Counselling via the NHS Part 3: Afterthoughts

My last two posts have been about my experience being referred for and waiting for NHS counselling, and about my experiences at the sessions themselves. The third and final post in this mini series will be my afterthoughts.

I've rounded up ten thoughts that go some way to summing up my experience of receiving counselling through the NHS, and here they are:


  1. It's no lie that mental health services in this country are massively under-resourced. Waiting times are far longer than any of the practitioners would like them to be, and longer than is ideal for anybody struggling with their mental health. However, when you do get the help, the support on offer can be incredible. I have all sorts of thoughts on things that could surely be done to hep improve the current way of doing things, but I'll save you from seeing them all here.
  2. You've got to be persistent. Unfortunately, not all GPs are as clued up as one another when it comes to mental health, and even those that are are so overworked and have so little time to spend with each patient that the amount of attention they can give you is limited. A ten minute appointment is not long enough for them to get a clear understanding of something as complex as your mental health. For this reason, I've found it helpful to go to appointments with lists and examples of things that have happened to me, and having pre-thought about what information I need to be able to get across to them.
  3. Going to counselling can be scary and it's a big deal. It's ok to feel nervous or alone, but it's worth pushing yourself to make those appointments. Don't let anyone make you feel small for needing that help, and remember that every session you go to you're taking steps to regain control and happiness.
  4. You won't click with every counsellor you meet. I was extremely lucky with my counsellor, but my previous experiences with private counsellors were not so smooth. If you're really not clicking, let the Talking Therapies service know and they may be able to help.
  5. Attending counselling takes work, and you've got to put effort into it. You've got to work, you've got to dig through your feelings and you've got to be as honest as you can be. If you don't put in 100% effort, you won't get the results. Nobody else can do it for you.
  6. Recovery doesn't go in a straight line; you'll have good weeks and bad. Halfway through my sessions, a man tried to attack me outside my office, which led to a real slide backwards. Sometimes it will be less dramatic than that and you'll just have a lower week. That's normal and you're not failing. You're just human.
  7. Counselling can change your life. Through CBT, which is the type of therapy I had, you're rewiring your thought patterns and behaviours. This can lead to long-lasting change affecting your entire life for the better.
  8. Take it one step at a time. Applaud yourself for the tiniest wins and tell yourself you're amazing. Even turning up to an appointment is progress. Be kind to yourself and keep putting one foot in front of the other.
  9. You've got everything you need inside of you and you CAN do it. It's ok to need help to access the power within you.
  10. You might need more help. Whether you have sessions for six weeks, twelve, or even longer, you're not going to emerge at the other end as a person who never struggles again. You might need more help for a different issue, or during a stressful period in your life which leads to unhealthy behaviours resurfacing. It's ok to ask for help. The issues I worked on with my counsellor had a knock-on effect to others I had, and over the twelve weeks I had sessions and the seven months that have followed, I've made huge changes. However, there's one particular issue that seems quite separate and I haven't yet improved on, so I've asked my doctor for more help. There's no shame in that, and you shouldn't be afraid to admit you're not quite there yet.

I hope this mini-series has helped some people in some way. Maybe you're nervous about asking for help, you're apprehensive about the sessions you've got coming up, or you're just interested in someone else's experiences. 

These posts have taken a lot to write, but I'm so glad I've finally got my thoughts out.






Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Writing fiction as a way to move forwards.

Image
Last week I shared a bit about the writing course that led to me writing my short story, Aftershock. Today I thought I'd share a bit about what it was about, and the process of writing it. I had planned to write it slowly, leaving myself lots of editing time and really making use of the month or so we were given. In fact, I wrote most of it in one sitting, on a single afternoon when I most definitely should have been doing other things. The words just kept coming and I didn't want to cut them off. I based my story on something that had actually happened to me, as one of the things recommended on the course was that it could be easier to get inside a character or situation if it was something you knew and understood. I share a lot on this blog and I'm incredibly open about my journey with anxiety and depression, but one of the big things I haven't spoken about was something that happened to me in October 2016, when I was living and working in London. It h...
Read more

The Reading List #7

Image
The weekend seemed to fly by and I didn’t get around to finishing my reading list post, so here it is now. I’m still going through my period of pulling lots of books off shelves that I haven’t read yet, so the wide mixture of books continues… The Sea, John Banville I read two Banville novels at university and was more than impressed, so was excited to find this gem on my parents’ bookshelf. In ‘The Sea’, art historian Max returns to a place he holidayed as a child, following a personal loss. The novels flits between two periods of his life - the then and the now - leading to themes of childhood discoveries, maturing, and loss. The time periods almost blend into one another, yet there is something distinctly separate about them too, so it is not confusing. It reads almost like poetry, and is utterly beautiful. Any literature fans, or fans of superb writing and narrative, need to give it a go. A Small Part of Me, Noelle Harrison Christina’s mother, Greta,...
Read more

The Reading List # 5

Image
Weekends are the perfect time to catch up on reading, so here’s the latest instalment of things I’ve been reading recently. Fatherland, Robert Harris It is 1964, and Hitler is nearing his 75 th birthday, having been victorious in the Second World War. Detective March finds a naked dead man in a lake, and this begins to unravel a huge conspiracy. The premise of this book was so interesting, and it certainly delivered. There is enough fact weaved in to make the events believable, and the atmosphere and architecture of this 1960s Germany is conjured up well. The book is realistic in that there is still plenty of discontent in the country, so it was a rounded picture, and then in amongst it all was a gripping detective story. This is well worth a try. Revenge Wears Prada, Lauren Weisberger Ten years after The Devil Wears Prada ended, Andy is co-running her own successful wedding magazine. Her life has changed a lot, and is the usual rollercoaster of emotio...
Read more