It’s been a little while since my last blog. Things seem to have been really busy. I had my first counselling session a few days ago. I was excited. It’s something I’ve not tried before, well not in this format anyway. I’m so determined to improve the way I feel, I’m open to new approaches.
Now to a lot of people this next bit will sound ridiculous, but if you suffer with anxiety then maybe it will resonate with you. It’s not somewhere I had been before, I had not driven there before and I hadn’t met this person before. I felt I was stepping into the unknown. I’ve noticed that I tend to keep to the same routines every week. I won’t go somewhere on my own unless I really have to, especially if it’s somewhere I’ve not been before. I guess it’s some kind of defence measure I’ve created subconsciously. I’ve not always been like that. In fact I was far from that 10 years ago when I left the country on my own and became a holiday rep! I look back now and think ‘how did I ever do that?!’ All day I was looking forward to my appointment, but I was so nervous at the same time. Scared of the unknown.
Anyway, 4pm comes and it’s time to finish work. I get home, get changed and then off I go. When I’m anxious I start to fidget, I get clammy and breathing gets faster. So I’m in the car, and then It hits me that this is the start of my journey to feeling better and finding myself. When I got in and sat down, I was absolutely fine. I didn’t struggle to get my words out. In fact I struggled to stop talking! The first session was all about finding out about me, what I suffer from and things that have happened in the past. I’d almost describe it as the equivalent of a blurb to a book! A brief insight to my story so far. My head felt a lot clearer as I walked out there. The best way of describing it is reorganising your mind and chucking out the rubbish you don’t need. I’ll be going every week for the foreseeable. It’s not going to be cheap, but hey if it makes me feel better then I don’t really care how much it costs. The best bit for me is that it’s open ended. What I mean by this is that because I’m paying for it, I can carry on going for as long as I like, therefore not putting any pressure on myself to get ‘well’ by 10 sessions. There’s no magic cure for OCD and the hardest thing that I’ve had to get used to is the fact that the only real treatment is to simply stop doing the things that your brain tells you to do (compulsions). My next blog will be all about OCD and the impact it’s had on my life to date.
In many ways I’m my own worst enemy. I’ve not opened up enough in the past. I feel so much better when I talk about the things that get me down. Us humans were made to talk, but sometimes we’re really bad at not doing it enough. Whether that’s opening up to someone yourself or checking in on someone else. Sometimes just a simple message checking in on someone goes a long way. Modern life now is so full on that sometimes we forget to do one of the most basic and important things…TALK! I’ve been really bad for it and it’s something I’ve got to get a lot better at.
Bye for now
Adam x
Photo by cottonbro on Pexels.com
The Battle Within 
Sounds like a hard battle you face daily, and I agree, sometimes it’s the self that can be your worst enemy, as cliched as that saying is. Wishing you all the best in your journey, and do ‘talk’ more about it through your blog posts. I enjoyed it!
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Hey Stuart,
Yeah it really is a battle daily, and it’s against myself, which is difficult to understand. I will do, and thank you for your support, means a lot! Thanks dude
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It sounds like you had a really good first session, and I completely relate with that feeling after you leave of having a clearer head – I always used to feel like a weight had been lifted each time. I know what you mean about having a bit more freedom with it because you’re paying for it – I know they don’t mean to but I felt with the treatment I’ve had on the NHS there’s been this amount of pressure to have an improvement by the end, and I felt almost as though I had to make some sort of progress because otherwise I was wasting a spot someone else could have had. Wishing you all the best with it! x
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