Episode Summary
Yesterday I had my 10th therapy session. When I’ve hit this milestone with previous episodes in the past, I’ve usually discontinued the sessions because I generally feel much better.
However, I can’t have addressed the problem otherwise I wouldn’t keep having dark (depressive) episodes. In this episode (of the podcast) I explore this question and share the experience I had with my therapist when we discussed it yesterday.
Episode Transcript (Edited)
Hi and welcome to today’s episode of Hope, Help, Happiness.
Now, today’s episode is called “Should I Continue My Therapy?” Let me give you some background to this.
When I first went to the doctor five months or so ago and told them I wanted to take my own life and how I felt, they kick started the process of getting me access to some treatment on the NHS.
Now it took them six weeks to come to the conclusion it would be seven months before I would be able to get anything. So they recommended that I go to a local counselling service to see if they could offer any help.
And I did. And they did.
And so for the last three months, I’ve been having a therapy session every Wednesday, pretty much every week.
Now let me give you some background to my history with therapy.
I have sought out help from one form of counselling or another a number of times over the years. There have been probably three or four significant times and each time I lasted about 10 sessions before I start feeling okay.
What normally happens is I end the sessions then because I feel okay.
But what I’ve discovered is that I haven’t been “fixed” because I’ve had to keep coming back at various intervals over my life.
So I’m not sure whether feeling that I’ve been fixed each time is because a significant amount of time has passed since I felt really low, so it’s just dissipated.
Or whether the actual talking therapy has done some form of job of allowing me to deal with whatever the cause might be.
I suspect it’s a combination of both, but whatever happens, around about the 10 week point I think “Right. This has done its job. Time for me to move on.”
Now clearly it hasn’t because I keep coming back to this situation.
So when I started with this new counsellor, I told her that story and explained to her my background of not so much giving up, but thinking I had enough treatment.
I asked her to be aware of that because I’ve realised I’ve clearly not addressed some of the issues that need to be dealt with. If I was to come to her and say, “Oh, I don’t think I need this anymore”, then we were to have a pretty stern conversation.
And I gave her permission to be stern and to challenge me on that decision ahead of time.
So yesterday was about my 10th therapy session and at the moment I am feeling positive. I’m feeling empowered because I’m starting to take back some control over what my treatment and my healing.
I’ve already seen the benefits of the things I’ve done so far.
So getting back into exercise, my diet, I’m starting to be a bit more focused and I have been making progress.
Yesterday, the first thing I said when we sat down and looked at each other at our usual Mexican Standoff was, “Do I need to continue what we’re doing?”
I explained the situation and reminded her of the conversation about needing to be challenged. We had a discussion that was frank and honest.
She felt that whilst she didn’t suspect I was hiding anything, she did feel there were depths in my psyche and my background and my story that we’d not yet peeled back the layers of.
She felt there was probably still more that could be done.
I agreed that’s probably the case and felt I could see from a logical perspective that there were things that probably hadn’t been addressed yet.
We then got into a separate conversation around rejection and relationships.
In that conversation, other stuff came up and I suddenly realised the value of being able to talk through something with someone who understands human behaviour. Someone who can reflect back to me what’s going on, to give me alternatives, to question and to challenge my assumptions.
I’m still probably only a short few steps into what is going to be a long journey.
So my conclusion from the conversation I had with her is that whilst the approach does feel passive and I don’t seem to be addressing anything directly, there is probably still a huge need to continue to explore.
I need to brush off the cobwebs on some of the things from my past and examine them in the light of today and what I know about myself today.
I also need to discuss and examine the emotional skills I’m probably still lacking that help set up the environment that caused me to feel the way I did earlier on in the year.
So the conclusion is we will continue on with the sessions.
Now when it comes to me having the stuff the NHS going to give me, we may have to revisit that because I don’t think they like having two approaches running concurrently.
But for now, I’ll continue the therapy.
So that today’s episode?
Until tomorrow.
