Now I'd fallen down the rabbit hole and the chink of light above was looking very, very small and far away, I thought I might as well just take a deep breath, surrender to the fact that it wasn't just my bum that looked big in a space this small, caked in earth and leaf mould, and explore. Yes, I was going to explore the dark so thoroughly that maybe Bear Grylls would be there with his shirt off having just climbed a mountain with his teeth to meet me at the end...
Deciding to start counselling was one of the scariest decisions of my life. I had a real trepidation about opening Pandora's Box and not being able to get the lid back on- ever. I mean, I know I've got a few skeletons, mostly tucked away under a fug of alcohol and cloaked in the odd rubber dress and bruised by the odd broken stiletto, but they were generally more likely to have sent some poor, unsuspecting bloke running for therapy rather than me.
Joining an NHS waiting list for a counsellor seemed a little pointless given that I needed help right there and then. I also knew myself well enough to know that if I didn't run with the impulse then the moment would pass and I would find a reason to move on to something else instead and I would be back at this crossroads again in a few months-, maybe even years-, time.
After a few days of nervous phone tag, I finally met with a private 'counselling psychotherapist' here in Bedford. I went in feeling the same fraud I did when in the doctor's surgery and came out an hour later drained, cold, trembling and relieved. I knew deep down that I was doing the right thing although wasn't prepared to hear that this would be a three-stage process likely to take most of the next six months: Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and stabilisation; Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) and trauma processing; then finally building towards managing the future. But I was going to do this. I was going to take the sick leave, take the time to invest in myself, stop the world and just get off for a while. Or maybe I was stopping the world to get back on...once I'd got out of this crazy rabbit hole and snogged Bear Grylls that is.
Twelve sessions in, I can honestly say that this is a liberating, exciting process but one that shouldn't be underestimated. I can go in some weeks feeling fine and cry my way through the hour; I can go in feeling low and come out feeling energised and back in control; I can go in with my own hazy agenda and come out with clarity and acceptance.
The emotional rollercoaster has been frightening and I'm not sure I could have learnt to hang on for the ride without the counselling support. I have struggled to regulate my emotions whether happy or difficult and would become 'stuck' in emotional overdrive, flooded with nauseating emotion wrenching at my gut and that I just couldn't turn off. Initially it terrified me. I would panic and get close to putting my fist through a window just to try and pull the handbrake in a head-on emergency stop. I had been numb for so long that just feeling emotion again, of any sort, was overwhelming.
I have learnt now how to be 'safe' in the present moment, how to recognise 'triggers' through bodily sensations and how to bring myself down from 'fight or flight' responses. I am far more self-aware than I have ever been and feel very lucky to have had the opportunity to do this. Much of the inspiration has come from a book recommended by my therapist and I would recommend it to anyone to dip in and out of and see how life-changing something as simple as self-acceptance can be.
Mindfulness- a practical guide to finding peace in a frantic world (Mark Williams and Danny Penman)
Yours well and truly shrunk.
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