Be Excellent To Each Other

Excellent chums!

Recently a spate of most unagreeable events has befallen my personal life, such that it now resembles the plot of an episode of Hollyoaks. I am consequently feeling quite stressed, to the extent that had the excellent Current Lady Zio not intervened last night and prevented me from having to stay in the house alone, I may have done something... regrettable. I do feel a bit chirpier now I've had a sleep, however!

All the same, I'm wondering if maybe I should look at getting a bit of counselling as, whilst I don't believe blubbing my problems at a random person I've never previously met would really solve anything, it might help. It certainly can't harm.

Has anyone here had any experience of counselling? Did it help? How do you even go about acquiring such things?

Thanks and all that,

Zio

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Talk to your GP - they will know who you need to talk to. Do it. Do it now.

Speak to your GP. If they're any good they will refer you for counselling (especially if you ask) and not just give you a prescription for some SSRIs.

Like you say Zio, it certainly won't do you any harm giving it a go. I think you should give it a try mate and I hope it goes well for you.

It's always worth a try Zio, as you said nothing to lose.

I've had it twice, once about five or so years ago, I was at the lowest I'd ever been and got it through my Doctor. I only went for one session though. I spent most of the hour in tears, the chap I had reflected back to me something I had said and I went home and had a good think about it, I never felt the need to go back and got on with my life. Strange but true.

The second time was while at uni, I had several sessions due to everything that was going on at the end of my second year. Felt much better when things started to fit into place so stopped going. That was more about me needing someone to sound off to though, I didn't feel I could talk to anyone around me at that time, everyone seemed to be going through their own stuff and some people just aren't good at emotional stuff. But for that hour every week I could be as honest as I wanted about everything I was thinking and feeling and it was ok.

No experience I'm afraid, but just wanted to say good luck with it all Zio

I had counselling via my GP and while it was quite useful, I think the medication I was prescribed had the bigger effect. The woman who did my counselling went off on long-term sick. Hopefully it was nothing I said.

Yeah, good luck with it Zio. No experience of it myself but I know people who have found it really helpful. Sometimes all it takes is to have someone else tell you something that you probably already knew to get you back where you need to be.

When i went through a spate of panic attacks years back, I went for a few sessions.

I tried to seduce her, though.

Panic attacks stopped, mind.

MaliA, pictured here relaxing in the pool

She was the one panicking by the end.

THERE, THERE. IT'LL ALL BE OK.

Actually, I chatted up a bird at the GUM clinic and got her number once, as well.

Goodbye, feckless MaliA.

I sometimes wonder if just pouring your heart out to anyone would be just as good. But that said, you don't always want friends and family knowing about your deepest, darkest thoughts.

I had some counselling a year or so back. Absolutely useless, but I think that was the combination of the specific counsellor and me.

At work, can't talk. Short version: give it a go. If you don't get on with them, give it another go. Repeat - you need to work with the right one, it's not like a doctor where any will do. You need some sort of rapport, and they need to "get it". A lot don't. That said, don't dismiss them if you don't get on immediately. Someone very different to you can work wonders. Give them and yourself a bit of time.

All of this has actually finally given me something to write a book about, so I may very well go with that solution. But in the short-term, I've booked a GP appointment for tomorrow morning.

Thanks guys! I'm not sure if it will help or not, but I doubt very much it can harm. I don't think there's a great deal that could make things any worse right now.

I just set fire to your dog.

True, and true. Even if you would want to trust a close friend or relative though, someone you know is often too close to the matter to see it clearly, or to be able to be helpful. A totally uninvolved person with no axe to grind and no reason to complicate things can be a godsend. It's just a shame there are a lot of crappy counsellors letting the rest down.

I've never been councelled. (spellllling). I did, however, used to be a member of a (non-directive) counceling society at Uni. One of those Samaritan-style phoneline ones. All I can say is: It really depends on the nature of the problem and what type of person you are. A decent councellor will allow you to open up and chat bollocks to your hearts content. For some people, it helps a lot. It helps them reflect on their life. For others, it does nothing but wear out their voice.

At the end of the day, it's massively personel. Also: If you're feeling massively stressed and need a random stranger to talk to, ring the Samaritans. They're not only about suicide, y'know?

Also: Ringing them allows you to see exactly what a paid-for (or NHS paid for) councellor will do. Except they tend to stick their beaks in as well.

See my post above!

I have been and it was good. All the counsellors seemed visibly shocked by my problems, though, which surprised me as I never thought they were all that severe relative to the problems other people had. They said they were amazed I hadn't just dropped out of Uni with stress and I did not know what to say.

Are you a paedofiddler?

Maybe everyone with 'issues' should write them down so that: a) the rest of us can see how insignificant our problems are; b) so we can point at the weirdos and segregate them; and finally c) one of us can make a fortune selling the stories.

I have had counselling and it was all good, better than a head doctor in my opinion. I also had the zombified thing that Shin experienced whilst on the 'helping' drugs but talking about everything helped a lot. The problem with people who are close to you is that they want so badly for you to be ok, this puts pressure on you to be normal again or keep the worst things inside because you don't want to shock or upset them further. Impartial listeners are good, they might not be able to offer the life changing advice you think you want but it gets everything out of your head and in order again.

