Hey everyone, I hope you’re all well and good and I hope your all in good mental health. Today I’m going to talk to you about the last 12 weeks.   I was fortunate enough to receive some counselling, so I’m going to talk about that, and tell you how I found the sessions each week, and how I found the counsellor.

So I am a part of a group that is getting supervision, and the lead man is a counsellor. I was going through quite a rough patch where the NFST trust wouldn’t talk to me about something I was trying to find out about, and I was just letting myself get into a downward spiral of bad thinking.  Then this gentleman came along and offered me a chance of 12 free session of counselling. I  almost snapped his hand of for it, I couldn’t turn down this opportunity, even when my Psychiatrist  told me I never could do counselling, because with me and my mental health condition would never cope with doing this.

I spoke to the lady that was going to take me on my counselling journey, and it was the next week we were meeting,  I can tell you now, I was so nervous and anxious , I  wanted to cancel because  of what my psychiatrist had said.  I didn’t know if I would cope.  It was really playing on my mind, so I was bricking it to be fair.

The Friday came and was really struggling, but I needed to make the first step and go.  I got to the building where we were having the session, and sat on the seat in the waiting area, and was started to have a small panic attack.  I got called into the room and a sense of calmness came over me.  I felt safe.  We talked about all the professional boundaries that needed to be adhered to. I then I began to tell her my journey from a little boy, to where I am now.   This was our conversation for the next couple of weeks, and something started to click, because the lady counsellor kept saying it wasn’t my fault with what had happened and my brain started working on that.  At first I didn’t realise it was working, but over the first few weeks I started to feel a change, like I had recognised that it I shouldn’t be blaming myself for what happened and I no longer needed to be scared,  because this person couldn’t hurt me anymore, which was mind blowing for me, it really did help.   I also didn’t think I would open up so much in the first few weeks, I thought it would take me a hell of a lot longer than that. And then out of blue the lady councillor asked me if I had done a talk at an event a few years ago, because she remembered me speaking. She said I was really good, so I must of made an impact for someone to remember me, so that put me in good mood, as I don’t deal with positive feedback very well.

It’s now about week 6 or 7, and I missed my bus stop so I got off at the next one and thought I’d take a walk along the top of the beach.  Living at the sea side you think I would love the beach, but in fact I can’t stand it. I walked down this road and stood at the wall and just looked out to the sea, and thought wow I’m lucky to live by the sea with such beautiful scenery,  so I took a picture and gave myself a couple of minutes to recharge and ground myself before walking down to go to my session.  This seemed to relax me before going into my session. We started to talk about how I got on my journey of telling my story of living with mental health, and how empowered I feel when I get one like, share or comment on my blog. So  we talked about it for couple of sessions, and I’m not happy with what I put up with when I was younger, but also how with this counselling, its making me feel a stronger person,  its mad how the brain works when you’re not expecting it to.  I noticed that things where changing when my mind was dealing with things.

 Session 8 or 9 I read a blog to the lady counsellor about how I have to wear my parka coat when out, about because I feel like I’m going to be attacked:  you can see the full blog here:

The lady counsellor then asked me to go in to a bit more detail, and ask me about why do I feel this way, and can it be linked back to my child hood,  There  was my eureka moment.  Now I been in an out of services all my life, I have never had this feeling before and its weird, because from the session we had, I  have been thinking about it a lot, and managing to go out of the house more without my parka.  This is a huge victory for me, and I’ve still got plenty of work to do on these feelings, but I feel I’m going in the right direction. Now the lady counsellor decided she was going to have a week off, how dare she have some time off to recharge hahaha, but in fact I think this did me some good, having a week break from it, so cant moan at her to much hahaha.

Session 10 to 12 we talked about a lot of things, also about how I thought the sessions has gone and how do I feel about it coming to the end.  A part of me wanted this to continue, and a part of me felt it was the right time to come to the end.   It has gotten me to the next step and been very helpful; it has also gotten me through the waiting to get on DBT therapy which is good for people with my condition.

Can I also say I’ve had my tears, I felt anger a lot of the time for the 12 weeks, but this was done in a safe environment, so I was never left in a bad place, which is a credit to the counsellor?  So thank you lady counsellor.   This is why I think it’s important that GP surgeries have people like this in there service. Some people won’t need 12 weeks but some will. I would love to hear your opinions on this.

Thank you for reading this blog, sorry it’s a long one but just wanted you to know why I been quiet for the last 12 weeks. I wish you all good mental health.