Have you been feeling flat for a while now? Like life is just one long to-do list? Maybe you’ve lost motivation, things don’t feel fun anymore, and you’re not really interested in much. And yet, on the outside, you’re still doing it all: showing up to work, going to meetings, paying the bills, keeping everything moving. But inside, it feels heavy, like you’re dragging yourself through every day.

If this rings true, you might be dealing with something called High-functioning depression.

Get curious about your therapist’s Bi+ clinical competency
and your unique Bi+ challenges and mental health risks. 

Being on the Bisexual Spectrum (Bi+) is still fraught. The strange thing is that it seems like it shouldn’t be. Aren’t we way past Bisexuality being an issue for anyone by now? This belief is actually part of the problem: the struggles Bi+ people grapple with continue to be dismissed, under-studied, and minimized, and we are cast as whiny, confused, and attention-seeking. This very dismissal prevents the struggles the Bi+ population’s experiences from being appropriately heard, understood, acknowledged, validated, and therefore addressed. Continuing to bring up the difficulties we face as Bi+ community members is framed as exactly the whiny, attention-seeking we are accused of. It is a catch-22-type trap! If we bring it up, we are dismissed; if we don’t bring it up, the harm existing in the status quo continues.

As a therapist, you can imagine that I am a big proponent of the role therapy can play in one’s life. It is such a great tool when we have the opportunity to engage in it. But I'm also a big proponent of taking charge of our own healing and growth! Therefore, when I come across evidence-based actions that people can take into their own hands, I am thrilled! And am motivated to share with you. Therapeutic writing fits the bill: it is an activity you can do on your own, with zero financial cost, and is well supported by research.

This article, What Your Bi+ Clients Need You To Know, about guiding and educating Registered Clinical Counsellors on important information about counselling clients who fall on the Bisexual spectrum. Insights magazine is the publication serving the members of the British Columbia Association of Clinical Counsellors (BCACC), which means that every RCC receives this magazine in the mail.

Bisexuality is highly misrepresented, misunderstood, understudied, and an often quite highly maligned sexual orientation. It has become increasingly clear to me that bisexuality needs to be talked about much more than it is!

In my role as a Registered Clinical Counsellor, I am in the extremely privileged position of being allowed — no — required, to ask some fairly (let’s face it) invasive questions, like: how do you define your sexual orientation? How do you describe your sexuality? As a result, I get to see something the research has told us, but live and in-person: that there are so many more people who identify as and live on the bisexual+ spectrum than most of us realize!

While going to therapy is known to be highly effective, supported by research, and is lauded in many circles, it still gets a bad rap in popular culture. Therapists are often portrayed on TV and in movies as unethical buffoons who sleep with their clients! Yikes!

Fortunately, this is extremely rare in reality. Sadly, stigma about getting therapeutic help for our mental health still exists in many circles.