Counseling

If you know me at all, you will know that I have repeatedly stated that counseling is just not for me.

I think I may have been wrong.

Last week, I had my first ever positive therapy experience, after almost four years of being in and out of counseling offices.

I decided to self-refer to my university's counseling service. I thought that I'd give it one last shot. I went to an occupational therapist, and I'd already used the coping mechanisms she suggested. I really didn't want that to be it. I didn't want to think that my current mental state was the best it was ever going to get. Although much better than it was, it's still not great.

I was booked in within a month, not bad with a waiting list of over a hundred people.

I went to the waiting room and I started to panic. My eyes were threatening tears. I texted my boyfriend.

"I'm scared and I want to go home."

What if this was going to be the same as before? What if I was going to be judged, or not taken seriously, or worst of all, turned away again?

But as soon as I walked in, it was different. I learned a lot about myself and counseling. He told me that he would never do CBT on it's own, as all my other therapists wanted. He told me that if he wrote anything down, it was noting what I said, not analysis, and that he wouldn't write if I didn't want him to. He told me that the counseling is entirely client led - I can just go to talk if I wish - which other counselors wouldn't let me do. He told me that counselors aren't allowed to give any form of diagnosis, which mine had done. He told me that they should've explained the physical and neurological happenings of a panic attack, which they did not do. He ended up apologising to me whilst being respectful to my previous therapists. We both knew that the system has repeatedly let me down.

I feel that this time is going to be different. I truly hope so.

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