I’ve been active in therapy for a little over a month now and I have to say it has taken much more out of me than I would ever expecct it to. I know that it is good for me, in fact I can FEEL it being good for me in little ways already, but at the same time it’s really made such a mess in my head.
For years now I knew I would benefit by talking to someone, in fact, I’d say that my mental health has been in need of rescue for over ten years, but I always just figured I was depressed. About 10 years ago I was diagnosed with depression by my family doctor, given some meds and told to speak with a proffesional. I was full of fear when it came to talking to someone though, so I just took my meds and when I felt better stopped taking them and believed myself to be cured. I actually did well for a few years that way and learned to cope with feeling depressed as if it were just a normal part of me. After this last year though, it got to the point that every doctor I saw was telling me to seek counciling and I felt so depressed that death started to occupy my mind daily. I knew I needed help and finally made that first phone call to get help.
It took about two months before I actually started therapy from the day I made that first phone call because of a long waiting list and the various evaluation tests I needed to take during a long intake evaluation. During those two months I honestly couldn’t tell you if I was coming or going. My mind was so foggy with emotion and confusion I thought for sure it was going to totally fail on me. I did a lot of research on mental health during the last three weeks of waiting for an actual appointment and became well aware of the fact that it wasn’t just depression I was dealing with.
I had mentioned a few posts back that I was suffering from a eating disorder, at the time when I wrote that my thinking was just along the lines that I had recognized it and all would be well and I’d change it. That’s not how it works though. I really do have an eating disorder and I am activly working on getting it under control. It’s hard to “fix”; believe it or not. Much harder to change than it was to just admit there was something wrong. In fact, every behavior (there are quite a few) that I have been working on changing is much harder than I thought it would be.
During this past month I feel as if my mind has been quite crippled. I’ve had an extremely hard time making much sence of anything that has been going on and admit that I’ve felt extremely overwhelmed by not only the thoughts that are jumbled in my head but with life in general. I had a few weeks where I just kept beating myself up for being so “crazy” and for the fact that I need such intense counceling that I’ve almost let it bcome a crutch of sorts. My mental state has become an excuse for why I hadn’t been getting things done that I normally love to do (writing, projects, styling) and seemed to be feeding my irrational additude towards life.
After talking with my therapist this week and being reassured by her that I’m not “insane” and while a majority of my actions don’t always makes sense to me when looking back, they do, in fact, serve a purpose. Changing the way that I’ve dealt with things and responded to people with past behaviors are eventually going to be replaced with more positive and meaningful behaviors.
Now that after a month of therapy has gone by I feel like I’ve allowed myself to feel crazy and out of control. I’ve given myself the okay to not be so well and have taken a mental “vacation” just to come to terms with everything I have finally understood about my mind. I was feeling helpless and scared but I do understand now that my illness does not need to define who I am. I am a strong woman and the patterns I taken on over the years did serve a purpose, they allowed me to survive through many difficult events but they are no longer useful to me and I am learning a whole new way to deal with life.
I am receivivng Dialectical behavior therapy, in individual sessions and soon in a group setting as well. This type of therapy is aimed to help people control their emotions and destructive behaviors. From what I’ve read this therapy has been very successful in helping people regain control of their lives. I am not taking any medications to get me through this and I feel great about that.
Is it scary to have a mental illness? You bet. Am I worried that I won’t recover, well maybe a little, but the goal is to recover and all I can really do at this point is try my hardest.
I suppose this post has really been holding me back from writing. I mean, I really wanted to talk about what I’ve been going through but I didn’t really know what people would think. I wanted to be able to help people who might also be going through a rough mental state, but I know at this point I am the blind. I really wanted to get this out though because it is a huge part of who I am and I’ve always tried to be an honest writer. I am not going to edit this because I fell like I will only delete it and then never get it out and maybe not write anymore so forgive me if this doesn’t make perfect sence or has a lot of errors. I need to move forward though and the best way to do that is to start.
I hope this post will help me get past this block I’ve been suffering through and I hope that I won’t loose readers now that I’ve openly talked about the issues I am working on. Though I have only really talked about my therapy in this post I think I might be able to talk more about what disorder I am dealing with in future posts.
This was really hard to write but I do feel better for getting it out.