No.

Now I can't decide if my actual counselling story is more or less interesting, though. I'm a bit reluctant to write it down as it isn't really that insignificant; people die and get incurable diseases and I end up being seen by a psychiatrist.

Someone I know once described this mindset after managing to shake it off.

Imagine someone's just cut off your hand. Imagine it hurts like fucking buggery, is extremely shocking and horrifying, and means you'll probably be forever disabled. Now, imagine someone saying to you "hey, the bloke up the road lost an arm. Shut the fuck up, you have no problem."

Sure, the other person maybe has their own problems. But does that mean yours aren't important? Does it, fuck. In fact, huge and immediately obvious and socially acceptable problems are arguably easier to find support for.

Would you rather lose a leg, or have cancer in a world that didn't believe in cancer?

Is the cancer in the leg?

In a world that doesn't believe in cancer, the one-legged man is king.

I have a friend who had cancer in the leg. Luckily, his doctor did believe in cancer, so he had it removed. He's OK now, although I will have to check with him to see if he is king of anywhere.

The cancer, or the leg?

I had a very good schoolfriend who unfortunately died a few years ago from a cancer of the brain. I like to imagine him sitting on a cloud up there in heaven, laughing his tits off at my current plight. Bless him!

Just the cancer. Possibly the doctor did not believe in legs.

Not entirely sure "wiped out" is the right phrase there.

Got an appointment to see someone next Wednesday. This is good. Though to be honest, I would've liked it to be sooner. At least my usual GP was on some kind of emergency call, so I had to see someone else. This is also good, as my regular GP is a complete cock, whilst the guy I saw today was very compassionate and very helpful.

Don't take this the wrong way, but that's pretty bloody lucky. There are places where they'd have you wait for months, by which point the resolve of a lot of people who really needed it would have broken down. Heh, maybe that's the idea....

You are also allowed to ask to transfer GPs I believe.

I've asked my local surgery if I can see a different GP in the past, but they've always said "no". That said, the staff in that place are not among the most helpful in society.

Also Mr. Agent, from what I gather you are very correct and I am lucky to be seeing someone so soon. The doctor did seem a tad concerned though and told me that if I really needed to speak to someone urgently, he'd keep ringing round for me until he found someone. He was a very nice guy, I'd like him to be my GP from now on please!

At the very least, when booking an appointment, you can say that you would like it to be with Dr <whoever>, even if it means waiting a couple of extra days for that appointment.

One of the first questions asked when requesting councelling is if you are suicidal, this can make a HUGE difference on how quickly you are seen.

Good luck Mr Zio - hope it all works out for you. Mrs Squirt had a few sessions a while back and it really helped her. Didn't "fix" the problems as such, but gave her methods of dealing with it that made her life much better, and allowed her to sort it out herself.

I reckon for those of us who are having trouble unconnected to clinical deression (i.e. head not right, but not due to chemical imbalance) can often do a lot worse than cognitive therapy. Basically counseling, you go through ll you usual issues with them, but rather than sitting there and chucking Freudian psychoanalysis at you, you are supported to map out your own reactions and thought patterns, and with your mind mapped, you can see alternative routes for your thoughts to take. Turns out my mental approach to issues with managers and partners reflected my habits of not coping well with teachers/parents - I was repeating the same methods of not adequately stating my needs and intent and ending up unhappy as a result - all better now, half a decade down the line I'm in a great stable long term relationship and give my managers as good as I get, where applicable.

Didn't save my life, but it did make it run a lot more smoothly. For when you feel as if your brain is more Maureen Driving School than Lewis Hamilton, there's nowt better. Except heroin, obv.I can now tune my brain for performance and efficiency, though I have been known to overclock the fucker from time to time.

In my experience massive scores on the depression screening test have a similar effect regardless of if you're suicidal or not.

This is largely what I'm banking on. I wouldn't go as far as to say I've ever been clinically depressed, but I did spend the greater part of my twenties feeling generally unhappy with things.

What has happened now has nothing to do with any kind of chemical balance in my brain. This is a genuine, rest-of-life-ruining, to the point I'm really not sure how much I wish to carry on with it all, event that has triggered this off. It's making me wish I hadn't been such a miserable twat all those years. Because, if I hadn't, not only would I probably be generally happier anyway, I very probably would not be in this bloody mess now either.

Fuckety fuckety fuck fuck.

I had to cover someone in one of our remote offices yesterday and Monday, meaning I got to work in an office alone and allowing me to tell everyone that I was terribly busy, when in fact I was playing the old Aliens coin-op via MAME on my little Acer Aspire One. I'm not normally like that, I just can't concentrate enough to do my actual job at the moment.

Then today, back in the usual office, my brother phoned me up. My father called him in a state of some concern as he's noticed how off I've been at home lately and he's concerned. So now I've got to face him when I get home (living with parents at the moment). I went to speak privately to my manager to ask if I could go home early and he told me that people are gossiping in the office behind my back because I'm not my usual chirpy self. Great.

So, my terrible secret? Since everyone's going to know now anyway...



and...



but...



at least...



so...



Bugger.