Mental health update: back to the doctor (but it's a good thing!)
I went through a long period of feeling like asking for help meant I had failed.
And that asking for MORE help because I hadn't yet had enough was greedy, or an example I had failed even more.
Both of those beliefs were wrong.
One thing I've been consciously working on so far in 2018 is asking for and accepting help.
A couple of weeks ago, I went back to the doctor to chat about my mental health once more.
For some context, I finished my last period of counselling in December 2016, which is when I left London and moved back up north. My counsellor was brilliant and I made huge progress, but with the amount of issues I had to work through I had been told from day one I was likely to need more than one 12 week course of sessions. For more on those sessions, head right this way, where I've shared about that experience in full.
When I finished my final session, the counsellor suggested a period of a few months over which I would continue putting into practice the techniques we had learned, as over time some of my issues would improve with practice. It would then be clearer what I needed more help on.
Anyway, time passed and after six months of time with my family and lots of yoga, meditation, exercise, eating well and personal development work, I moved to Chester. My first six months there flew by, and suddenly that break of a few months had turned into a year.
Over that year, a lot has changed. My health anxiety has come on so far, to the point it rarely affects me at all. I'm getting more comfortable in cars for long journeys and I've got more of a social life than I've had probably since university.
For the first time in years, I'm throwing myself into things and really enjoying life.
That doesn't mean every day is easy. Although I'm now able to do so much more, I find myself getting very overwhelmed. I can be busy, but when I then pause it's as if my brain hasn't quite caught up with the fact I'm doing so much better. There are also some issues, such as my eating and my thoughts about a particular nasty incident that happened to me in London, that I could really do with some help on.
So I'm enjoying everything, then have a nice day off and spend it fretting about the fact I'm so busy and what if that affects my anxiety... but when I've been DOING the actual things I'm no longer having the constant fear and panic attacks.
There's a gap between where I'm at and where my brain has realised I'm up to, and I need help with that overwhelm.
I want to make sure that I'm not spending two weeks having a great time, then needing three days of total switch off just because there's a part of me which still tells myself I need to 'recover' from living a normal, busy, happy life.
So that help is exactly what I've asked for.
My phone assessment is in about a month, and then hopefully I'll have an experience as positive as my one in London, with a counsellor who can help me work through these feelings that are still causing the obstacles I have left.
Mental health is never going to be a straight line; we'll all experience ups and downs, and when you get to a point as low as I had hit it was always going to take a long time to re-stabilise.
There's absolutely no shame in asking for help, and what I've learned is that the sooner you ask for help, the better.
The sooner you can start getting to know your own mind, the sooner you can learn to deal with the harder days.
So I'm back on the waiting list for further help. But it's a really, really positive step.
Sophie x
And that asking for MORE help because I hadn't yet had enough was greedy, or an example I had failed even more.
Both of those beliefs were wrong.
One thing I've been consciously working on so far in 2018 is asking for and accepting help.
A couple of weeks ago, I went back to the doctor to chat about my mental health once more.
For some context, I finished my last period of counselling in December 2016, which is when I left London and moved back up north. My counsellor was brilliant and I made huge progress, but with the amount of issues I had to work through I had been told from day one I was likely to need more than one 12 week course of sessions. For more on those sessions, head right this way, where I've shared about that experience in full.
When I finished my final session, the counsellor suggested a period of a few months over which I would continue putting into practice the techniques we had learned, as over time some of my issues would improve with practice. It would then be clearer what I needed more help on.
Anyway, time passed and after six months of time with my family and lots of yoga, meditation, exercise, eating well and personal development work, I moved to Chester. My first six months there flew by, and suddenly that break of a few months had turned into a year.
Over that year, a lot has changed. My health anxiety has come on so far, to the point it rarely affects me at all. I'm getting more comfortable in cars for long journeys and I've got more of a social life than I've had probably since university.
For the first time in years, I'm throwing myself into things and really enjoying life.
That doesn't mean every day is easy. Although I'm now able to do so much more, I find myself getting very overwhelmed. I can be busy, but when I then pause it's as if my brain hasn't quite caught up with the fact I'm doing so much better. There are also some issues, such as my eating and my thoughts about a particular nasty incident that happened to me in London, that I could really do with some help on.
So I'm enjoying everything, then have a nice day off and spend it fretting about the fact I'm so busy and what if that affects my anxiety... but when I've been DOING the actual things I'm no longer having the constant fear and panic attacks.
There's a gap between where I'm at and where my brain has realised I'm up to, and I need help with that overwhelm.
I want to make sure that I'm not spending two weeks having a great time, then needing three days of total switch off just because there's a part of me which still tells myself I need to 'recover' from living a normal, busy, happy life.
So that help is exactly what I've asked for.
My phone assessment is in about a month, and then hopefully I'll have an experience as positive as my one in London, with a counsellor who can help me work through these feelings that are still causing the obstacles I have left.
Mental health is never going to be a straight line; we'll all experience ups and downs, and when you get to a point as low as I had hit it was always going to take a long time to re-stabilise.
There's absolutely no shame in asking for help, and what I've learned is that the sooner you ask for help, the better.
The sooner you can start getting to know your own mind, the sooner you can learn to deal with the harder days.
So I'm back on the waiting list for further help. But it's a really, really positive step.
Sophie x
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