When to Get Help for Anxiety (And Why Sooner Is Better)

Hello friends! This solo episode from Cassandra is a direct, practical case for why September is the best time to start anxiety treatment — before the holidays and seasonal mood changes make everything harder. She covers what to do right now for seasonal affective disorder (with and without medication), why getting outside during peak daylight is non-negotiable, and how to get started at Seen Therapy Services in Springfield, Missouri. Seen Therapy Services offers EMDR therapy, EMDR intensives, and couples counseling in person and via telehealth throughout Missouri. Visit seentherapy.org or call/text 417-708-7909. Get a taste for the episode below. If you enjoy your listen, give us a follow, share, or five star review. Have a good one!

"By the time you reach November, you're going to be managing anxiety plus holiday stress plus, for many people, the beginning of a seasonal mood dip. Starting therapy when you're already in the thick of all of that is harder. Starting now means you have time to build something solid before the harder season hits."

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hello, hello, hello friends. Welcome to the podcast where we simplify everything about mental health. Just kidding. But here's what we are gonna do. We're gonna sit down together, a licensed mental health professional, that's me, and a regular old Joe, as my husband Garth would describe himself. We're gonna talk about the nitty-gritty of the MBR, some nervous system mapping, how couples can help each other heal, what's healthy parenting actually look like, maybe a little bit of good old banter mixed in. All with the goal of making mental health a little bit simpler for you. Quick note, because my lawyer says that I have to, I'm a therapist, but not your therapist, unless I am. Even if I am, this is still just a podcast, okay? Now have a good listen. We are back for another solo episode. I know. But we're gonna talk about why you should be treating your anxiety right now. Right, right, right, right, right now. Okay? So before we get into it, I'm back to you with my favorite Olipop. I have nothing else interesting to talk about, apparently. My desk is full of plants in my plant hospital. So maybe I could talk about those. I did find out that I have a lily that I was recently gifted that is highly toxic. So that guy is, it doesn't matter how recovered it is tomorrow. Let's go into the office where there are like I can reasonably expect there are no living beings that are going to attempt to eat it. Whereas here I have a almost 12-year-old dog and a one-year-old human that I really think it would be reasonable to expect would take a go at it at some point. So I'm looking at it right now. Your days here at the plant hospital are numbered, Lily. You're headed to the office. So that's gonna be our bant today. Please be thinking of my plant hospital and wish me well because I am not the best. Well, I guess wish my plants well. I am not the best plant parent. Thank goodness I think I'm a much better human plant parent than a plant parent. Or my kids would really be struggling. Okay. Oh, quick thing though, before I move on from plants. I did have a friend at some point last year tell me you can buy a houseplant for about the same cost as you can buy a bouquet of flowers. So it's not that you like try to kill the houseplant, but when it does eventually, inevitably die, which is typically what happens in our house, you've probably had months of enjoyment out of it before that happens. And that was really a relief for me. I'm like, you know what? This is so true. So anyway, I'm gonna give the plant hospital my best effort. And also, if their results are not fabulous, they have lived and they have been loved while they have been here. Okay, back to your regularly scheduled programming, checking out my notes here so I make sure I don't miss anything. We are talking why you should treat your anxiety now. And by now, I mean this month. Why do I mean this month? I mean this month, folks, because here's what's gonna happen. You are listening to this in September, and you're going to come to me the beginning of November, and you know what you're gonna be dealing with at the beginning of November? Two things. Here's what you're gonna be dealing with. You are going to be thinking about the holidays, they are going to be impending. You are also going to be, you're gonna be possibly headed into like a seasonal effective situation. Maybe. Not for sure, right? But possibly, if you've done it before, chances are if you're living in the same area, you're gonna do it again. So when I say go get your anxiety treated right now, I mean in September.

SPEAKER_00 4:20

It's a great time to do it.

SPEAKER_01 4:21

And if you're listening to this in November, no worries, no worries, no worries, no worries, no worries. Maybe turn off the episode and just text 417-708-7909. You really don't need to listen anymore. Okay? Just send a text. All right, now for those of us who are listening in September, here's what I want you to know. This is the perfect time to start considering how you are going to just rock the holiday season, enjoy it, love it, soak it in, and also if seasonal effective disorder is applicable for you, how you're gonna manage that. Okay, so let's start with seasonal effective disorder. That sounds fun, right? The acronym is SAD, so it should be a good time. All right. With seasonal effective disorder, here are a few things that we can do in September that aren't nearly as relevant in November. So again, if you're still listening and it's November, I told you earlier, hit pause on the episode 417-708-7909. Okay, okay, okay, okay. It's gonna be fine. All right, in September. If we have historically seen for more than one year that we have a significant dip in mood, starting if you live in like the Midwestern United States like me, I typically see this start for folks around the end of November. Okay, and it's typically going through the beginning to mid-March. Yeah, so we're seeing a heavy hit December, January, February, three months. That's when it heavy hits in about two weeks or so into March.

