I came, I seen, I conquered

What a day..  After I finished my last blog, and wrote a few messages, I left on my grand endeavour to see the therapist for the first time. Before I left the house I think I went to the toilet a million times, just from the nerves.

When I got down to the bust stop I put on my Ipod. I needed something to distract myself. By the time I got into town it was about 45 minutes later. The count down was on. In an hour I was going to be in the office.

I went into the general area of town where the office is. It’s in a old part of town, Battery Point. I went into Salamanca Square, which is kind of a little hub of cafés and shops. There were a lot of people around as there is a cruise ship in port at the moment. I went to Banjos Bakery and got myself a meat pie and a bottle of water. My stomache was churning; I needed something to settle it. While I was eating my pie, near a water fountain, I watched all the business types on their phones, doing their thing. It’s a very nice are Salamanca and I enjoy being in it. It’s like the meeting place for most of Hobart. Everyone knows where it is, and it’s on the waterfront so it makes for good scenery. It’s been a beautiful day, so the people were out everywhere. You can easily make out the tourists, those are the ones with cameras and maps. It did make me laugh when I seen numerous tourists trying to get directions. Hobart is not that big people!!! At least it took my mind of the task ahead.

30mins to go… I start heading towards the office, it’s up a big hill, and being that I haven’t been there before, I wanted to suss it out first. I checked out a few antique stores and a few book stores too. I went to the chemist; I needed some more pain meds. I found the office. It’s in a nice little cottage. At first I thought it was just a house. There are no signs or anything, luckily there was a number on the door, otherwise I would not have known which one it was. I went past it into a small park that was just up the road. It wasn’t much of a park, just 2 swings and a bench. I sat on the bench and tried to calm down. I was checking my phone every few seconds, seeing how much longer I had. I started shaking a bit so I took some deep breaths and closed my eyes. This did help.

5mins to go.. I leave the park and head back up to the old cottage. I open the door, and all there is about 5 closed doors that I can see. Each on of them having a sign saying something along the lines of “Consultation in progress, please to go to reception”. Ok, This defiantly is the right spot. For some reason I had this fear that I had just walked into someone’s house.  I walked into the So called reception. All that’s there is 6 chairs, a coffee table with multiple magazines and newspapers and a table with a phone, and stuff to process accounts. No receptionist to be seen.. Hmmm. Ok.. So I took a seat and picked up the news paper. I was still trying to control my shaking and breathing, but in one way I felt a bit calmer knowing that I had actually made it into the office. WOOHOO. Step one complete!

15minutes later… Soo I’m still in the waiting room. I haven’t seen anyone. No one has come and gone, although I can hear faint voices in the house. So someone is here. Outside someone is playing music. It’s faint but audible. I think this waiting room was one of the most uncomfortable places I have ever been, there was no noise. No TV, no radio, silence. I don’t know if I liked it or not. I was starting to panic. I’m thinking that I have my times mixed up, maybe she meant next Friday, not this today. Maybe she’s just running late, well that’s always possible. About 25 minutes late, Elizabeth, the therapist emerges from one of the rooms, with a tall young man, maybe about my age. She’s maybe in her 50’s but she looks like one of those older women who are still young at heart. She has multiple colours in her hair, orange, purple and black. The effect is quite good. She’s shorter than me. She tells me where her office is, and asks me to go in and make myself comfortable. HUH good luck..

I went into the room, defiantly not what I was expecting, although I’m not sure what I was expecting either. The room had a big black leather chair, and a small two seater couch and a desk. It’s nice. I like it.

She came in and sat down on the chair.. ok here we go.. deep breath.. I tell her that I like the cottage. We engage in a conversation about the house, and how she renovated a house up the road. Restoring ect.. I really like her from first impressions. She defiantly made me feel at ease. I give her the paperwork that my GP gave me. She’s impressed at the amount of history the GP got. We get talking. Just about where I grew up and things like that. Nothing deep, just the basics. She talked more than I did. She talked a lot about dealing with the adrenalin that cutting causes. I mostly just nodded my head and said “yeah”.

She was surprised/concerned at the lack of assertiveness I have. I have never been one to say what I’m feeling. It’s always been that way. We talked a lot about the situation with my father. I might tell that story in a separate blog one time. She thinks that I have a lot of anger towards my family, which I do. She said that she wants to work with me on being able to express my feelings in a more productive way. She’s right.

She was concerned about the amount of drinking I do, yet she didn’t judge me for it. Infact she actually explained why I do it. She was soo good! I couldn’t have said it better myself. She defiantly is well trained. I like her. She wasn’t forceful, wasn’t judgemental. It was more like talking to a friend in the lounge room or something. No lecturing, none of those things that I was soo afraid of.

She said that she wants to be seeing for as many sessions as possible. Hmm.. sounds like I need some work huh?! I will be seeing her every week until my sessions run out. I hope that I’m feeling better by then. I’m happy with how it went. I didn’t have to “set goals” or any of that sort of stuff. She was very friendly and easy to talk to. At least I can go back on Tuesday with a lot less of the nervousness. I actually told her how scared I was of seeing her. She laughed. She said I’m not the first to say it. Phew.. I feel very stupid for feeling like that. I know everyone said that I was being scared for no reason, but I still was scared. I’m such a stupid, STUPID person. It seems like there was soo much said I can hardly remember it all.

I was in that room for 2hrs! wow. I thought I was going to be in there for an hour. Not that long. By the time I got out of the office and back into town it was 5pm. Mum finished work at 530pm so I sent her a txt  asking her if I could get a ride back home with her instead of catching the bus.

I have this feeling of accomplishment. Like I finally did something that I have needed to do for along time. I don’t feel totally stressed out by it, which was another one of my fears. I know that there might be a time when I have a rough time in therapy, but right now, I’m going to bask in my happiness.  I conquered a fear!! I never thought I would be able to. I feel proud. I don’t know if I should, but I do. Should I be happy about this? Sometimes my emotions are soo mixed up….:S

Anyways, I’m going to try and keep my mood up for as long as I can.