Therapy Reflections

I was referred to therapy services after ongoing bouts of anxiety and burnout. I think the worst stages of my anxiety were back when I was a child. I was bullied a lot at school, teachers thought I would have a limited future and would never cope at a mainstream school. I cried a lot and hated being last because it made me feel like a failure. Because of multiple problems, I avoided doing PE or any physical sports. Now I go to the gym five times a week and been slowly building a better mind and body for myself.

I remember after every session that we were given homework which was basically PDF attachments on techniques and brain activity. Out of all of them, I found the mindfulness sheet and positive logs the most helpful.

I think going through my entire life history and looking out for key memories of my childhood to now really opened my eyes. There were things that I had suppressed for years all coming out. It also made me realise that I was surrounded by toxic people during the ages of what should have been the prime of my life.

I think that I am surrounded by good people now. As a writer, I am a natural texter and sometimes when I speak the wrong words come out and people miss out on the tone. Sometimes there are lots of things that I want to say in my head that never come out.

Writing helped me be able to express myself. The only thing I didn't like was the questionnaires they put in. Even though a lot of them were short, they felt tedious and wished there was an option where you could click no changes. Though, I guess I understand why they were important so that the therapist knew what they had to work on.

It will be strange not waking up Sunday Morning to get myself online ready for the appointments. Even though they were text-based, it felt like I was in a room with the person talking, just letting all my things go out. The therapist was non-judgemental and instead offered techniques and ways to make me think for myself some safer coping mechanisms.

Last week, the therapist said she was impressed with my progress. She sent me a reflection log, that I haven't sent back and filled in yet, but I am planning to do it tomorrow. I thought that writing this piece on Vocal may help.

The one key thing I took away was that the traumatic events that happened to me were not my fault. I have no control over what other people say and do, but I can control what I can do. With the help of therapy, I was able to achieve things that I never thought I would be able to do like manage more fitness classes. One of the relationships that went sour was the one I had with my Dutch ex. I used to be able to tell him everything, and he would read my Vocal articles too.

I miss him, every day, even though I think I did the right choice. I

I took ation on the things that worried me. Like being concerned about having certain conditions. The main one is hypertension now. When I have my blood pressure tested at the doctors, it is always high. When I do it at home, it's normal. I always get in a slump when I don't lose any weight.

I was glad I was able to get a space on the text-based therpy because it meant I could work our a time and a schedule that wouldn't class with events that were important to me.