Last therapy session: just over 4 months ago.
Was it worth it?
Current view is: Not sure. I'm certainly more stable, but it that just due to life improving? Problem with life is it has a tendency to change and I'm not sure what to attribute each change to.
I'm more aware of me, I suppose.
I've got more full of psycho-babble. Those words which only psychologists use, like "awfulising-catastrophising" or "Personalising" and "black-and-white/all-or-nothing thinking". *shudders at the ing-words which were seemingly omnipresent for the sessions*
Found out this week that my psychologist is pregnant. I seriously must have the most fertile care team in the universe - psychiatrist is now back from maternity leave, psychologist is a few months away from maternity leave, one of my CAMHS worker went off on maternity leave whilst I was with them too. I'm not seeing my psychologist anymore, yet somehow she is still "my psychologist" though. She always said during my last sessions "And if you need a top-up session, I'll be here. I'm not leaving the team". Except now she won't be there.
I'm pondering on seeing what I could do in the way of having some spiritual guidance. It hasn't yet got further than a ponder in my head though. After analysing my head from a simple "living, surviving" point of view, maybe it is time for trying to help grow in my faith? Then the doubts start - maybe I just want someone to talk to? Is it just a need for someone to sit and listen to me moan and think aloud? Is it just what most people would talk to a friend about, but as I don't have a friend I could do that with I am looking for some sort of "guiding figure"? (And could I really just do with being a bit more rigid with scheduling and setting aside some time to explore things on my own without someone else sitting there?)
Weekly therapy sessions where I sometimes just went in and went "urgh" for an hour are gone. I connected behaviour X to thought process A → B → C and found out it originated with experience Z. I created coping strategy P, with back-up coping strategy Q. I dealt with belief Yold and changed it into Ynew. I put in some graphs (she decided an analytical "looks like science" approach probably was most suitable for me), I found direct correlations between doing something and feeling worse afterwards. I collated tables of facial expressions, worked out what "frightened" looked like on a face, linked them to me feeling my experiences of those emotions, did field studies (well, sitting on a park bench looking at passers-by studies).
However, was it worth it? I'm not sure. Being aware might not have been beneficial, ignorance may have proved easier. (For example, doing behaviour F doesn't help from the stuff I did last year, but right now I feel like it might help short term so it feels an appealing option).
Life post-therapy will never be the same, I admit. Even if just a relationship with whoever was the therapist (or in my case as pondering about her steel-pan band that she once divulged about...), or a memory of the room, or some emotion or other. Do I want to be in the same dark place I was in before it? Of course not. Would I have done things differently? Yes, for one thing I'd have decided quite what my outcome was before getting into it (more than I did, which was "to be content. Not ridiculously happy, but content")
Hum. This wasn't quite the blog post I started writing 2 nights ago with a torch held between my shoulder and ear onto a scrap of paper that was by my bed at 3am. It'll do though, I suppose. *Sends off into the blog-o-sphere* *click*
I have only just found your blog. I have no idea how I didn't come across it sooner, but I didn't. I just found it courtesy of LittleFeet's TWIM, and I am very glad I did. I just read the whole thing through, and it was just really interesting reading. I am in awe (and somewhat jealous) of your musical talents. I sing, but that is it. I have always wished I could play the piano. x
ReplyDeleteThanks Bippidee. :) And by the way, never say "I sing, but that is it." as if singing is somehow not as good as other things - singing is great and should never be dissed!
ReplyDeleteI know, singing is great, but I would love to be able to play an instrument as well - particularly piano, just because it would be so useful to be as a singer to be able to accompany myself. Some of my friends who are also musical theatre performers learnt piano as a child and did their Grade 8, and so are able to accompany themselves and learn music that way etc, whereas the only time I get a pianist is when I have singing lessons - I would love to be my own pianist!
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