Entry #3: February 7th 2018

A different day, time and location for CBT today.

I’ve been feeling bit brighter the last day or two, able to sort of think and process what I’m feeling instead of being numb and like I’m stuck under water. I even did my “homework” and looked at some situations where my anxiety stops me from doing those things; cognitive retraining.

But today we spoke about my trip back home for a long weekend and how the new medication has been working. I explained about the numb drunk feeling I’ve been experiencing, which I wasn’t sure was normal, but is. Feeling numb is through exhaustion and the tearing down of your thought pathways in your head.. so it’s the first thing that happens, along with the side effects too. For me, these have been the nausea and the headaches, both of which come and go but haven’t been disabling too much. I make sure I have a decent breakfast before taking my medication anyway as that was the important take away from the pharmacist.

We explored my physical health having a huge impact on my current mental status – I agreed and explained and elaborated about my dreadful summer last year and how much of a shock that was to me – but he still banged on about whilst my anxiety is rooted in the present and recent past, my actual past will be where my low self-esteem stems from, where my feelings of worthlessness and not feeling fulfilled stem.

I agree to a certain extent but I am weary. Despite being open-minded about this whole therapy situation, I am nervous about digging into my past. Not that my past is particularly horrible or sad or anything but I feel we may touch on things that a) I’d quite like to not think about again and b) those things might resurface some stronger feelings.

I definitely see my anxiety being linked to my illness and how I sometimes don’t cope as well as I want to, but those circumstances tend to come in cycles, so I am developing new skills to managed those when they arise. And we learnt that I am prepared for the “what ifs” as well as the next person. But! The feelings of worrying about others see and think of me, instead of me worrying about me; that is new and needs addressing. But as he concluded today, baby steps.