Tissues, Wetsuits, and Chilly Water
Hello!
If you don’t follow me on Instagram, you may have been wondering where I’ve been. Basically, I’ve been having a whole saga with my laptop. We took it to get fixed, the shop thought they had fixed it. It was not fixed. So right now it’s back at the shop getting looked at again. Might need a new one, I don’t know. So right now I’m on my family’s computer that pretty much never gets used anymore but it means I’ve been able to get on with interview transcribing and blogging. Though I’m writing this on a word doc in case the computer can’t hack me typing on a blog site. We can all rejoice if this gets posted really!
I’ve been on this computer for like a week now so I could feasibly have blogged earlier than this but I do have a reason to have waited. I’m sure you will have noticed that it was Father’s Day yesterday. I mean how could you not notice, the shops seem to be on a mission to make sure it never escapes from view. I decided to just cope privately this time (If you’re new, Dad disowned me last year – see ‘Loss’ for more information). It was really hard, harder than I thought it would be and I thought that it was something I couldn’t share publicly. But now that’s out of the way, I feel like I can talk about what I’m doing to try and get on top of my mental health and process the feelings I have around my Dad.
I’ll start with the heavy stuff so we can end by having a bit of a laugh. As some of you may know, I’ve starting seeing a counsellor every week because things were getting so bad that I was struggling to get out of bed. Now I’ve always been an advocate for getting help with mental health but I’d be lying if I said it was easy. So, I thought I’d write about what it was like going to see a counsellor in that initial stage so that anyone reading this going on the same journey would feel less alone.
I decided to visit a private counsellor as the NHS can tend to have long waiting lists and a limited number of sessions. The next job was finding one but that actually turned out to be easier than I thought it would be. My home town is Worcester so I decided to visit one there as I knew I’d be home for a good 3 or 4 months over the summer. So Mum and I typed ‘Counsellors in Worcester’ into Google and there were literally hundreds of results on a database. I’d imagine it would be the same wherever you were. Each person has a little bio and bits of information about how they work and what sort of therapy they offer – a bit like Tinder or Bumble for therapists! I trawled through but they all seemed to be a face with a list of qualifications rather than a real person. And then I found Rachel.
Rachel didn’t have a huge list of qualifications next to her name. She just wrote a very gentle message about why you might come and see her, that you might just need to talk through things in your head, that you might have been struggling and couldn’t do things as easily anymore. She was almost like a lighthouse in a storm. I emailed her and asked if I could come for an initial session as she offered free 30-minute consultations. Within 2 hours, she had replied and said I could see her the next day, and that’s what we did.
I was terrified. I remember styling my hair and making sure my makeup was perfectly blended because I wanted to give some indication of having my life together. Her office is on the fourth floor, so with the panic and stairs, I was really struggling to breathe by the time I got to her. And then she asked me to tell her a bit about myself because I literally hadn’t told her anything in my email. And, whether it was panic, I don’t know but I just found myself crying and listing everything that was wrong. I just seemed to hear the words coming out of my mouth for the first time, that I’d had an abusive stepmother as a child, I was bullied at school, my Dad disowned me, I’d had anorexia, controlling relationships, unbearable anxiety, panic attacks, and that I hated myself… and she just sat in a stunned silence as I apologised for crying, and for being there and making her deal with my problems, and that I was really quite a positive person usually. And then I stopped and she pointed out that I’d apologised more than 6 times just for being there. And then it really hit me that I wasn’t ok and that maybe I needed to be there.
She said we could meet at 2pm on Thursdays for an hour every week. That it would be £40 a session, and that we’d work things through together. And that when I went back to university we could have Skype sessions if I needed them. She was completely calm and I remember thinking that things might get better now. I’ll keep you updated as I progress.
It’s scary but I’m glad I did it. And if you’re thinking of going for some help, I’d really recommend you do.
Moving onto something lighter, you may have read in my last post that I’m doing a charity 10km swim in Lake Windermere next June. 5th June 2020, to be exact. So naturally, I’ve started my training…
Fuck me, swimming in lakes is hard! The wetsuit alone is a work out in itself but once that’s over, you have the lake to contend with. The first time, I decided that I couldn’t possibly show any signs of weakness and marched into the lake without giving myself any time to adjust to the water, and set about swimming the course they had set up there (500m or 20 lengths). Around 150 metres in, I realised I was going to die. Lake water is nearly opaque and I couldn’t see my hands. It’s also freezing, deep, and you have no idea what’s underneath you. Luckily, I’m good at treading water and managed to stop myself from having a panic attack as I didn’t much fancy drowning! After a bit of consideration, I decided to swim back to shore, and I was absolutely fine. After the initial blip (which is normal according to the lifeguard!), I managed to go back in twice more and swam the equivalent of 500m in a shallower bit.
The second time was more successful and I managed to swim 750m in a much colder lake without panicking. Progress. I’m doing 2 pool sessions a week alongside my lake sessions and did 70 lengths in my last long swim, which is nearly 2km. At the moment, it will take 5 hours to swim 10km but that’s pretty good considering they give you 4 hours on the actual day. Bring on the next year!
Thanks for your patience with me and I will update you on everything soon.
Lots of Love,
Sarah xxx
