Only eight months ago, I was barely hanging on, and my family didn’t understand why, if life was so good here, did I not have time to tell them about it properly. You see I just couldn’t articulate the way I felt honestly. I felt like such a failure.
Mum skyped me one afternoon, I could hear the neighborhood kids behind her in the background and for some reason, that simply unstitched me. I never wanted to worry my mother, but my face crumpled like tissue paper and I cried like a baby. And once I started, I just couldn’t stop.
I told her how hard it had been. My mum would do anything to change that, I was incredibly grateful when she realised what was going on. She made me promise that I would talk to someone who understood the way life worked for people in my situation. My mother was kind enough to help me find a psychiatrist. Mornington Peninsula has quite a few mental health professionals working close to my home.
With the help of my parents I scraped together enough courage to speak with a professional about the way I was feeling, and, I guess being very prepared to act on advice helped. Talking to someone about what I wanted helped me grow the courage I needed to ask for more than I was getting.
So here I am, only a few months later, ready to push my way into a better way of living. I don’t like to think of what may have happened if I was still pretending to my mother about whether life is bearable or not- and anyway, now, it is bearable and I can adapt to it. Rather than feel crushed by it I’ve been given some tools to help work through my problem. I’m so thankful that my mother has volunteered to drive me to Mornington. Psychology is nothing to be scare or ashamed of.
The treatment I’ve received is based on CBT, and I’ve been taught how to apply the CBT techniques in order to manage my thoughts and feelings better. I have a great job opportunity coming up and I’m using the techniques to calm myself down. I can’t believe how much things have changed in a few short months.