Therapy. It's a Good Thing.

Wanted to thank you devoted readers for giving me all your support yesterday when I had a major down slide in this whole depression-medication adventure. I recovered quite well after a well deserve midday nap followed by a short marathon of cartoons.

Today I went to therapy. Week four in the whole healing process.

I love my therapist.

The first time I walked in her office, I looked up and spotted a calendar over her desk filled with basset hound pictures. We get along very well. My only issue with her is that she never let's me talk shit about myself. She's always building me up and trying to make me into a better person. It's really annoying. ;)

It's amazing how an hour can just fly by when you're talking about yourself. I never thought I'd be open to the idea. I imagined that I would lay on a couch while some older woman in a professional suit and glasses would sit there staring at me, nodding and saying things like, "And how does that make you feel?" until I'd have an emotional outburst where I'd cry about how my parents never loved me or some garbage, and that's why I have a hard time washing dishes as an adult. Or something like that.

But it's quite the opposite.

My therapist is very down to earth. She's a little scatter brained like me. We jump from topic to topic and then have to retrack in order to get to a certain point. She's analyzing me, which is something I'm also very good at. Only when she says what she finds, I actually have to listen. Because it's really easy to blow yourself off when you realise things that need to be done. But it's quite another to look a woman in the face who has letters after her name and say, "No, I think I'm just gonna ignore that for a while."

Today I walked into her office pissed off about a number of things. Medication. Money. Etc. I walked out feeling good about myself and my situations - even the pissy ones.

And I get homework every week that I go. I write on a mood chart what I'm feeling and when. How many hours of sleep I get. If I nap. If I panic. The list goes on.

Today we talked about the progress I'm making.

Dr: You're much different than many other patients I see come through here. You've done a lot of this work on your own.
Me: Yeah I do that sometimes.
Dr: Well it's very good. You've conquered your anxiety on your own and you've got a really good handle on your OCD for the most part. How did you do it?
Me: I blog.
Dr: Come again?
Me: I blog. I just write and get it all out there. I write and I let it go.

Of course there are other details on how I overcame my panic attacks and how I deal day to day with my OCD challenges. And when it comes to my depression, I've been using the same tactics with therapy. I talk. I just talk and get it all out there. I talk and I let it go.

Of course it's much more complicated than that. Medication is needed and there are tools and therapeutic lessons, etc. But it's progress.

It's blogging with my mouth.

That sounds dirty.