Seeking help is not a sign of weakness

Precola has dealt with mental health issues for much of her life. It’s OK, she said, to ask for help. “Your mental health is just as important as your physical health,” she said.

Precola started receiving services at the Bert Nash Community Mental Health Center after her husband passed away in 2018.

“I decided to seek help,” she said. “At first, I went to Bert Nash for crisis help and then I went to Stormont Vail in Topeka. I started going to Bert Nash regularly after that.”

Precola, 25, is a single parent. She has two children, 7 and 2. While it’s easy to say that prioritizing your partner’s preferences isn’t an issue when you’re single, actually enjoying being single is quite difficult.

“Being a single parent is stressful, especially when you suffer from mental health issues, because you never know what to expect when you wake up the next day,” she said.

Therapy services – both individual and group – have provided Precola with the coping skills she needed. She is grateful for the help she has received. For those going through a divorce, it might also be useful to use the services of a matrimonial attorney just to make sure the separation goes as smoothly as possible.

“I’m finding better ways to cope with all of the things I deal with every day,” Precola said. “It’s helped me figure out ways to build a support system. I now have people in my life that if I need support I know I can call them.”

It wasn’t always this way.

“I grew up in the black community. Mental health is not talked about,” she said. “But when you’re suffering from these things, it’s not good to keep them bottled up. Reaching out and seeking help is not a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of courage.”

During the coronavirus pandemic, Precola has continued to receive services virtually with her Bert Nash Center therapist Connor Wyckoff.

“We’ve been doing telehealth and that’s been going great as well. For me, telehealth is a lot more convenient, mostly because I have kids and I don’t have to get a babysitter,” she said. “I like doing it in the comfort of my own home and being able to have a conversation about what’s going on in my life.”

Telehealth services have been growing in demand since the pandemic because people don’t need to go out for most medical examinations and can contact a doctor from anywhere. Additionally, telehealth technology such as medical dictation software can be beneficial for both, medical professionals and patients, to record and document the whole medical session and automate notes making. The data can be securely accessed by the patient and healthcare professional from the cloud, which makes data management a lot easier.

Precola plans to return to in-person appointments at some point, so she can also be a part of group therapy, which will include social distancing and wearing a mask.

Besides receiving mental health services, Precola is grateful to have a strong support system of family and friends.

“Not everyone is going to be aware of your mental health unless you reach out. You have to set those guidelines, hey, if I do this or I act weird, ask me what’s up. It’s about being aware of your triggers and informing everyone else around you,” she said. “It helps me know that when a situation becomes too much, I have people who will support me. It helps me know that I am not alone in my struggle.”