Society's Influences and Stigma: Counselling Session 5

(TRIGGER WARNING: Mentions of self harm and sexual assault)

Leading up to this latest session, I'd been very low, anxious, and lacking motivation. My physical health isn't great (which affects my functioning enough already) but my mental health is quite poor at the moment, and the lack of motivation that forms part of my Depression, really affects my ability to do daily tasks.

I managed to wash and dress, as well as feed myself, but this exhausts me enough. I want to be able to do more, more often, but I'm not on sufficient medication for my pain, so it becomes quite debilitating. I feel like I'm constantly having to balance looking after my mental and physical health.

Anyway, back to the counselling session. My Anxiety and Depression scores were high again, and I told my counsellor that the main things bothering me at the moment were my lack of motivation and worrying about my mum's mental health. I won't go into detail about mum, as it is her business to tell who she needs/wants to. I just want her to get the help she needs to make her life easier to cope with.

We ended up talking about all sorts of things, including how certain things that have happened affect my moods at the moment.

We did an exercise where I had to write down the big events that I think have affected my mental health. These were the termination, the bullying at school, and the abusive relationship at university. Underneath, I put the moods that have resulted from these things. Finally, I wrote down the behaviours that these things have led to. Here is what I wrote:

Termination:
       Moods: Panic, Guilt, Shame, Low Mood, Anxiety
       Behaviours: Avoidance, Releasing anger by venting online, self harm to punish myself, making myself read/watch triggering things, as I feel I deserve to feel that way.

Bullying at school:
       Moods: Identity Problems, Low Mood, Low Self Esteem, Anxiety, Paranoia, Loneliness, Feeling useless.
       Behaviours: Seeking Reassurance, Avoiding Group Conversations, Self Harm when I feel myself acting like I used to, Lacking Motivation

Abusive Relationship: 
       Moods: Low Mood, Low Self Esteem, Anxiety/Panic
       Behaviours: Seeking Validation, Second Guessing Myself, Hyper-awareness, Being Suspicious of Men, Being Promiscuous in the past - seeking comfort, but with risky behaviour

The moods and behaviour from the termination are very complex and contradictory. I either avoid everything, or flood myself with everything. I show self-destructive behaviour; where I am constantly punishing myself, whether that's physically or mentally.

I'm the same with the bullying and the abusive relationship. All the comments and judgments made about me have formed part of my identity and made me feel suspicious of some people. I worry that people have ulterior motives and don't really like me/just as a friend.

I remember a time a friend of mine and I were thinking about meeting up. He'd been quite flirty and I had my guard up, so I kept putting him off. One day, when my parents were on holiday, he turned up out of the blue. Suddenly my safe place (i.e. my flat) didn't feel as safe. I let him in as I wasn't sure how he'd react if I didn't. We watched a movie together, but then he started playing with my hair. I felt like alarm bells were going in my head. I thought he'd try to have sex with me, without my explicit consent. I also worried I'd just let him because I wasn't sure what he'd do if I rejected him. As far as I was aware, he never did anything violent, but my mind instantly thought he might.

I've been sexually abused (by a stranger in a bus station) in the past, when I was a teenager. I didn't discuss this with the counsellor, but thinking back, I think this also fueled my suspicion of men who are flirty with me. If I'm not attracted to them, I find it very hard to reject them and I end up feeling violated, and disgusted in myself if anything happens.

We didn't have time to go through everything, but from what I explained to my counsellor, she spotted a pattern. I was very influenced by society's views, as well as possibly wanting to influence society with my own views. She said this was very interesting and important. This is something she wants us to discuss and unpick in subsequent sessions.

Although my moods have still been pretty awful, I'm at least feeling like I have a good therapeutic relationship with my counsellor, and it helps to talk about how I've been feeling. She gets me to explain certain things I say, gives her view when appropriate, and helps me to understand and pick up on things. I do feel positive about these sessions and I'm hoping in time I will be able to talk more freely about the things I've been through.

There's no "homework" as such, for the next session, but I am continuing my journal and at the very least, it is helping me monitor my moods and fill in the PHQ etc questionnaires.

