Big scary steps

The last period since my last blog, was all based on creating stability. Something in the beginning that would be an easy fix. Well, I can tell you now it wasn’t. I had to make certain steps that I didn’t want to do and quickly realized that stability was not exactly going to happen.

After my last post, my anxiety went up quite a lot. It was all within reason, yet very disruptive towards me. I could not figure out why everything spun out of control. That made my headspace go a bit crazy, to be honest. I had multiple panic attacks and after talking a lot with my therapist we decided on something that would change the timeline completely..

My therapist told me that my anxiety and panic were at a level that was not manageable anymore and if we didn’t do anything to manage it, the chances of me relapsing were all a sudden scary facts that might come true. I know for me relapse is the end, which sounds a bit hectic if you read it. But after fighting for a very long time with this disease, another round of recovery I don’t see happening. I don’t have the energy to go to treatment again, this is it for now and relapse is not an outcome I want to challenge myself with. So hearing my therapist say that brought me to tears. I did not know what we should do. But as always she has a plan, and although we spoke about this plan before I did not think it would be this drastic.

My therapist and I spoke about it for a while, and the plan was to start in January with trauma therapy. But when my mental state changed, this date also changed and she wanted me to start as early as possible. Something I wasn’t keen on straight away. I’m death scared of trauma therapy as I don’t know how I’m going to respond to it. Another reason that I’m scared of it, is because in my head there is this voice that tells me that my trauma isn’t that bad, and I don’t need any help for it. I managed for 30 years, it couldn’t be that intense that I can’t cope with it myself.

Last week I had my first session, and I can now tell although I’m shit scared still. I know I need this. After my first session, I went into this freeze mode for 2.5 days. It was very heavy and draining for me. I could not manage to make myself eat or drink. And although we had plans with my team, I found it really hard to keep going. I didn’t want to feel these feelings again, I was at peace I thought. And although life felt manageable, I wasn’t dealing with big feelings for a while. I know I need to go through this to get a step closer to living a life beyond my wildest dreams. It’s just a very scary big step I have to make.

I will have sessions till the end of the year and probably need more in the next. And to be completely honest I look forward to the holiday season, yet at the same time I don’t. It’s a period that I thought last year that everything would be an easy ride. Yet again I am in this difficult bubble that I need to go through no matter what. I think I just need to remind myself that I need this to have a future that I can build. Something I can’t if I continue to do this half-ass recovery that i’m in now.

Don’t get me wrong, I am still in recovery, I have not slipped or acted out in a way, but it’s definitely a mental difficulty at the moment. For now, I have to take it one day at a time. And slowly but surely everything will fall back on their feet.

See you in the next one!

xoxo Me