Everyone Has Issues... here’s how to get help!

Life is stressful, right? Whether you’re adjusting to a new home, dealing with the COVID-19 crisis, striving to maintain a healthy relationship with your spouse or getting your kids through their emotional teenage years, you may have reached a breaking point and need help. In honour of World Mental Health Day this month (10 October), we speak to counsellors about issues that many of us are facing right now.

Grieving the loss of someone – or something

There are many different kinds of losses throughout life – and different ways to grieve them, explains TANJA FAESSLER, coach and counsellor at Counsellingconnectz.

Physical loss may be most familiar, she explains. Examples include miscarriage or stillbirth, death, or losing one’s home. However, Tanja explains that we can also grieve abstract loss; it may be just as painful to lose a relationship or job, or experience the unfulfilled desire to have a baby. Perhaps you’re even grieving the loss of a life you once knew before COVID-19 – a life filled with frequent tropical getaways, and trips to your home country to see friends and relatives.

“Though the pandemic has resulted in immense physical loss globally, there’s also an abstract loss as people under lockdown lose job security, routines or plans for the future,” says Tanja.

No matter what it is you’re grieving – whether it’s someone or something – she says it will likely be a process that takes time to unfold, and won’t be the same from day to day.

“There are no fixed timelines for this process, and no unacceptable emotions. Ignoring or arguing with pain will not make it disappear. Instead, grief needs only two things from us: time and compassion.”

While support from friends is invaluable, Tanja says that for extremely deep, “stuck” feelings of sadness that never seem to go away, the help of a trained therapist may be more appropriate.

Counsellingconnectz’s team of counsellors uses a broad range of techniques to provide emotional and mental support to individuals of all ages who are struggling with grief and loss, and has profound experience supporting couples who’ve experienced the loss of a baby.

Baby Loss Awareness Week is 9 to 15 October. If you’ve lost a baby, don’t be afraid to ask for the help and support you need. To learn more, visit babyloss-awareness.org.

Mending your marriage

A couple with relationship issues in Hamburg, Helsinki or Hong Kong won’t necessarily be better off in Holland Village. The pressures of living abroad can be many and varied, and issues that exist even before you move overseas are not likely to disappear – in fact, they’re more likely to be worsened by the stress of getting accustomed to a new environment, roles and expectations. Throw in some kids, long work hours and frequent travel, and there’s a lot of potential for disagreement and frustration.

Oh, and a global pandemic certainly hasn’t helped, with added stress and feelings of isolation. In fact, in 2020, many people have found themselves feeling lonely and disconnected despite physically being in partnerships.

PRU JONES is a counsellor at Counsellingconnectz with specialty training in trauma, PTSD, grief and loss, acceptance and commitment therapy and Gottman Couples Therapy. She believes that a marriage counsellor can be crucial to helping a couple work through the emotions that come with all of life’s challenges. And, while she says she can’t guarantee that every single relationship will be saved, the majority of couples she works with come away with “insights, actionable points, tools to experiment with and, weirdly enough, in every session the return of some lightness, fun and discovery.”

But what should you do if your partner won’t agree to come with you to therapy? “Go yourself!” says Pru. “You may say ‘I’m not the problem’, but consider a few things. Firstly, the difficulties in a relationship often stem from internal struggles – what I call ‘the space within’ – and how that translates into the couple dynamic, ‘the space between’. We usually bring huge amounts of baggage to our relationships, built up from our individual stories and how our relationship has evolved. If we learn tools to manage and recognise these, we can choose whether we stay stuck in our destructive patterns.”

Secondly, there is a domino effect. “As your behavior changes, your partner’s will too. More often than not, your partner will see the benefits and come along too.” Additionally, Pru says that as you learn to manage and regulate big emotions, you create an environment that enables your partner to do the same. This will also help children impacted by the relationship change.

“The only variable we can ever really manage is ourselves. Good therapeutic tools help you be the best version of yourself, whatever life throws at you,” she says.