I'm a Survivor

(TW: gaslighting, ableism, physical assault, sexual assault)

For a while, I've been thinking about writing a blog post about an abusive relationship I was in years ago. I did write on an anonymous blog a while back, but I'm finally feeling like I shouldn't need to hide what happened to me. It was not my fault.

When I first got ill, I was at university and I had already been dating someone for a month or so. Let's call him "A". He seemed lovely. "A real gentleman" I used to say. We both thought that my illness was a short term one, and it was him who encouraged me to go to the doctor. He was very supportive, and seemed to share the same frustrations as me, when the doctor fobbed me off. As the months went on, and I got worse instead of better, the support died down. I was still undiagnosed, and had started to miss lectures, cancel dates last minute, go out of the house less. I was in pain, exhausted, extremely nauseous, and very dizzy. I pushed myself as much as I could, but I couldn't deny that I wasn't able to do as much. One particular date was to a very nice & expensive restaurant, and I had to cancel 20 minutes beforehand. Instead of being understanding, A seemed very annoyed, as if I'd done this on purpose. He often made me feel like this, and I hated it.

When I had to miss more lectures, A started making nasty comments to me (even in front of my friends). He would tell me I should stop "skiving" and that if I carried on, I would fail my degree. The longer I was ill, the less he would believe I was ill. I think in his eyes, you take pills and get better quickly. And that if I didn't have a diagnosis, I wasn't *really* ill.

I found he was quite hypocritical too. He expected me to come to him; as opposed to him coming to me. He wouldn't make any allowances, and everything appeared to be on his terms. I could've really done with some help, but he offered none. I didn't see any point in asking. One time, he was ill with the flu. It was a day when we were supposed to go to a BBQ with some friends. He rang me up on the day, and asked me to go to the shop and pick up some supplies for him (pain meds, soup etc). I struggled to get there, but did it anyway. I would go to the BBQ afterwards. I heated up his soup for him, got him a drink, made sure he had everything he needed and could rest. He really didn't look well, and appeared to want some space after he'd eaten. I checked he had everything he needed, then said my goodbyes and went on my way. Everything seemed fine.

In later arguments (usually about my illness) he would bring up this day as a sort of "dig" at me. He would say that I barely did a thing for him "all you did was heat up some soup!" and that I was in a hurry to get away from him, and go to the BBQ to see my friends.

Similar arguments followed; involving him belittling anything I did, twisting my words, denying things that had happened, making everything seem my fault, telling me that the friends I'd made through him, were *his* friends, not mine.

When it came to sex, A had quite a few expectations. He was a virgin at the time and believed that, because I was more experienced than him, and because I loved him, I had to prove this by doing whatever sexual things he wanted. I was very reluctant to do some things, due to finding them physically uncomfortable or because of bad experiences. He didn't seem to care, and I was often coerced or tricked into doing things or allowing him to do things. I won't go into detail, but basically he sexually abused me. I didn't know it was sexual abuse at the time though, and his gaslighting made me doubt the validity of my experiences. Now I know better, and can finally say I am a survivor of a psychologically and sexually abusive relationship.

Eventually we broke up. For a little while, he wouldn't leave me alone though. I remember a time when he wanted to meet after a lecture to "talk". He was very persistent, so I reluctantly agreed. We went on a walk, and the usual arguments resumed. A friend of his came up to say hello, and they started chatting. I can't remember exactly what was said, but I said something (friendly, nothing argumentative etc!) and A snapped at me to "shut up". The friend left soon after that (understandably) and we carried on walking. It seemed he wanted to get back together (god knows why), and wouldn't accept that I didn't want to (he didn't like taking "no" for an answer). I told him I was going home, and that the conversation was over. He got very annoyed and started to follow me. I kept telling him to leave me alone, but he grabbed my arms and kept trying to get me to listen to him. The way he was acting honestly scared me. He didn't let go until a friend of mine happened to pass on her way to a lecture, and saw us. I was very panicky and tearful after that, so walked with my friend and somehow got through the lecture.

I made the mistake of speaking up on social media; which resulted in people calling me "crazy", "psycho", "bitch". I felt I couldn't speak up after that.

I am speaking up now though. He has no control over me anymore.

I'm a survivor.