Talking? no thanks.

Therapy. A word that has been stigmatised for many, many years and thank goodness that’s now changing. When I think about therapy, I still imagine lying down on a velvet chaise longue in a fancy room staring up at the ceiling and spilling my lifes problems to a suit with a notepad. Well, maybe that actually happens but certainly not in my experience.

I guess I should talk about my personality really. The short version is that I’m very shy and very much a ‘social recluse’. I always have been really. From a young age I didn’t really have many friends and certainly not a tight nit friendship group like a lot of kids have growing up. I was always the quiet one in school, and the one that would cry at sleepovers so my parents would come and pick me up. I don’t know whether I knew that what I was feeling wasn’t exactly normal, I just got on with it really. My siblings have pretty similar personalities so I guess it never crossed my mind that what I was thinking and doing wasn’t common place. Although I had siblings and two parents growing up, we never talked about problems or how we were feeling or anything actually very personal. It just was never a thing in the house and I never actually thought that was odd until I did therapy years later. I must stress however that I had a wonderful upbringing by two loving parents, they really couldn’t have done much more for me growing up.

I then went to university, and that was an insane culture shock. The big city - bright lights, independence, and girls. Something that was so alien to me. My first year was great. Learning about new things in my course, actually meeting new people who had similar interests in me, and having very little success with the ladies. It was incredible, but there was always something that I knew was holding me back and that was my inability to talk or engage in any real conversation without my head whirring at a million miles an hour. I knew that I was shy, but it was very frustrating to me that I couldn’t talk to people face to face much, or really hold any meaningful friendships or relationships. This made me even more socially anxious and although undiagnosed at the time, I almost certainly had quite severe depression. I couldn’t talk to anyone about it, that was just a scary thing to even think about, so I just ended up alone and on my phone. My phone was like my comfort blanket, and going online was like my therapy. YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, porn, dating apps. It was information overload, and it was like you could be who you wanted to be. It was exactly the same feelings I had when I first went to university, and I couldn’t get enough of it. The next blog post will be more about the online world and how that had been my downfall.

It’s safe to say that my university days were fairly short lived, and I didn’t graduate in the end. It had a lot to do with with the course and how much I wasn’t enjoying it, but it almost certainly had a lot to do with my social anxiety, depression and an addiction to being online or glued to a screen. In hindsight, all of these could have been fixed with talking, and I probably wouldn’t be in the situation I’m in right now. Isn’t hindsight lovely?

So I guess this brings me into the present day. The ‘knock’ situation has forced me to talk, not only for my own mental health but of the others around me. It’s by no means easy, even to this day I struggle to get my words out and have the confidence to talk to a stranger, but oh my goodness it’s much better than it was. I won’t lie, I wouldn’t be in this positive mindset if it wasn’t for my partner making the initial phone call to ‘Safer Lives’. I was in such a bad state at the time, and it was something like 7 days after my initial arrest and I’m not sure if I would have done it, but I’m so glad I did. On the other end of the phone was Steve who ended up being my Safer Lives therapist. A wonderful human who has been so kind to me and really brought me back down to earth explaining everything from how this has happened, the justice system and how I can stop this situation from ever happening again. I don’t use this phrase lightly, but the work I’ve done with Steve has been utterly life changing. And how did this start? Talking.

At the time of writing I’m currently in 3 types of therapy, Safer Lives, StopSO and Talking Therapies. I’m also on medication for depression and anxiety, and I’m currently being assessed for autism and ADHD, none of which wouldn’t be happening without talking to someone. I really wish I had done it sooner, but I’m very grateful I’m on this road to recovery now all with the help of some extremely kind individuals. The ‘Resources’ page has links to different services I’ve had experience with and I’d highly reccomend reaching out and getting that help. There really is no substitute for the help and guidance they can give, but if you did want a chat about anything from my journey then you can always just contact me and I’m more than happy to be all ears. I really believe that the more people talk, the better we can become as a society.