Hi simka. I feel that way. I did CBT some time ago and it helped me enormously. You learn skills that u can apply in many areas of your life and you can continue using them forever. I've been seeing a counsellor recently & with her support I've confronted things from my past that were stopping me get better. While dealing with all that stuff, I felt like I was really fighting to keep my head above water. Having got through that I'm sort of on a plateau. I know it's up to me now to start doing more things to help lift my depression. If you like, I need to push myself to get well again. But if I do that, for starters I think to myself that it'll mean I won't see my lovely counsellor anymore and I will miss that.
MixTape's right. You do get comfortable with the sadness. I see that in myself. What I'm realising is that I am entitled to feel sadness because I have suffered losses. The loss of things doesn't have to be a bereavement. It doesn't even have to be something physical or something you have actually ever possessed. It might be something like missing out on a happy or normal childhood.
But whatever it is that makes you feel sad, it's very possible you are entitled to feel that way. If you work through the feelings then you can come to terms with what lies behind them. That's where therapy and CBT come in. When you feel heard by somebody supportive and the way you feel is recognised, you begin to feel validated.
For me, I have reached a point where I can acknowledge what happened to me. I can now see and feel what my past did to me. To see how people were too weak or scared or selfish to take any responsibility for any of it. They just stood back and let it all happen. Working through my feelings (no matter how bad they felt & sometimes still feel) means I am beginning to visualise a better future for me and to begin the process of getting better.
But I fear if I get better I will be writing off the past. It will be forgotten and my suffering forgotten with it. Going through stuff with my counsellor, really feeling how painful it was and seeing her reaction to it, really has validated it all. I feel like shouting from the rooftops that I was abused. I don't care anymore who knows. I want it known that things did happen to me that were bad. I will not let other people (aka my parents) deny it anymore. The things that make you feel depressed, sad etc....constitute part of who and what you are. I realise now I don't have to give up or deny what happened to me in the past. I can learn to accept it. It's part of me but it doesn't have to dictate to me or control me.
It did influence my life quite badly at times but what I now realise is that it does not have to continue influencing me adversely. I don't know how I am going to achieve it, but I feel determined that the feelings which usually eat away at me are going to be put to better use. Rather than allow myself to stay in a pit of depression, I really would like to harness the anger and pain but turn them outwards. Direct them into something really constructive. I don't think I could ever manage to be a counsellor as I'd be too vulnerable but as my counsellor said, there are other roles out there I could fulfil, even at voluntary level where my instinctive nature could be put to good use. Not least to boost my feelings of belonging in this world and making a worthwhile contribution..
So ... getting better ... Yes it does feel scary because it is new ground. But in getting better you don't have to necessarily leave the past or certain other things behind. That bit is up to you. You can go on a very interesting journey in therapy or in doing CBT. You become more whole as a person in so doing. That certainly has been my experience and if I were u, I'd certainly give it a go.
One last thing, when I saw my counsellor last, I broached the subject of "one day I know I won't be seeing you anymore but I don't like thinking about that". Her response was that "you can keep coming to see me as long as you still find it necessary". So, we were talking very directly about my fears of getting better. Seeing my counsellor is great. She makes me feel so worthwhile. But though it pains me to say it, I do know in the future there will be a time when I'll be "better" enough not to need her help anymore. But when that point comes, I will be feeling differently to the way I do now and so will be ready to become independent.
Bit of a long post, sorry about that but I really wanted to demonstrate that getting better can be ok. And thanks for posting too because I feel better after getting this lot down "on paper".
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