Sounds like I'm starring in my own psychological thriller. I'm not. Well.. not quite anyway. It's all part of my own little thrill - therapy. Going at it full blast now, with exposure, as it's called in cognitive behavioral therapy. In laymen's terms, that's me going out and doing all those things that terrifies me to near death. Sounds bad? I think so. But I trust my therapist... for now.
We've spent 4 sessions are so, covering me, some of my past, some of my relations, and mostly, of course, my fears. We've plotted out a way to approach things. And while she seems a little tight in her manners, she's not completely devoid of humanity or compassion. Yeah, it might sound like a harsh thing to determine, but I've had a therapist once that seemed to lack those two qualities. I spent many an hour, not to mention many a fuckload of cash, with her, and while it seemed ok at first, I gradually began to wonder just where in the hell it was all leading. I asked her one day, and her reply was that she'd like me to come in more often. Ironically it had the complete opposite effect: I never set foot in her office again.
So far I've been, and felt, reassured with this new style. I've been consulted for my opinion on what my goals are, and what, of several, paths I felt would be cool. I've been told that I will never be tossed into a situation that would frighten me, without a lot of talking and going through it first. In other words, I WILL be put in situations that would normally frighten me, but I will get a set of tools (metaphorical tools, you morons) that will help me deal with my thoughts and feelings.
My main problem, I guess, can be summed up in quite few words; Common sense > Perceived reality. I need to listen more to my common sense, instead of giving in to those thoughts that tell me things are fucked. Deep down, I always know that what my common sense is telling me is real. But it's a lot easier to let the bad and negative thoughts reign supreme, because it only confirms what I already think I know: it's me against the world. I'm by myself, everybody else are morons who are just using me because 1) they pity me, or 2) they want to gain advantage through me. I know it's not true (for the most part, there are always bad seeds out there), but I need to believe that I know it as well. Otherwise it will become a self-realising prophecy, and I will end up alone and in despair. Lord knows I've driven away a friend or two in my time.
So, how to achieve these things? Well, as I mentioned, exposure is one way. It's basically, as I've also said, exposing myself to anxiety-triggering situations. I made a list of trigger situations, that we looked through. And finally, last session, I numbered them from 1 to 7, according to severity. We're going to start dealing with number 1 on my list, next session. That's the easiest of them, or the one I feel the least anxiety doing. I'm not going to tell you what it is yet. I probably will in the future, but I want to deal with this myself at first, and then relate it afterwards. It's quite interesting, even from an outsiders viewpoint, and I'm really looking forward to experiencing the effect of this cognitive psychiatry.
Anyway, I'm going at it full force. Considering my future, the future after this, is weird at the moment. As in, I can't really imagine living without it. The constant fear of fear and anxiety. The fear of it is almost the worst. Or anxiety. But I hope that when I do get rid of it, I'll be able to start doing some of the things that I've kept myself from doing. I want to try and get a proper education. I've done the 3D thing, and besides me learning some things, it never was what I had hoped it to be. Waste of time, and more importantly money. An education would be proper. I need to school myself more in math, which I don't particularly like, but I think I can do it, if I get a little help from people in the know. It's a plan anyway. Or an idea. Or a hope. Gotta have hopes, don't you?
