Well, since I started this Blog about 2 months ago, I can't believe the progress that has been made. The catalyst for beginning on this journey was a particularly bad experience that I had on New Year's Day. At that point, I was a bag of neuroses and anxiety. In thE intervening time, I have had some changes. The therapist that I was seeing has moved on and I am with a new person at my local surgery. He challenges me and makes me analyse the problem in a very detached way. I think that this is helping although during the sessions, it does get a little frustrating when I don't have a response to a question and have to ask him to re-phrase it. My first session with this therapist was a lesson in 'why the fuck am I doing this?' We talked about the insomnia that I had been experiencing for the whole of the session. Nothing about depression or anxiety. It was slightly bewildering, but when I came away from it, I realised that he had been attempting to tackle the problem obliquely by looking at one aspect and then addressing whether it is a cause of a symptom. Very clever. But then in the next session, we were still talking about the insomnia (which had by then abated. I am still filling inky sleep diary and I have no idea why... There is probably a very good reason for this to continue, but I confess to being unable to see it.
So, fast forward... There are things on be horizon which I don't want to discuss just yet which may mean a significant change in my life. Which may be just what I need.
This past couple of months has been a very scary time with me moving a long way out of my comfort zone that I have built up around myself. I have begun to hug people. Strange as it may sound, I will never initiate a hug with anyone other than immediate family. I will reciprocate if someone hugs me, but I have a problem with physical touching. Since January, I have on a couple of occasions initiated a hug with people outside of my immediate family. I still wouldn't be able to hug relative strangers, but each to their own.
Other comfort zone busting stuff:
Interacting socially with people without my buffer (Jeanette) being present. If you know Ms. J, you will know that she didn't kiss the Blarney Stone so much as bite a chunk off it. She is comfortable in virtually any social situation and can talk to anyone. I normally leave the social stuff to her and only speak when I am spoken to. This is an arrangement that works very well. I know I am socially awkward, I didn't develop in the same way as others socially. When others were going out and partying and generally having fun with their peers and members of the opposite sex, I was sitting either in a movie cinema watching g the silver screen or in my bedroom watching videos of comedy and movies. I watched and re-watched movies.
I didn't need other people when I had my buddies on the screen. Nowadays, I find it difficult to talk to people who I haven't talked to before. This is one of the challenges I set myself. Talk to someone each day in a social setting. It might be asking the checkout person how their day is going, it might be in a professional context. But I have been doing it and have come to the conclusion that we are all just winging it and playing everything by ear. Some are better at it than others. Some are awful. I am pretty much firmly rooted in the latter category, but I am getting better slowly.
On the plus side, my creativity has gone through the roof and I am coming up with new ideas and designs left, right and centre.
Tomorrow I get to go to my first group therapy thing. Not a clue what this is going to be like, but because of my love of film etc. I am envisaging a cross between something from one flew over the cuckoos nest and Glengarry Glenross. More to follow if I think it is appropriate tomorrow evening.
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