As I sit here, preparing to write my first blog, I think about how ironic it is that social media provides me with such a sense of (false) comfort and security. Every day I see stories on the news about teens, for example, who take a racy picture of themselves, text it to a romantic interest, just to see it spread like wildfire across the internet. It seems as though lives are constantly being destroyed by information that gets into the wrong hands, and then becomes somehow lost–and yet stuck, omnipresent all the same–in cyberspace.

As I prepare to create a blog for my practice, Look Inside Counseling, LLC, it seems nearly impossible for me to find a comfortable balance between disclosing too much (after all, I am a therapist, right? My clients aren’t supposed to know anything about my own personal information or struggles, right?) and being human.

How can a client relate to me or learn to trust me, if they know nothing about me? What makes me credible if, as far as my clients are concerned, I am merely someone with an education, but lacking life experiences in the areas of the very most secretive, raw, inner issues that my clients come to me to discuss? And is blogging and other online medium the most appropriate way to inform them?

These are all struggles I came across when seeking out my own therapist, years ago. I wanted to find someone who “got it”. I wanted someone who knew what I was experiencing, not because a text book told them so, but because they had been there in the trenches, too. I wanted a therapist who, at some point in her life, had also felt broken.

Years ago, in one of my Certified Addictions classes, we had a class discussion as to whether or not people who had never been addicted to drugs or alcohol could make an effective drug and alcohol addiction counselor. One the one side of the argument, past addicts were saying “absolutely not!” The argument went something like this…”if you don’t know what it’s like to be so addicted to something that you literally will risk anything–job, family, your house, anything–for it, you can’t possibly understand!” Or “unless you know just how sick you feel when trying to quit drinking or drugging, there’s no possible way you can understand why, when you’re laying there, feeling like you literally might (or even worse want to) die, someone might chose to use again instead of allow this misery to continue”.

On the other side of the spectrum we had the professor of the course, who would always retort “but I know what it’s like to feel angry. I know what it’s like to feel lost. Hopeless. Sad. Depressed. Desperate. Loved. Unloved.” The list went on. These, she explained, are human emotions, and they belong to everyone, not just addicts. These human emotions are universal. They aren’t reserved for people of different races, classes, socioeconomic statuses, or hair colors. People with tattoos feel them, religious people feel them. They are lost on no one.

Although I wasn’t convinced, I liked her perspective. To me, someone who has struggled with many addictive behaviors in the past (see how personal and how vague I can be, all at the same time?), I saw both sides. I know how important understanding and having experienced basic human emotions are, but I also knew I wanted someone whose fought the same fight, and come out on the other side of it.

Years later, as I am now in the role of the therapist, I ask myself these same questions, but from a different perspective. “How might it be helpful for my clients to know I’ve been there? Why might it be important to them?” And then I gauge my self-disclosure around that. However, the self-disclosure I put out on the internet (remember, I’ve become very skilled at being vague and informative in the same sentence) is there to stay. It’s a commitment I’ve made to my clients, so that they can know I’ve been there. It’s also a commitment I’ve made to myself, to not be ashamed of my past or the stigma that comes along with it.

I recently got my hands on a copy of a book that I had 2 poems published in. The title of the book is called “Crazy”, and it portrays mental illness in a whole new light. It uses artistry and creativity to talk about real issues from real, “crazy” people. How, I wondered, might being included in this piece of art effect me, as a therapist? Do I really want my clients knowing I used to be “crazy”? Crazy enough to be published in a book entitled “Crazy”?! A book about mental illness?

But then, the more I thumbed through the pages, the more proud I was of myself and my past. If the other authors and artists portrayed in this book are really “crazy”, then I too want to be crazy. They are an amazing group of inspiring individuals who have come through the other side of their struggles. They are brilliant, witty, realistic, down to earth people who aren’t afraid to face their past. And if having those traits makes me crazy, then I’m ok with being crazy.

For now, I’ll cap the self-disclosure at that, and allow you to continue on your journey for the therapist that, perhaps, herself, not only gets it, but is maybe a little bit crazy, too.