Payton Bencivenga

LCMHCA – AGES 16+

Hi!

As a person who has STRUGGLED with feelings of insecurity, anxiety, and depression, I know the importance of connecting with a counselor who ACTIVELY listens to what you are saying, is able to VALIDATE what you are experiencing while also being able to provide a different perspective at times when it is needed in order to help us see things in a different light.

Many times we just need someone to talk to who isn’t our friends or family members so that we can truly say how we are feeling or figure out how to effectively problem solve through different situations.

Having a counselor who you feel really hears you and understands where you are coming from can be such a RELIEF.

It is all about having a good connection with our counselor because they can help to provide us with how to problem solve, work through our emotions, and at times face our biggest fears or issues head on all the while with them at our side to help SUPPORT us in this journey called life.

In my own experience, the more I tried to deal with my feelings by myself, the WORSE I felt. I tried to cope on my own by using meditation, exercise, medications, and talking to friends. Medication helped me manage what I was experiencing at the time, but I knew that wasn’t the long term answer for me. While meditation and exercise are always beneficial, neither provided much relief to what I was experiencing daily.

When talking with my friends, who I know meant well, they couldn’t always meet me where I was because many times they were trying to help me FIX the problem instead of VALIDATING what I was experiencing as being true and real. This is when I knew I needed to find someone to talk to who wasn’t my family or friends.

It took me a while to find the right therapist for me and once I found her I knew this would be a life changing experience. She helped me by changing my view point with different situations and within a few weeks things started to make sense and I began to feel like MYSELF again! What a RELIEF it was to feel like myself again instead of the stranger I had become to myself!

I realized that I did not have to carry these struggles alone anymore but that there was someone who was there to support me and to help me understand that my emotions were completely natural and valid. I started to understand how my past experiences and reactions influenced my current life and how I needed to change those cycles so that I could begin to work towards a life that I wanted.

This experience CHANGED the course of my education, which led me to pursue counseling as a career. I want to be the counselor for others who are struggling in life so that they know they are not alone.