So what now ?

It is a much needed case of priorities. 

My priority right now, is myself  because if I don’t look after myself, I can’t look after my boy. It’s that good old saying you can’t pour for an empty cup. 

I am so fortunate that I have a great relationship with my local GP practitioners. So the first step was to reach out to them. Resulting in a change in my medication, to help with the increased anxiety state. But also really looking at a holistic point of view. On how to help me as a whole going forward. 

I was referred to through the GP to Lindsay Gaunt who’s a local Community Links Officer. 

Lindsey was a fantastic help. She was really easy to talk to, a great listener, positive and understanding. She was able to advise me in the direction of other places to look for help, locally.

Which has come from Mid Argyll Youth Development Service (MAYDS). I have been having therapy/ counselling and ongoing help through them.  In order to help myself deal with a lot of the issues that have recently come to a head. 

It’s amazing the support that’s out there if you are open to look, this can sometimes being the hardest part or the journey.

The next week or so was pretty much a case of appointments. 

To be honest, I couldn’t do anything more than this. I just rested, I slept. I made my telephone appointments in between sleeping.  That was enough for now and even that little accomplishment felt like a milestone. Accepting that this was enough and  I was doing the best I could at that time. I was so numb and tired, unable to do much more. My body  and mind felt  like it just had to shut down.

I would find myself waking up from sleep and thinking I’ll go down and do something in the house. Yet I would look go around and think I just can’t. I was frozen. I’d be lucky I could make myself a cup of tea, brush my teeth, meal plan for Ethan. The school holidays were about to start, so there was hope coming for a little bit of rest while, Ethan was with his dad.

So, I kept up with my appointments. These, luckily, right now scheduled as telephone appointments.  With a view in the next few weeks, meeting face to face. I’m not one that really likes to talk about things over the phone. I avoid phone calls like the plague.  I just, like to be able to see a person. To read their body language and see their face, to talk to them openly. So I was relieved when those appointments came and they were face to face. 

Since starting counselling through MAYDS, it’s been an amazing eye opener. It’s not something that I haven’t done before. I’ve done all the CBT and things like that in the past. But I feel its always good to talk out load in a safe place to release and hear the words out loud.  

Yes, a lot of the first few therapy sessions were very difficult and exhausting. Because  I was digging deep, going right back to my childhood. Obviously this opened up a lot of things for me, but it was good to be able to look and reflect on of the whole picture.  See why maybe now things were triggering me so much. Think about how I could work on going through the process of deeply looking at these triggers and where they came from. Begin to understand me as a person. How I behave, the patterns that I have set. What my coping mechanisms have been and why they aren’t working for me now.

To see that I have changed, as my life has changed. Now a single mum and living with the chronic health condition. What I was missing, not understanding or processing. It’s an exhausting but detrimental part of beginning the healing process. My journey has begun……