just alisha things

I want to say a couple of things before I start delving into this, to avoid the risk of sounding ignorant and like I’m on a privileged self-help podcast. First, it has to be said that everyone has a different journey with therapy and it is not linear, predictable or the same as anyone else’s. What I experienced may not be the same as someone reading this who will go through therapy, or already has been. Second, I am aware that therapy is a privilege in the current economic climate, and not everybody has the means to go down the route of private therapy. NHS waiting lists, GP appointments and the accessibility to basic counselling are all depressingly dire and I count myself extremely lucky that I was able to have the experience I did. I am by no means well off and was living off a supermarket worker wage when I went through therapy, but for complete transparency I had the support of my boyfriend for my first few sessions while I was testing the waters. Lastly, I am not an expert in self-help and that’s not why I’m writing this. I’m writing this because, over the last decade or so throughout my mental health struggles, I think it would have really helped me to read a piece like this, and that’s what I want to achieve. There is such a stigma revolving around going to therapy, as if it’s something that you should be ashamed of. For a while I worried that I’d scare people by mentioning it as if it meant I was damaged, delicate, and suicidal. Sure, I had plenty of issues that I needed to talk through, but you do not need to treat therapy as a last resort. If I can break down that stigma enough to at least make someone think about taking on therapy, I’ll be happy.

I’ve always been really open and honest on this blog, so I’ll continue to be so with you now, even if it’s scary. It’s daunting laying myself bare online for everyone to see – friends, family, colleagues, ex-colleagues, people I haven’t seen or spoken to for years…but I feel like in this day and age real, raw honesty is refreshing and I will always aim to be my most authentic self to others, oversharing included. So here we go.

I’ve known I’ve needed therapy for about ten years. After the stalking incident I went through when I was 14 (I’ve written about this before if you’re confused), I knew that I should talk to a professional about it in order to protect my future self from hurting. I didn’t act on it because of factors I’ve already mentioned – stigma, cost, shame, and fear, to name a few. Since then, I’ve been through a lot of things that made me mentally revisit the idea of therapy, but I never felt ready. I had a real talent for putting all of my trauma into a box and stowing it away in the deep, dark and dusty recesses of my brain. I’d black it out, literally unable to recall details of said trauma, and normalise it through a witty joke or dismissal. I knew that box would be unearthed one day and that it would send me reeling, but I hoped if I kept it at bay for long enough it would simply just…go away. So instead of acknowledging it’s existence and the fact I should get help, I stumbled, tripped and fought my way through life, finding things extremely difficult under the façade I was portraying. Everyone has a face they put on for others, but I feel like the impression people got of me was just not me at all. I overcompensated for my sadness and pain through humour, being extroverted and the happiest person in the room, because I thought people wouldn’t like me if they knew about the years of emotional baggage that was limping behind me. This all led to complete exhaustion, fatigue and emptiness, at the character I was playing and the thought that hardly anyone knew the Alisha I did. I was piling myself under stress and anxiety, ploughing through the days with my head down just to survive, before it would suffocate me and I’d collapse underneath it all, feeling hopeless and demotivated.

I was doing this for years, not even really realising the damage I was doing to myself and my relationships with others. I browsed through counsellors online, experimented with a few virtual therapy chat rooms, and threw myself into work and hobbies to distract myself from my mental state deteriorating. I remember choosing a therapist online and keeping the tab open on my laptop for weeks, building the courage to message them but never quite being able to. I thought with that tab open, for the best part of six weeks, that I was finally taking it seriously, and surely that meant that I was going to do it. But eventually I admitted defeat and closed the window, not just on my laptop, but on what I should have done for myself, just like I had done time and time again.

It was around last summer that I started to contemplate therapy again. I was really struggling to get through the days and could feel my relationships slipping through my fingers. I knew that if I was going to keep hold of the people I loved, I had to take the plunge and start seeing a counsellor. I was hurting myself by letting my misery fester, and I was hurting others because I was hurting. In the space of an afternoon, I’d browsed local therapists and chosen who I wanted to go to, accomplishing more than I had done in the last decade. I had to go on a waiting list which I was okay with (probably because it procrastinated the terrifying thought of going eventually), and I put it out of my mind, just satisfied that I’d taken some sort of action.

I was approaching 25 and I knew I wanted to transform the harmful way I was living my life. I didn’t want to just “get by” and let the boxes and boxes of pain stowed away in my mind collect dust. I felt I was becoming ready to open them and deal with them, on my own terms rather than catching me off guard and derailing my life. I was at a stalemate in my career, my relationship, my social life, and I knew that to get any further that I had to shed the current version of myself that I’d created.