unknown 6:15

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 6:17

So we want to go talk to our medical providers. We want to go talk to our primary care about the symptoms that we had last year. Okay? We want to be really clear about those symptoms. We want to be really clear about when they increased and then when they got better. Now, maybe you've already been on medication to help you deal with sad or seasonal effective disorder before. But you need a refill. Girl, go get the refill. It's September. It is time for the refill. Okay? Okay, okay, okay. Because you want that stuff kicked in and rearing and ready to go for you by the time you get to October. It's not gonna be quite there, but one can dream. No, really though. You want to go get it refilled now, so that by the time we're heading into the beginning of December, you're rocking and rolling. Alright? Now, let's say that you know that you deal with seasonal affective disorder, but you don't want to manage it with medication. Totally fine. Get it, get it, get it, get it, get it. Okay. What's our plan? What's our plan? Have we talked to anybody about our plan?

SPEAKER_00 7:45

Does our husband know about our plan? Are we gonna try to get outside more this winter?

SPEAKER_01 7:51

Is that part of our plan? What are the things that kept us from getting outside more? Last winter. How are we gonna tackle those barriers, right? Because the red light is great, right? You can't, there's lots of different solutions that you can use in your home. I'm telling you right now, nothing is going to beat you getting outside in the height of daylight in the winter. Nothing else. So, how do we make it happen? Do we need to talk to our boss? Is boss not cool with us taking a walk over our lunch break? Let's talk to our boss. Let's talk to him about it. I can send him some data. You can send them to me. I'll tell him how much more effective you're gonna be as a worker after you go take your little midday jaunt. We can talk about it. Okay. All right. So, have we talked to our spouse? Have we talked to our boss? What is our plan to get outside? What is our plan to treat this without medication? Okay. Now, when I say treat it without medication, if we have the means, guys, when are we going to the beach? Go to the beach. If you have the means to take a beach vacation January 20th and you have experienced seasonal affective disorder before, go. I'm in Springfield, Missouri. If you were in Springfield, Missouri, you know that we have the cutest little airport. Take you right to Florida.

SPEAKER_00 9:24

Take you right there. Go, go.

SPEAKER_01 9:27

Go, go, go, go, go, go. Arizona.

SPEAKER_00 9:30

I'll take you to Arizona.

SPEAKER_01 9:31

Sit by the pool. Sit by the pool in Arizona on January 20th. Okay. Okay, okay, okay. So if we're not gonna treat it with medication, how are we gonna treat it? Okay. It is okay to talk about seasonal affective disorder, but a lot of people in seasonal areas experience it to differing degrees. And you know, to some degree, I think we should be slowing down a little bit as the weather around us slows down. But sometimes that's not always feasible. So, what are we gonna do to keep our mood in a good place? I would not meet criteria for seasonal affective disorder, but I do notice a typical dip in my mood over the winter. I am talking to friends about like, what about a book club midweek? You know, like what's something that I can just go do, mom, me, not the whole family, like just me, that would be a nice mood lift midweek. Though, like my family's the jam, like they're awesome, right? I also really enjoy reconnecting with friends and like surprise, surprise shocker as a therapist having one-on-one or small group conversations. I know, right? Okay, so be thinking about do I need to go to my prescriber? If I don't want to treat sad with medication, that's okay. But then what's my plan? And what pieces of that plan have I tried to implement in the past that have not gone well? And what have been the barriers to that going well? And what pieces of that plan have I tried to implement in the past and it's gone super well. Okay. If you have the means, go to the beach January 20th. Just saying. Alright. Now other thing that's a little bit more gray, and why I think you should treat your anxiety right now. I did not look up the data beforehand. And in one of our recent previous episodes, I really butchered some data about green and blue space. So I'm not gonna try to throw out a specific number. I will tell you anecdotally from experience in working in the mental health field, folks are holding, folks in our culture are holding a different kind of stress and anxiety in November and December, even if they do not necessarily have stressful family dynamics. So if you are noticing high levels of anxiety in September, go talk to somebody about that. Now, in a previous episode, I talked about some things to do for your anxiety before you go to therapy. Listen to that, okay? And then once you've done those things, if you're still really feeling like those anxiety symptoms are not within your control, go to therapy in September. September is a great time to go to therapy. It's not that we won't welcome you in when you come right after Thanksgiving because you just went through one stressful holiday and you see another gently caressing over the horizon. That's not how it actually happens. It feels like it's coming in like a freight train, okay? But it's not that we won't welcome you in then. We will, we will, we will, we will. Come on in. At the beginning of December. And also, maybe we have like the rest of September, October, and the first part of November to really work on some stuff. That would be awesome. So, folks, this whole episode is me saying it's September. Come on in. Thanks for the listen. Talk to you again soon. Well, that's all, folks. Please see our show notes for ways to connect with us or go give us a follow on Instagram. You can find us at Simply Mintal. If this episode resonated with you, send it over to a friend. Give us a five star rating, subscribe, download all the things the cool kids are doing these days. Thanks for having me listen.