseling, working with a psychiatrist, and letting community and faith do their quiet work. This is a grounded, unglossed look at what real help looks like when “try harder” finally stops working.

We walk through how stigma gets planted in a single word and how to uproot it with practical steps. Justin explains why finding the right therapist can take time, what a trust-building first session feels like, and how to ask for referrals without guilt. He contrasts roles—a therapist for processing, a psychiatrist for medication management—and shares simple ways to prepare for sessions as an introvert or anyone who struggles to open up. Along the way, he talks frankly about quitting alcohol, repairing nutrition, and the power of group therapy to give language to pain.

At the heart of the conversation are five pillars that keep him steady: faith, a skilled psychiatrist, a present therapist, a global audience that shows up, and family. When stress surges, he checks each pillar and makes small, specific moves—book the appointment, review meds, text a friend, pray, rest. The result isn’t perfection; it’s a life you can stand inside. If you’ve wondered whether therapy is for you, or if you’ve felt stuck after a mismatch with a provider, this honest roadmap offers clarity, permission, and a path forward.

If this resonates, share it with someone who needs to hear it, subscribe for future episodes, and leave a review to help more people find the show. Your voice can be the bridge someone else walks across to get help.

Chapter Markers

0:00 Welcome And Mission Of Voices for Voices

0:25 Donation Appeal And Global Reach

1:47 Naming Stigma Around Therapy

3:44 First Encounter With Counseling As A Teen

8:43 The 2017 Turning Point

11:45 Group Therapy, Psychiatry, And Retiring Counselor

12:56 Searching For The Right Therapeutic Fit

16:35 What A Good First Session Looks Like

19:10 Therapy As A Two‑Way Street

21:01 Faith, Purpose, And Heavy Topics

23:43 Letting Go Of Self‑Fixing Alone

26:22 Gratitude For Care Team And Community

28:30 Ultimatum, Admittance, And Rebuilding

31:05 Five Pillars For Stability

33:01 Long‑Term Counseling

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Transcript

Welcome And Mission Of V4V

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes 0:02

Hi everyone, it's Justin here of Voices for Voices. Thank you so much for joining us on another episode of the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast. Without you, we could not make this happen. If you could do us a big favor, give us a thumbs up, like, follow, subscribe, share, reach out to 25 of your uh closest contacts, let them know about the Voices for Voices TV show, and let them also know as well that we are a 501c3 nonprofit charity that we um do collect donations in any denomination uh for individuals uh that are getting ready to go into mental health care if that is their choice and that and that is their decision. Uh so that's where the the money goes. Uh and then we have continuing operations of bringing this show to you. Uh this is beamed all across the world. Uh there are uh many different software packages that we we use to to be able to do that. And uh with us being a nonprofit, you know, that that comes out of our own pockets. Uh so any help that you're able to do, you can do that on lovevoices.org. Lovevoices.org, lovevoices.org, and that's O R G at the end. So we're gonna talk about therapy today on this episode. Some people like it, some people despise it, some people are on the fence, uh, not not quite sure. Uh, they think it's a bad thing, maybe, uh, that uh nobody's gonna understand me, that I don't need to go to therapy because the word therapy, just like the word the words mental health, it's kind of like there's a stigma around the word therapy, and we're here to squash that because terms, names are only half of what's happening. So, with mental health, for example, we all have mental health. So, for me to sit here and and talk about and share about my mental health, that's me talking about my own personal mental health. I have physical health and I have mental health. Sometimes I talk about physical health, sometimes I talk about mental health. Sometimes I talk about therapy, sometimes I don't. Therapy, counseling, you know, the uh various various terms uh can mean very similar uh definitions. So I'm going to go talk to my counselor, I'm gonna go talk to my therapist, uh, I'm gonna go talk to my uh psychiatrist. Um those are the types of things that I'm familiar with. And so when we talk about specifically therapy slash counseling, I used to think it was the scariest thing in the world. So we'll back up my life a little bit. Where I've shared this before, where I was in my teens and I took a lot of cold and cough pills, so much so that I needed to be admitted into the hospital, have my stomach pumped, charcoal, all those non-fun things. So upon my release, one of the things that I was asked to do was to go to therapy, go see a counselor. And I remember being visited in the in the hospital, and some a person came in and said they were a caseworker, and I didn't know what a caseworker was. I didn't I didn't know. And I forget exactly how the conversation went. I just remember being in that not great state of my body and mind after that happened, and trying to slowly get those active ingredients and others out out of my out of my system to start to uh to start to heal, you know, from the inside out. And so when I was released, I went to trying to think of how many. So there's this I don't want to call it like a buffer. Okay, I'll call buffer. Uh, you know, it's a little buffer zone of from starting to like where where the uh medication is gonna start working, or at least it's gonna you're gonna be able to feel it, feel a change in a positive way. Well, I didn't quite make it through the negative thoughts, bad thought phase. And I don't remember if I tried one or two different antidepressants of like I tried one maybe, and then and then may have tried another. I'm not quite sure. Things are a little bit fuzzy. I'm 44 years old. Um it's interesting. There's some things I remember crystal clear, and and others I don't remember everything crystal clear. Uh, and that's okay. Uh so that was when I was I when I was introduced to therapy, counseling, you know, sitting in an office and ask questions, and I mean I was in my