Counselling

I've turned full circle.

When I first started counselling, I was too afraid to have individual sessions. There's something very frightening about sitting in a room with a stranger talking about your innermost fears and emotions; it's so unnatural to allow someone you don't know to enter into something so private. There's also something very clinical about counselling: the waiting with strangers and the recognitition that you are imposing on their very private problems, the little rooms with artificially laid out seating patterns that are meant to be friendly, the taking of notes as you speak....

Email counselling is very different. There's no invasion of privacy - just me, my laptop and the words. I always found email counselling very theraputic; the process of purging my emotions was enough to help me through the week, to last that little bit longer. Knowing that someone is going to reply feels like an annonymous acceptance - someone out there sympathises and agrees.

It was so hard to admit I needed more help. Once it became clear that email counselling wasn't doing enough to help, it felt like the only choice was 'real' counselling. Even then I didn't give in lightly. I did everything else first. Sitting there and telling your doctor that you think you are crazy is somehow one step easier than talking to a stranger. But somehow I found the courage to go, and for a while, it helped. Once I'd hit rock bottom, it was the turning point I needed and I did start to recover.

So I stopped. I thought I was ready to stand on my own two feet. I thought I had already made that new beginning that I needed. And I was wrong, so spectacularly wrong. My hands are blistered, my breathing too rapid and my eyes once again too used to tears.

And now I've admitted defeat, and I'm starting again. I await an email from my new counsellor.

Trusting Yourself

I used to believe that I could trust my first impressions, but recently I have begun to question even the most basic assumptions. People I used to trust wholeheartedly have proven to not to be friends, while people I have previously judged have shown a completely different side to themselves.

I feel like I am becomming more self aware. For the first time in my life, I am able to recognise that many of my immediate thoughts are overly critical or pessimistic and this has left me somewhat more confused. Part of me feels that I should trust my initial instincts but another, newer part of me is aware that in doing so I am often someone that I don't like.

It can be a bitter circle of self hatred. I have been told so many times that my thoughts are overly negative and the more I become conscious of this, the more I hate the way that mind works, and the more I begin to believe these comments. Sometimes, I am right to question myself; sometimes I do criticise unnecessarily and project this very negative view which understandably has the potential to offend people. But then at the same time, if events and thoughts are provoking such negative reactions and feelings within me, should I just ignore them and pretend to be happy?

Learning to trust and like myself again has been a huge part of my recovery from my depressive self, and I don't think I have quite achieved it yet. I know my instincts are often wrong and yet at the same time I feel a need to recognise that the things that I feel are valid, and are an important part of me.

For the record, I'm trying. I'm trying to be fair. I'm trying to be happy. I'm trying to be me.

Untitled

Whenever I am happy, I don't get that desperate urge to write. It's not that I don't enjoy writing when everything in my life is going smoothly, but more that I find myself savouring the moment rather than needed to expell my feelings. When I read back through everything I have written over the years, the periods of happiness have tended to result in pages upon pages of trivialities and pointless observations. And part of me likes these entries just as much.

Even as I write this now, I don't have any particular purpose or aim. I'm not really trying to make any point or comment on anything particularly profound - I am just writing because I enjoy the process. My writing is the 'stream of consciousness' novel of my life; a completely purposeless insight into my mind.

But at the same time I do need to write when I am content; I need to record the moment and remind myself that sometimes life really is good. It's very easy to allow the negative thoughts to dominate and to write when things are hard to bear, but ultimately it's just as important to look back and see the good in life. When I do look back at all the things I have written, it is the silly little pointless peices that make me smile and have taught me the most about myself.

I don't think writing needs a purpose. I don't even think writing needs to make sense. For me, writing is not about entertaining or teaching or analysing but about learning and knowing more about oneself. Writing and reading are both the same; they are both about finding your own meaning.

Words

Whenever I feel lost, I find myself again through words. I feel so much more alive when the words are flowing from my heart and my mind and I can think of nothing but the words themselves. I don't write with any purpose other than to release my emotion; the words don't need to make sense or have any particular meaning. That is the true beauty of writing - sometimes the very act itself is as significant as what is said.

I write because my mind is telling me to do so.

I write because I need release.