Today, I had my first counselling session. It was nothing like CBT or other therapies I've had before, as it didn't have a specific structure. Also, no homework! Of course, I still had to fill in the good old PHQ scale etc questionnaires. According to my counsellor, I had quite high levels of Anxiety and Depression. To be honest, with everything going on recently, I'm not surprised it's caused relapses. I don't think I'm in a very good place at the moment, but I don't think I realised this until I started talking about things and focusing on myself.
The main reason I decided to ask for counselling this time was because I needed to come to terms with the abortion I had 10 years ago. I did it because I thought I had no other choice. I was 19 and still felt like a kid. To have the responsibility of bringing up a child was far too much for me. I was only just learning to look after myself! I made the decision quickly, and felt numb sometimes, scared others, when I made the appointments, went to them, took the tablets I was given etc. The nurses were matter of fact at best, and completely judgmental and horrible at worst. It was a difficult time, and an experience I wanted to get past as soon as possible with as little people as possible knowing.
Some people were very supportive, some made me feel incredibly guilty and ashamed of what I had done. I felt I couldn't talk through it at the time, so I kept it mostly locked up inside.
I don't know when I started thinking about the termination more, or when I started to get triggered by any mention of it, but things started getting really difficult at least 10 years ago. I get just as triggered (if not more) now and I am so fed up of feeling this way. I have to leave the room or put my earphones on, when storylines or discussion of abortion are on the television. I can't properly contribute to conversations around it, whether face to face or online. Even seeing a pregnancy scan can set me off.
I've written about my feelings of being triggered before, but I'll quickly explain how I feel below:
- At first, I feel very upset and panicky
- I'm very likely to have bad panic attacks
- I may get angry that someone has not considered putting a warning on their post about abortion, or a TV programme hasn't warned beforehand.
- I may dissociate and tense up; going completely silent and being unable to concentrate on anything else
- I will be brought right back to the time when I experienced an abortion. I can imagine the nurses, visualise the clinic full of upset women, feel the intense pain I had soon after, visualise the blood and everything that came with it.
- I will not be able to concentrate on anything else for a while, and I will have to (maybe with some prompting) do things to ground myself or distract myself.
- At its worst, my suicidal feelings will return and/or I will have extremely strong urges to self harm badly, as if I want to punish myself or distract myself with a pain I can control to a certain extent.
- I may become hyper-aware and jump at loud noises etc
I said some of this to the counsellor and she told me it sounded like symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
She can't diagnose me as such, but I did find it interesting, as I've wondered before if this is bad enough to be considered as PTSD. I don't know if I should try to get assessed for it, whether it'll result in extra support (probably not). I guess I can just say I have symptoms of PTSD rather than the full diagnosis itself.
Whilst talking about that particular topic, I digressed and talked about when I first got ill, my abusive relationship at the time, as well as how my ex partner (who would've been the father) reacted when I'd had the termination. The conversation came round to family, friends, and childhood too, so of course the things that have happened with my Nan recently, came up, as well as my cousin. My counsellor said that I have had so much to think about, and I've been through so much, so it's no wonder I feel the way I do.
I tried to focus on this particular topic, but as I was leading the conversation (the counsellor was mainly there to listen and give me space to talk) I found I would digress a lot, go silent when I ran out of things to say or lost my train of thought, sometimes cry, apologise for rambling, and then repeat the things I said before. I don't know how much useful information the counsellor got from me, but I at least gave her lots to go through (probably too much!). I'm seeing her next, in a couple of weeks and she told me that she could help build more of a structure into our sessions if I liked. I don't want to be completely restricted, but I think I do need some prompting to keep focused on one thing at a time, so I was grateful of her offer.
For the rest of today, I've been feeling very exposed, self conscious, anxious/panicky, depressed, and overwhelmed. I keep dissociating too. I'm trying to do what self care I can, and focusing a lot on comforting myself.
Thank you so much to my readers, it means a lot to know that people are interested in what I have to say, and support me too. I would love to be there for people who have been through similar things as myself, but I'm not able to with certain things. With the help of my counsellor, I hope to get to a point where I can.
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