Free therapy or meetup groups??

[Live4it20]

Anyone tips? I've tried emotions anonymous but the ones in my area no longer existed.

[skidrew]

Years ago I joined a 12 step fellowship. Thirty years later I’m still there and successfully recovering from a deadly disease. During this 30 years I got a degree, a great career, house, family, etc. All of my issues were resolved when I work the 12 steps and go to meetings. My anxiety and depression come back and get debilitating when I’m not working on my recovery. That’s just my own experience with a large 12 step fellowship.

[Hidden]

To me, they have a totally different purpose. I used to be a therapist and I would deeply question why is the therapy free? What is the skill level of the therapist?

High quality therapy helped me process and work through trauma from childhood and an abusive marriage. I do meetups to meet new people with similar interests and goals which helps me find support and connection to face the isolation from my depression and social anxiety. I’ve never done a meetup related to emotions though. That sounds interesting if we had that here.

[Hidden]

Two national organizations offer free, confidential, anonymous, peer-facilitated support groups. I attend both of them in my area.

1. Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance, dbsalliance.org . You can search for meetings in your area. Everyone is welcome at their meetings. Many people have multiple diagnoses.

2. National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), nami.org. Again, you can search for groups in your area. Your state probably has a NAMI affiliate. NAMI also has groups for family/friends/caregivers of people with mental illness.

Both organizations carefully train their peer facilitators before they run groups. The peers are not professionals but they do have psychiatric diagnoses. In my experience, groups in my area from both orgs have been tremendously beneficial. Please note, however, that neither group claims to be a substitute or replacement for professional mental health care. They are adjuncts.

Two other orgs of which I am aware but with which I have no personal experience are:

1. hearingvoicesusa.org/find-a...

2. peercollectivementalhealth....

I hope this helps!