Then, in September last year, I finally got confirmation of my first session. It’s funny because at this point I wasn’t even anxious for it anymore. I knew I was ready to show up for myself after years of letting myself down, and in a way turning 25 did change that attitude towards myself that I’d spent so long normalising. I did have a lot of preconceptions, probably very common ones that someone reading this would also have. I wondered how hard I would find it opening myself up to my most vulnerable state to a complete stranger. I thought how cringe-worthy it would be if I sat crying my eyes out in front of them. I worried about not clicking with the therapist I’d chosen and fretted she wouldn’t understand me. Like I said, everyone’s journey is different, but none of these things happened for me. I actually found it really easy to open up to her, likely because she was someone that had no idea who I was, so she held no biases or predispositions. It was a completely clean slate for me to lay down the worst parts of my life to her in the space of that first hour. Throughout the 3 months that I went to therapy, I did not cry in a session once (definitely did after, but it’s normal!) The best part of my experience was how well I gelled with my therapist. I knew from seeing her face on my screen months earlier that she would be kind, understanding and nurturing. I may not have been the best judge of character in the past, but I had made the right decision this time.

There began months of peeling back the layers I’d wrapped around myself, digging to get to the core of my pain and trauma. It was utterly terrifying after every session, when I realised I was getting closer and closer to the day of reckoning (dramatic) where I would be accessing the most vulnerable and damaged parts of myself. But you have to do that to be able to fix them, no matter how scary it is. I went back every week, determined to make a better version of myself emerge at the end of my journey. It was exhausting, it was hard, it was intimidating, but it was so worth every second of relived pain. I spent a few weeks dodging the real trauma and damage, skirting around it so that it could be ignored, because that was the natural response I’d developed over so many years. My therapist helped me see so many parts of myself that I’d missed. She made me go away and really think about who I was and what I wanted from my life, revealing so many truths to me about my pain, my character, my strength, that I’d just disregarded for so long. I’m a very self-aware person and in the week between my sessions I was connecting so many dots on why I was a people pleaser, why I felt like I was unlovable the way that I was, and why I punished myself so much for every single mistake I’d ever made. I had spent years, in fact the majority of my life, internalising things that had happened to me that I didn’t understand. I spent years believing it was me that was the problem, me that had to bend to the wind of everybody else to fit in and be accepted, believing it was me that couldn’t let go of blame I held on to for things I was not to blame for.

Once I started experiencing these revelations, I slowly felt myself healing from the things that broke me over the years. The small things first, that I was still clutching on to from childhood without realising the impact they’d made on my adult life. Then the big things, the scary, murky, ugly things that I’d been drowning in longer than I care to admit. With the tools I was gaining from therapy, I started venturing out beyond my comfort zone to do things I would always have been too anxious or nervous to do. I started my driving lessons, confident that I could chase away the fear if I just tackled them head-on. I transformed the way I viewed my job and worked my arse off to build skills and abilities that I’d take everywhere with me. I changed the way I communicated when I was anxious or angry. I shifted the way I spoke to myself and became more forgiving, more caring, and actually appreciative towards myself. I have learned so many things from my therapist and also from myself that I am extremely grateful for. Now I’m at the start of a new career, having these skills and lessons and putting them into practice, and for the first time in a while I can recognise how much I’m excelling in things I previously didn’t think I’d achieve.

I finished therapy back in December but I had my six-week review last Thursday. In some ways I wanted to cling on to it, to my therapist, for longer, too scared to let go and start putting what I’d learned into practice. But she knew, and I knew, that it was time to move on. I’m a different person now to who I was last January, and I know that this time next year I’ll be thinking the same thing. There is such power in talking, in healing, in accepting, and I will never stop recommending therapy to everyone out there. You don’t need to be as bad as I was or worse, and you can find therapy in the smallest of things in your own way. I’m not going to patronise you and say, “go outside for a walk”, because I’ve been there, and while it can be nice, I hardly think it’s going to solve all your problems. But here’s a snippet of what helped me in the beginning: start off small by speaking to yourself like you’re speaking to someone you love. Be kind to yourself, be forgiving, be authentic, and know that there is help out there. Think of how you treat others too and let this be your reminder that everyone has hard days and secret struggles – it’s always nice to be nice ❤️

Here are some resources that I’ve found useful throughout my hardest times:

https://www.nicounselling.co.uk/ – where I found my godsend of a therapist 🌈 

Go Love Yourself Podcast 🎧 – to make me feel less alone in my self-loathing lol 🖤

https://blahtherapy.com/ – when I was too scared to look into therapy as a teenager 🌧️

Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig 📖 – seeing how you feel written by someone else on paper is powerful🫀