My Mind And Me - Raw Emotions

Raw Emotions

Getting in the car I felt very uneasy. I felt like I was on my way to court to be judged. In reality I was on my way to my second counselling session, only this was the first time we would start talking about things properly. As I sat in the back seat of the cab I felt as if I was about to have every last detail of my life and traumatic events be picked apart one by one. I was about to confront issues that I hadn't visited in a long while, events that could have possibly caused the depression I was feeling today. Notice I say possibly, I didn't know for sure what had caused it but that was the point in this, the journey was to find out what had and to start conquering it for my sake and my families.

Sitting in the waiting room caused the most nerves. They were NHS so there was no thought of comfort gone into the waiting room, of course the NHS never pumped money into things like that. To be honest they should it may make anxiety in people like me lower when waiting to torture themselves with their pasts. Part of me was hoping I had got the day wrong and they wouldn't call my name out, but I was correct. "Bethany" there was my name, dread filled me as I took a slow forceful walk into the room I had came to like on my last visit, but I had a feeling that after todays session I wouldn't be feeling the same. The awkwardness was overwhelming, the counsellor was waiting for me to start, but I couldn't, I couldn't find the words to say what I had been through. I needed her to ask me about it, it was the only way I was going to open up, it was the only way I knew how. The time between me deciding to be awkward and the counsellor asking me seemed to drag. It was silent and I was look around the room in a nervous panic, I heard Ava and Bella playing in the waiting room under Katie's supervision, it took all the strength I had not to crash through the wall to them. Let me tell you its not easy holding back tears when someone is unstitching the stitching that held the emotional wounds together. I couldn't. I broke down. It was hard. I talked about the events that had moulded the person that stands here today. The wounds were open and the emotions where pouring out like blood and I couldn't stop  it and I couldn't control it. My anxiety crept up as I was aware of the counsellor sitting in front of me. What was she thinking? Did she think I was nuts? Was she going to tell me off for crying? The answers to all these questions was no. She was calming and as I made eye contact with her for the first time I could see something, she was listening. For the first time no one was crying, getting confused or getting angry when I spoke about everything. For the first time someone was actually taking it in and listening to every word, to me. Nothing more, nothing less. Just listening to what I was saying and to how I felt. Before I knew it time was up and I had to leave. But I was just getting started, now I had to stop when the wounds were open, if I closed them up again I weren't sure if I could re open them again which left me only one option. I had to leave my wounds open for the week. This scared me. Scared me stiff.

I must have been a complete nightmare to live with that week. I remember feeling so terrible and wanting to cry almost all of the time. I would put on a brave face and pretend I was okay in front of people, but not Tom. I couldn't pretend to him. So he got the rough of it as I let my emotions out the only way I knew how. Anger. I would pick arguments and then argue till I was blue in the face. I would then cry afterwards like I was the poor victim when I wasn't. Poor Tom had been lured into an argument just so I could scream and shout to let it all out. let out all the emotions that were pouring out of them still open wounds. I couldn't explain it to Tom, I didn't know how. It killed me inside to shout at him the way I did and to confuse him the way I did. I love him so very much he's the love of my life it wasn't fair on him. I'm pretty s**t at coping sometimes. I did think that week that maybe Tom would be better off without me, without me treating him so poorly. With out me shouting at him every night. But Tommy being the lovely bloke that he is still cuddled me, still gave me comfort and reassurance, in his own way he understood, he didn't have to say it out loud for me to know. With every cuddle he gave me after every argument I knew that he would be there by my side while I confronted the demons of my past. I was so tired of how I felt and hoped that I would start seeing the positives from the counselling sooner rather than later. Exhaustion was not a good look for me.

Thanks for reading

Look out for My Mind And Me next week.

until next time

LotsOfLove
Beth...xxx

My Mind And Me - Getting sorted

Getting Sorted

So here I am taking my antidepressants like a good girl, 40mg I was on a high dose. At that point it hit me that I really had a problem, I was depressed and I needed help. Like all antidepressants you have to wait for them to kick in, sometimes its like waiting for a train you've already missed. I was quite aware that I couldn't go on the way I was, not for one more second so even though I was on medication and although I had to give it time before I noticed a difference, I needed extra help. That's when my health visitor referred me to Talking Therapies, a wonderful service of counselling provided by the NHS in Berkshire. I would have 6-8 sessions to get to the root of my problem, because it was NHS based ect and the high amount of people that needed the service you were given a certain amount of sessions.

I was up for it, I think I would have took any help at the time. The first step was a telephone assessment. This made my anxiety so bad, I suffer with telephone anxiety you see and this was my idea of a nightmare. I thought so many times about ignoring the phone call or just cancelling. These thoughts went round and round in my head for the week that I waited, It was like a Ferris wheel in my head, for that entire week I was on edge and as you might have guessed that played to my depressions advantage. I was so relieved  when I got it out the way and optimistic as I had been given a date for my first session. Optimistic for the first few days after getting it more like. As the date got closer the more nervous I got and the more I questioned whether I actually needed to go. I thought old thoughts of I can sort this out myself despite trying and failing miserably beforehand.

On the morning of my first appointment I was ok, I don't think it seemed real and I was busy being a mummy to think about the days events, I also had Katie with me that distracted me too. Katie was really good she booked the cab and gave me a big help in hand getting the girls sorted because as it came to getting ready to go I could feel myself physically shaking. I could feel my breath getting short and myself not thinking straight, I could feel my eyes wanting to leak and I knew what was coming. A panic attack. I needed to stop it because I new if I went into a full attack I wouldn't go, I'd slump  back down into the sofa and pretend I was ok. To calm me down I took a couple of propanadol (tablets for anxiety) which I had previously been prescribed. They do work a treat but on that day they only scraped the edge off as my anxiety was through the roof. Still I put on a brave face for my children and tried to have fun and make them laugh as much as I could in the cab there, may I add the cab driver got lost, that was all I needed.

It was like the walk of doom walking through the hospital to where talking therapies was based. I felt like I was walking into a trap of my own thoughts, feelings and memories. I'm not silly I know what happens  in counselling, you have to talk about things that had happened in the past. If you were to ask me if I were ready to open up about my past I would have said, for my family to have a better person to live with, yes of course I was ready but for me not I wasn't ready, I felt like holding back because the thought of bringing up old memories seemed harder to live with than the depression. I bet you wondered what made me go in and not run a mile, well my family for one, I wasn't going to let them down and maybe I needed to confront my past head on, like confronting a fear. I knew the key to getting better was hid in my memories I just needed to find it.

As I sat on the chair, I felt like a rabbit caught in headlights, I didn't know what to say where to look what to do. Luckily for me It wasn't going to be the nitty gritty of a proper counselling session, this first one was just about going over my assessment, unfortunately we did touch on my past a bit. When it came to it I hesitated, I stuttered I tried to open up a couple of times. I really did try, my mouth would open but nothing would come out it was like someone had put me on mute. Something strange then happened, it was as though someone inside gave me a shove and all of a sudden I was taken off mute and words kept pouring out. You couldn't stop me. Before I knew it the first session was over. It weren't even a proper session it was just an assessment but I felt something had been lifted from me.

I remember feeling good after that day, I felt really positive for the next week and I actually found myself looking forward to my first proper session. But was my positive attitude about to change as I come closer to my first proper nitty gritty down to business counselling session.

Watch out for My Mind And Me next week

Thanks for reading

Until next time

LotsOfLove
Beth...xxx

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