I had the form for the counselling services for some months before I posted it off. The time felt right for me to start addressing some of my issues.
I had a phone message left giving me choices of a few dates/times. I accepted one and then blogged I was going for counselling, I was quite nervous and I had a few very positive and encouraging comments about the benefits of counselling.
I nervously attended the first session, The counsellor whom I’ll call Katie was lovely, she explained how the service work and asked about the initial catalyst that had caused the severe depression and my childhood and my so called love life and other details of my life. I left after the hour rushed by I felt very positive about having started some counselling.
The second session with Katie she asked me some questions base on what I had initially told her last week. This session was spent mostly on my childhood; she made some comments about my parents/grandparent, which I became very defensive about, however, have spent some time thinking about what was said, I agreed with her. Some things said to me when I was young, were unkind, hurtful, and should not have been said to a child. I need to start looking after myself, let others look after themselves.
Just returned from my third session. I’m going to write a letter, which will probably never be sent but might make me feel better. I need to remember I am an adult and not a child about to be told off; I need to recognise the feelings and learn not to react child like but to remain in control of the situation.
She suggested ways to enable me to sleep prior to a day shift. My biggest fear is that I will sleep in, so instead of sleeping I spend most of the night worrying that I’ll sleep through the alarm. New ways of waking up are needed, instead of just relying on one alarm clock think of other ways. This has helped and I’ve worked three day shifts without sleeping in and have slept for at least 7 hours.
Fourth session was did I write the letter – I did but haven’t sent it – not going to send it but it made me feel better.
The rest of the sessions became a bit more personal which I’m sure you will understand that I don’t want to share with my blog. I had a total of 8 sessions. Most of the time I feel OK but I still have some bad days. Whilst having CBT my GP told me, it would be better if I were not taking anti depressants at the same time I did feel OK at the time.
Other things have happened and I can feel my self sinking back into depression again so I may have to go back to the Dr for some anti-depressants. Not having been on twitter for a while due to looking after daughter has not helped as I used twitter to help keep me sane – well not so depressed
It all helping me Learning to Chill
