It has been a few weeks since I started sessions with my new therapist from the CMHT. After starting off on a decidedly precarious footing, the therapeutic relationship is taking shape, and although I have moments where I feel unsettled or suspicious of his motives, essentially, from my point of view, it is going well. I can talk very openly to him, which is obviously key to the success of any work he does with me. There is a point of crossover seeing two members of the mental health team, and as they share information sometimes I can’t work out or remember who knows what! But I do feel, for the first time in a good while that I am able to address some of the issues that keep me ill instead of just trying to keep them and the associated emotions suppressed. This is a totally different kettle of fish to managing my symptoms; this is bringing stuff to the fore that makes me more vulnerable, more emotional and subsequently more prone to extreme swings of mood. Dealing with my past is neither easy nor pretty but if I am going to achieve a life of any future stability I know it is necessary.

Therapy has been intense, because I’m aware I need to make the most of the sessions and the intervention that has taken so long to access. It has been my community psych nurse who has been picking up the pieces. When the emotions become just too intense, he’s the one I reach out to. It has become fairly obvious both to him and myself that essentially the work that is being undertaken still centres primarily around my low self esteem, self hatred, even, that is tied in with having been sexually abused as a child. As much as I wanted to believe that having had counselling previously I was ‘over it’, it is still massively affecting my life. Because when losses and changes came in recent years, new memories, responses and emotions surfaced that needed coming to terms with all over again.

I have been able to identify positives in the process though. Small cautious shuffling steps forward, as if feeling my way in the dark. In sessions my thinking has been challenged. “Where is the evidence for that belief?” I am asked. I reframe things, try to wriggle out of having hard evidence, but calmly and gently I have the truth repeated to me, “It wasn’t your fault. It doesn’t make you bad / dirty / shameful or any of the derogatory names you choose to call yourself.” As I roll my eyes and look out the window, I know in my head he is right. It’s just getting that message through to my heart (or wherever deep held beliefs about oneself reside).

On reflection again with my nurse, I know what I require is open-ended intensive counselling, much longer and more specialist than he can access for me via the NHS. The local Rape And Sexual Abuse Counselling were first recommended to me well over a year ago, following my last inpatient stay, but it has been something I have, if I’m honest, been in denial about. Since his earliest involvement in my care last September it has been brought up numerous times. When I replied this week maybe I would consider it when my mood was a bit more stabilised, my nurse reminded me I had said that six months ago. And if I had put myself on the waiting list then, I would possibly be starting to see someone around now. It was a harsh reality to hear, but I think I needed it.

The truth is, it terrifies me. I can’t even say the word RASAC out loud. Although I acknowledge I was abused as a child and a teen, I don’t associate myself, in my mind as being someone who requires their services. It’s so…….so blatant. I guess there’s a part of me that still wants to hide the shameful truth that somehow (I allowed that) it happened to me.

Much of the work I do with my current therapist is CBT / DBT based. We look a lot at my emotional responses and how I can manage them, what has worked in the past etc. I have actually been able to identify recently how I am managing my moods better. I joked with my nurse about one difficult evening I had had in the last week, how I had coped by ‘taking it out on the stress ball’. I added “M (therapist) would be proud of me!” His response threw me. This is the ultimate grumpy Yorkshireman who shares my dark and slightly cynical sense of humour. He said, “I’m proud of you.” I wasn’t expecting that. And hard as it is for me to hear positives, because I trust him implicitly it hit me deep.

As I pondered therapy on Wednesday and seeing my nurse Thursday, and the small shuffling steps I have been taking forwards recently, I knew what I had to do. Not to make my nurse or therapist proud, but because I owe it to myself, and in fact to my son, to aim for that increased stability I know only specialist counselling will be able to offer me. So I could feel proud of what I have achieved. So far, I have yet to speak to an actual person, but I left a message at RASAC yesterday. I was shaking and hyperventilating, but I did it. Let’s see what the next shuffling step will bring.

Thanks for reading 👼🏼