Therapy

I attempted therapy 3 times over the past few years. I found it hard to accept the help and allow myself to be the client/patient. Just as I found it hard to be the patient with my psychiatrist.

When you’ve been in hospital you aren’t allowed to drive for 3 months after discharge. For me losing independence from use of my car was difficult. It was due to a lack of a license I found my first therapist, a counsellor, just around the corner from my house. Unfortunately she gave the impression she was intimidated by my level of training and qualification but also felt out of her depth dealing with my experiences. However rather than say this upfront she cancelled on me due to her poor health and when she recovered did not get back in touch with me to restart. I decided I needed someone more qualified to see me and would not be scared of the word “psychotic”.

The second therapist was a psychologist that was too expensive and summarised my reasons for not continuing (apart from the cost) after 2 sessions in his discharge letter…my self critical nature, discomfort in expressing emotions (yes it is possible for psychologists to have this- we are still human), and being a very private person were the reasons I stopped seeing him.

After a while I decided to try one more time. Third time lucky right? I found someone that wasn’t a psychologist but had NHS experience and seemed to be reasonably priced. I saw her for over a year and throughout she remained on my side when it came to treatment plans. She supported me in wanting to try other ways other than medication to be well but at the same time did not advocate the messing around with medication I was doing.