teens, I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. I didn't I wasn't fitting in, and the friend group I had wasn't the healthiest, and uh and so that's kind of in a nutshell like where I was at. And yeah, so that was my first, you know, in my teens was the first time I was kind of introduced to therapy or counseling, or however we want to refer to it. Then 2017 hits 37, 36, 37. Um and that hospital visit, the one that changed my life, I think for the better. Because there's more positives that came out of that that that time than there were negatives. There's still negative, there's still negatives. I'm first of all, nobody's perfect, as we all know. So I'm not perfect. But as far as you know, what's this call my binge drinking of alcohol? I don't drink alcohol anymore. I'm fine with it, I don't need to. I can drink sparkling water, I can drink club soda if I'm in an environment where a lot of people are drinking alcohol, and it's it's like old hat for me. I just I don't have a problem with that. If somebody asks me, I'll share with them. Just like I've shared with millions through this show and through speaking engagements. So coming out of the hospital, I there were various group therapies that I was I was in, and then I also had a therapist slash counselor and then a psychiatrist uh and a few years into I mean several years, four or five, four or five, maybe yeah, four or five, uh my counselor retired, and so I was in search of a counselor, still seeing a psychiatrist, still managing my medication, and it listened to me, but not to the extent of you know a counselor, therapist, however you want to refer. And when my therapist retired, I looked around, I tried, there was, I think, one that I may have seen a few times. But it didn't work, it wasn't working out. It was a bit up in up in the ears. Um and so again, I was in search, and I hadn't come across one. So I was really just seeing a psychiatrist. And so just recently did I start seeing also a therapist. For the most part, therapy has been very helpful. I'm able to share, I'm able to talk freely. And what I wanna, one of the things I do want to share is just because you find a therapist and you you know go to a session or two, doesn't mean you're going to continue with that therapist, right? We all have different you know, a little bit different personalities and expectations of what we're looking for in a therapist, and so we might say, Ah, you know, thank you. I can you recommend somebody else? And so it may take some time to find one, but don't let that deter you from finding one, because that's the easy thing to do. Trust me, I've been there. It's been years since I've had a not only a psychiatrist medication management professional as well as a strictly therapist, therapy, counselor. And so don't get don't beat yourself up over it. We all have different right, we we all we all have a little bit different minds and mindsets, and so we uh we don't need to beat up ourselves over that. We just keep searching, we keep looking. And that's one thing, that's one of the things that I've learned. So, number one, therapy isn't bad, is actually for strong people who are talking about hard parts of their lives. That's what really brought me into the hospital in 2017. One of the big things was I wasn't dealing with things, 138 different things at that time. Health healthy. I was not, and it's so that you know that's one thing. You can call it what you want, call it therapy, call it counseling, call it talking to a person, uh sharing information with them guiding and and helping, but it really comes down to a two-way street, and that's what I found with my latest counselor is that the very beginning, like our first visit most of the time, was tell me a little bit why you're here, and I was like, how much time do we have? Uh because I'm I'm already past that like the therapy and counseling, like those things don't bother me like they they used to, so that's why that's why I'm laughing a little bit. I'm not laughing because it's funny, like ha ha, I'm going to count. It's not that. It's just how much, how long do you have? Because I have a lot to unpack. But before I even got to that point, my therapist went into depth about their background, their style. Yeah, probably about you know 10 minutes or so before I got into like, why are you here, Justin? And it was very helpful because I was able to find out really quick if this person so far, like one visit in, was gonna be a good fit for me. And the one one one of the questions was like, what are you looking to get out of this? What are you looking to get out of our sessions together? Like, what's the reason? Like, how can I help facilitate what you're looking to get? Like, solve problems, give homework, like you know, there's a there's a lot of different things, and they said, you know, I don't I don't give homework, these are conversations. I'll come in and ask questions as we're going through, but I'm here for you, and so whatever way you you want to go through the sessions, I said that's that's what I'm here for. And that was exactly that was one of the things I was looking for was somebody, and I'm an introvert, remember? So I'm an introvert, and and I said, you know, somebody that's somebody that you know will listen, we'll interject when when needed, we'll guide. Um I just need to be able to take what's in here and stuff that's stressful or going on, and I need to be able to share. And so I think that's been the hardest kind of transition part over the years of I need to I need to do that, and sometimes that means I write things down, and other times it's just so heavy on my mind that I I just remember and so therapy is not scary, it's not if you're made to feel uncomfortable, if you're not, yeah, if you're not comfortable with the with who you're matched up with at first, that's okay. And the counselors, they don't take it personally. That's it's a two-way street, it's not just what the counselor or therapist wants. It's also what you want and what I want. Because if we if you and I leave those sessions and we don't feel like we we got anywhere, it's like, oh, well, you know, they didn't listen to me, or I talked too much, and they didn't interject, and I I don't know if I'm on the right path, and you know, we can go on for for hours to talk through this, but I'm here to say therapy is not a bad word, counseling is not a bad