Today we’d like to introduce you to Annabelle Mebane.
Hi Annabelle, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
If you had told me I would become a therapist when I was a teenager, I would have laughed at you. I’ve always had a sensitive, conscientious, and anxious temperament, but was not someone who liked being vulnerable or sharing much about my feelings as a kid. I found my emotions to be overwhelming and vulnerability to be terrifying even though it was lonely bottling things up. I discovered psychology in high school, and fell in love with the subject while taking AP Psych. I loved that I could learn about my inner world on my own terms. It also helped me to dip a toe into vulnerability, as the assignments my teacher created for us were interesting, engaging, and asked us to learn the content through reflecting on and applying it to ourselves.
This class led me to choose psychology as my major in college, but I still didn’t think that I wanted to be a mental health professional. It wasn’t until my senior year, when my anxiety and depression had taken a big toll on my physical health, that I finally decided (at the urging of one of my professors) to give therapy a try myself. Once I did, I found it to be such a relief. I wasn’t carrying all this pain on my own anymore. And almost immediately I realized that I had found what I wanted to do with my life.
I took a year after undergrad to work and apply to grad school, and in that time starting working for Dr. Jill Stoddard at The Center for Stress and Anxiety Management (CSAM) – https://www.csamsandiego.com/. I had known Jill growing up, and reached out to her after graduation to pick her brain about the field. I ended up joining her team as the clinic coordinator, handling prospective client calls. I continued as the CSAM clinic coordinator until I got my license, and after earning my M.A. from Pacifica Graduate Institute, I joined CSAM as an Associate MFT. I had the privilege of working under Dr. Stoddard’s supervision for 3 years, and earning most of my 3,000 hours toward licensure at CSAM and getting trained in providing Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), and exposure therapy to anxiety disorders, OCD, and trauma.
I now spend most of my work life at CSAM as a licensed therapist, and I absolutely love my job. As someone who has struggled with anxiety herself, I know just how excruciating it can be, and I know how much courage it takes to reach out to a therapist and to be willing to show up and share your pain with someone in hopes that they can help you. I am constantly moved by my clients’ bravery and strength and honored that they place their trust in me to help them. I find it so rewarding to provide them with compassion and skills that help them to see their own strength, relate to anxiety differently, and engage in life fully. I also could not be more grateful to work on the CSAM team, a group of incredibly skilled clinicians and kind, smart, thoughtful women without whom I would not be the person or the therapist I am today.
In addition to my work at CSAM, I also recently opened my own small practice geared toward maternal mental health. After becoming a mom last year, and struggling with significant prenatal and postpartum anxiety and depression, I sought out additional training in perinatal mental health. I have always found my way into my specialties by first wanting to learn how to navigate my own pain more effectively, and then by wanting to use my experiences both personally and professionally to help others. At California Anxiety and Perinatal Therapy, I bring my expertise in ACT and anxiety and related disorders to the perinatal population.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Ha! No therapist has ever found their way into this field via a smooth road. I stumbled into psychotherapy specifically because my road has been rocky.
Anxiety is the anguish borne of a deep longing for a smooth and certain road coming into conflict with the reality that life is unavoidably bumpy, twisty, and uncertain. Anxiety urges us try to smooth and straighten the road rather than to look up and steer through the bumps. It pulls us to strain desperately to see as far down the road as we can, and to spend our effort trying to predict and prepare for what is miles away while we miss what is in front of us right now.
I still hit bumps, and hit a particularly big one with pregnancy and postpartum triggering a big resurgence in anxiety and depression. But it’s the bumps in the road that ultimately make me a more effective, compassionate therapist, and always lead to renewed growth within me, both personally and professionally. I wouldn’t want a therapist who hadn’t sat in the other seat, and who didn’t know what it feels like to wrestle with life’s inevitable bumps.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about California Anxiety and Perinatal Therapy?
I opened CAAP Therapy with a desire to help new mothers — whether they are still wanting to become moms and just starting to try to conceive or whether they are a few years postpartum — navigate this very particular season of life. I was so taken aback when I became a mom by just how much the experience rocked my world. I didn’t expect to feel so disoriented by something I had wanted so desperately for so long. I wanted to take my personal experience to deepen my professional expertise in perinatal mental health and to apply my knowledge of evidence based treatment for anxiety, OCD, trauma, and depression to this particular population.
I specialize in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), which is a transdiagnostic, evidence-based treatment designed to help increase psychological flexibility. It is about acknowledging life’s inevitable pain with openness, curiosity, and compassion, approaching the things outside of our control with acceptance, and focusing our control efforts on effective, values aligned action. It’s about helping people live a rich and meaningful life even in the face of pain and challenges.
I want readers to know that if they are in the thick of pregnancy or postpartum and feel like they don’t even recognize themselves anymore, that they are not alone, that there is hope, and that there is help.
What do you like and dislike about the city?
My favorite thing about San Diego is the fact that it has so much to do, and such a variety of options for varied interests. But it also doesn’t feel like a big city. There are so many small community pockets that make it feel like home.
My least favorite thing is probably traffic.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.caaptherapy.com/
- Instagram: @caaptherapy
- Other: annabelle@caaptherapy.com
Image Credits
Image credit for the picture with two hands: Olivia Purvis
