Carolyn’s Story

Singer/songwriter, Carolyn Kendrick, often encouraged her friends to seek out a therapist to help them work through their troubles. After continual high anxiety and stress from her work as a musician, she realized it was time to take her own advice.

Carolyn’s Story Transcript

A lot of times when I’d be talking about their issues, I’d be like, “Why don’t you go to therapy? Why don’t you find some counseling? Why don’t you find somebody that you can talk through this with?” And I realized through that, I was like, “Wait, why don’t I give myself that same advice?”

My name is Carolyn, and this is my story.

As of right now, I’m technically a bluegrass musician. Yeah, I’m a fiddle player mostly, but I also am a singer-songwriter. 

I’ve always been a pretty high-stress, high-anxiety person. I feel a lot of pressure to be doing things constantly. There’s a lot of demand, and there’s not a lot of structure in my life.

I felt like I needed help, having some extra outlets to be able to express those frustrations and be able to make them into something constructive. I think I found Insight through Open Path. I was looking for different sliding scale services, and this was one of the first ones that came up that seemed to match my needs. 

Oh my gosh, my counselor is such an amazing listener. She’s so great. She’s funny and approachable. And she really balances that line of being a good listener and hearing what I have to say and knowing when the time is to make suggestions, and when it’s a conversation between us. She’s very good at knowing when to put in questions and when to listen. 

I would say that the most important thing is finding a therapist that you connect with. I think that’s generally the biggest obstacle that people find, and it’s certainly something that I struggled with. Even if you don’t feel like you need help, everybody needs help. Everybody needs an outlet. Everybody needs a safe place where they can talk through their emotions.

I’m much more balanced. And I would say that it’s much easier for me to function on a daily basis. Most things just feel a little bit smoother. 

I think the biggest thing is, often she’ll be like, “Do you hear the words that you’re saying?” And then you actually think about it. “Oh, well, now I do. Now I hear how I’m actually being versus what’s in my head.” When I first started going to therapy, it’s kind of like the difference between working out on your own and then going to a class. When you’re in it together with somebody else, and you have somebody helping you and guiding you and showing you, “Well, you kind of skipped over this,” or, “You know, have you noticed this? Have you seen this?” Having that really strengthens you much quicker, just having that external reinforcement and being able to, you know, have somebody else say, “Look, you’re doing it! You’re doing great,” or being like, “You’re not doing so great right now. Let me help you with this,” that really has meant the world to me.

Being with Insight has been incredibly helpful in my life I would say. I thought that it would be helpful, I didn’t think it would be incredibly helpful, and it really has been. It’s made a world of difference.

My name is Carolyn Kendrick, and this is my story.