Taking a Giant Leap into Therapy
If you follow our blog posts, you’ll know from ‘My Story’ that I have a history of anxiety and depression. On the whole this is well managed but I have noticed that I have developed what I can only describe as an irrational fear that I feel powerless to control.
It’s sort of crept up on me, but came to a head last year during a holiday with my family to Cornwall when me, my Husband and youngest child got a tummy bug. I turned into a anxious wreck, bleaching everything, not wanting to go out of our accommodation and laying in bed with crippling feelings of anxiety which were exacerbated by an inability to sleep due to excessive worry. It completely ruined my holiday and left me with reoccurring anxiety around sickness and the threat of sickness. Sorry if this is TMI but what is strange is that it isn’t the practical issue of cleaning it up (although obviously not on the top of my list of things to do) it’s just the feeling of, fear, panic, and anxiety about being unwell.
To me I hate not being in control and not being able to plan for such things. I fear myself or my loved ones being sick in public because it’s embarrassing and it’s out of my control. Let my daughter say that someone in her class is off sick from school and I very briefly feel like I freeze to the spot, feel sick, tense up and start to worry that she’s going to catch it.
It’s got to the point that if I feel an immediate threat of sickness to me and my loved ones I will stay awake all night worrying until I perceive that the threat has passed and all is again well with the world. It’s put me off going on holiday and our the prospect of going away fills me with fear and dread.
Working at Yorkshire Psychotherapy I’ve realised that people suffer from all kinds of different anxiety and it is something that can be treated.
Therefore I am embarking on a course of CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) and EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation Reprocessing) to treat my anxieties. I thought it would be useful to share my experiences along the way.
Tuesday 5th June 22:25pm – the night before my assessment. If I’m honest it’s been in the back of my mind all day, I feel a bit nervous – butterflies in my tummy, the thoughts running through my mind are; what if Dave can’t help me, will he think I’m daft, what if it doesn’t work and I have to pretend it is, how will I know if it’s worked – me or my family will need to be ill to test it *cue anxious thoughts again ?. But also a slight feeling of what if this works and I regret not doing it sooner!
To be continued……
Briony