word. I want to say, in a sense, in a sense, it's like talking to a friend, it's sharing information that you know with HIPAA and you know the different laws that are you know, unless you you know you're talking about harming yourself or others and and all that, it it stays you know between me and my therapist, you and your therapist, your friend and their therapist, what have you. And it's heavy. A lot of this stuff that we're we talk about is very heavy, just like our show. Very heavy topics we talk about. Our TikTok lives, very heavy topics that we share and we talk about. And that's okay. But that's what we feel that we're called to do. Why we're on earth? Why we feel like we're on earth. The reasons why we feel that we're, you know, left on earth. Just like I say, how did I make it to you know to be age 44? There must be something. Again, I'm a believer in God. There must be something that God said and God thinks about me. Like Justin, I still have work for you to do. I don't know what that is. Maybe it is voices for voices. Maybe it's not. Maybe voices for voices is just a part. Maybe it's a stepping stone. I don't know. Maybe it's to be introduced to somebody uh that is a guest. Uh I have no clue. And so I'm I I don't want I don't want to try to figure all that out. I can, but that just creates more and more stress of well, could it be this? Could it be that? And we could be here all day, all night, and for weeks thinking about what it is, why we're here, why we're still here. Uh well, we made it through some of the tough, really tough events of our lives. So therapy's not bad. Counseling, not bad. You know, I I thought I knew everything before 2017. I thought I I I could I could fix everything about me. And I couldn't. I wanted to. I felt like I could. I felt that Justin, you can. You can fix everything. You're the guy. But sometimes we we need to just reach out for some help. It's not a bad thing. One of the things I do believe wholeheartedly, I'm not saying this is exactly what God wants me to do. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. But I wouldn't be in the position where we have cut filmed 430 plus episodes of this show with basically me as the staff. Me, not just the filming and recording and and and all that, whether you're watching, whether you're listening, but there's so much administrative busy work that goes on, you know, finding titles, descriptions, hashtags. There's a lot of things that I wish I knew back when we got started with the show. And so we kind of in a way wandered a little bit, and we have reached again those thousand cities that over a hundred countries across the world, and so by finding some efficiencies that we can do, or try to help broaden who watches and listens to our show. I have to give all the glory, first off, to God that put me in this position, and then secondly, it's got to be my psychiatrist, my therapist. Because without those individuals, I wouldn't be here. I would have probably given up on life. I probably would have just yeah, it's probably what I would have done. What I would have done. I didn't give up. I haven't given up that I have a future therapy appointment, that I have a future psychiatry appointment. And so while those may scare people, the terms, it doesn't for me. I need it. I get asked a lot of times. Justin, you know, you've been you've been getting therapy and seeing a psychiatrist and all the things. How like when are you gonna stop? And I say, I don't I don't I don't think I'm going to. And I do need a therapist as well as the psychiatrist. Because I can't get to the point of sitting and having my mind erases all over to even be right here in the moment as much as I can for our shows, if it wasn't for all those factors. If it wasn't for God, if it wasn't for my therapist, if it wasn't for my psychiatrist. And so what is it for you? It's okay. You can peek your head out of the shell. As if you're a turtle. That's how I felt. And then I was kind of given almost basically an ultimatum. We can let you go home. You're not dying right now, or we can admit you voluntarily, and we could diagnose and do that. So at my lowest, thinking I could do everything myself, I I it was at that point where I was like, Justin, you can't do everything, you need help. I know you don't want to believe the it's the mental health related for the most part. Help. My nutrition was down, I lost about 40 pounds, wasn't eating but carrot sticks and playing on this. There's just a lot of things that were going on, and so that's why I say I was at that was kind of lowest mental health-wise, but that was also like digging the foundation to get started to build somewhat of a semblance of a human being like me. And here we are, four hundred and thirty episodes plus later, reaching people, dignitaries, presidents, foreign ministers, uh, military generals, regular people, all from right here. And it's all because of you. You've continued to watch, you've continued to listen, you've continued to share, you've continued to donate as you've been able to at lovevoices.org. You've purchased books through Voices for Voices Publishing. You've watched our TikTok lives that happen time from time to time. Not only do I have psychiatrists, not only do I have therapists, but I have you, our fans, our listeners, our viewers. Those are the four big ones. And then obviously, you know, bring in family as a constant. So those are the five things. And I look at how can I alleviate some of the stress? How can I alleviate things that are holding me up? I look at one of those five, and a lot of times it's more than one of those five things. So reach out, reach out to your friend group, reach out to 25, 50, 100, your friend group. Pass along to Voices for Voices, Podcasts, and TV show. As you know, we're everywhere. We're just behind the Dan Bongino show and the Joe Rogan experience. We're here for the long haul. We're not here just for just for the short term. We're here for as long as I'm here, and I hope somebody continues this when I'm gone. But right now, I'm here, you're here, and we're doing this together. So we're sending a lot of love and good vibes your way, and let's celebrate the voices of everybody in the world. And until next time, Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices. Please be a voice for you or somebody in need. We'll see you next time. We love you. We'll see you next time.