My Journey to Being Heard

“Nothing stands out to me, Faraz — have you tried limiting your caffeine intake?” 

All I could do was nod in disappointment as my sleep doctor rattled off common causes for sleep problems. With no solution for my insomnia, I left my doctor’s office feeling defeated — a feeling I’m sure many are familiar with. I guess this is just the way my life is going to be.

A Sleepy Beginning

In high school, the simplest of pursuits became a challenge. Nights spent tossing and turning hindered my ability to show up to class, recall information, or manage my emotional state.

The quick fix became sick days and tardy notes. Isolation and silence were more consoling than companionship. Despite what those around me said, what I was experiencing was more than just “tiredness and teenage mood swings.” I knew it was not just a phase. 

The phone rang relentlessly, and my inability to answer it wasn’t for a lack of effort. Although I wanted to see my friends, it just felt too damn exhausting.

My concerned parents pursued sleep specialists, nutritionists and seemingly every doctor north of Los Angeles. With EKG gel still stuck to my scalp one early morning during senior year, I read the results of my second overnight sleep test, revealing minor sleep apnea at worst — certainly not enough to warrant any type of treatment. I knew something was wrong, yet it felt as though I had to prove I was struggling.

After sleepwalking through high school hallways and caffeinating myself through college, joining the fast-paced startup mania of the Valley was a gift and a curse. While the startup excitement was fun, it amplified the sleepless hours and dissolved my duct-taped coping mechanisms. To the outside world, I was thriving and living my best life. The reality was that my insomnia had gotten so bad that I dreaded getting in bed each night.

My brain seemed to spiral as my workload amplified. As a result I began dipping into the medicine cabinet to induce sleep. Antihistamines, melatonin supplements, NyQuil or whatever sleep aids I could find, often combined, presented less than worthy results. My exhaustion had come to peak, as had the worries of those around me. One particular night, as I was finishing up my nightly self-medication, my sister-in-law quietly pulled me into another room.

“Faraz, this isn’t healthy. You should really try seeing a therapist,” she pleaded.

It didn’t make sense to me at the time — how would talking to a stranger fix my sleep? I wasn’t “one of those people” who needed to go to therapy, was I?

Finding the Right Therapist 

I spent the next 4 months trying to find the perfect therapist to work with. Seeing a therapist is less like seeing a doctor and more like working on a project with a coworker or classmate. You have a certain set of results you’re working to achieve. It requires a vision of where you want to be, trust in each other, and effective communication. Anyone who has looked for a therapist knows how the game goes. The typical process involves: 

1. Googling therapists near you.
2. Opening up multiple tabs to compare therapists and trying to choose one that seems right for you
3. Emailing several therapists only to either get no response, learn that there’s a two-month waitlist, or have a consultation with a therapist that doesn’t “get” you.
4. Growing disappointed and giving up on the search.
5. Becoming desperate enough to try steps 1-4 again.

I won’t even go into the process of looking for a therapist through your insurance portal — it’s an endeavor I wouldn’t wish upon anyone in the search for help. Perusing through thousands of therapists that take your insurance is a huge time commitment that often does not yield results.

Swing and A Miss 

My first experience with a therapist was less than ideal. I met with a 50-something year old man in a dim, musty room in Mountain View. He was the first therapist I could book an appointment with via email. Heading into his office, I was convinced I was dealing with anxiety, but after asking only a few questions, he informed me that I was not. Of course, this is just like going to the doctor’s all over again. Why did I think this would work?

In the last minute of our session, sensing my disappointment, he recommended trying guided meditation to help “turn off” my brain before bed. Desperate for rest, I tried that very night. For the first time in years, I fell asleep within 10 minutes.

A recording of a British man on YouTube instructing me to focus on my breath broke a two year insomnia streak that no doctor could help with. What I had stumbled on was mindfulness meditation, a practice backed by scientific evidence that has been made popular in recent years by companies like Headspace and Calm.

The next day, walking from 4th Street Caltrain to my office on Powell with newfound energy, I had hope. 

Therapist #4

One in four people give up their search before they find the right therapist. After countless hours of searching for a therapist and many consultations, I was lucky enough to find my match. From our first couple of sessions, I realized my tendency to overthink. Unable to stop the racing thoughts I had at night, I was incapable of falling asleep or entering REM cycle. That changed when my therapist provided me with a set of tools to combat those habits.

After 13 weeks of hard work, each filled with exercises designed to challenge the way I think, my time in therapy had run its course. According to the assessments I was taking every couple sessions, my overthinking and overall state of anxiety had mostly diminished. If you’ve never seen a therapist before or are wondering what could have happened in those sessions, here’s what a common session looked like for me:

• Discuss things I was overthinking that week and dive deep into a couple specific scenarios from beginning to end — what assumption were you making when you had that thought?
• Guided mindfulness exercises led by my therapist — these sometimes had body high-like effects that lasted an hour after the session.
• Agree on some mindfulness exercises for me to focus on the coming week.

Ever since I began to value my mental health, I’ve felt alive. I welcome sleep as a time to decompress, and in the mornings I have energy and motivation. I’m more social and confident, and I haven’t been sick in 9 months. Do I still struggle with energy issues, general anxiety, and insomnia from time to time? Absolutely. But now I have the tools and education to help these things pass. Mental health is just like physical health — you can’t go to a doctor once and never get sick again. We all need mental health check-ins, just as we need yearly checkups at the doctor. Life will always bring on exceedingly difficult challenges and tests, but mental healthcare provides us with the tools to handle them.

Feeling Heard 

One in five adults experience mental illness each year in the U.S., and suicide is the second leading cause of death among people aged 10-34. Mental illness is not “rare” by any means. This is why we are starting Heard. 

We know firsthand the obstacles therapy-seekers must overcome to find the right therapist for their needs, budget, and lifestyle. No one should have to struggle through life when there are qualified professionals trained to help people live fulfilling lives. Interestingly, the same way therapy-seekers are motivated to find the right fit for their personal needs, therapists also struggle to find clients that they feel they can truly help. Heard bridges that gap.

If you’ve been looking for a therapist, or even feel life could improve, look no further. Through a short survey and 15-minute consultation, we’ll connect you with a therapist who feels they are the right fit for your needs: https://joinheard.com/

If you’re a mental health professional interested in building the client caseload of your dreams, reach out to [email protected] and we’ll set you up for success. 

We are raising money to give us runway to work on this problem. If you know someone that is passionate about this space and wants to talk, we would love an introduction.

Be Heard.