It takes two to tango!

So, yesterday evening saw my penultimate session with the counsellor charged with helping me sort my tangled brain out subsequent to my being so unceremoniously dumped a few months back. There's only next weeks visit left to attend and then I'm done...well, as 'done' as I'm going to get in the short term.

Was it any use? I began with some degree of scepticism I have to admit and I carried that through the first few meetings but as time has gone on I have to admit it has been useful, very useful in fact.

There is no magic cure for having your emotions so completely messed up, it's hard work and each week I have dreaded it, it's like you almost begin to form a scab over the wound and then someone comes along and picks the damn thing back off again before it's actually finished with the healing process..... but on balance it was worth it, well worth it.

For anyone who has never had the 'pleasure' of counselling it's most unpleasant aspect is that rather than coming out of a session feeling better you usually come out feeling a whole lot worse than you went in, it takes time to understand and process the information and longer still to feel the benefits...but it works, with perseverance.

It's been hard going and I'm not all mended yet, I doubt I will ever be quite the person I was before but I'm getting there gradually and now at least I have the tools to help me move forward.

I have learned a lot, about me, about the situation and about why....most of which it wouldn't be appropriate to 'put out' here but most importantly for me I have finally begun to believe that it wasn't all me.

It takes two to tango.....and all that!

*and to the person who has been there holding my hand metaphorically throughout each session, a massive thank you (you know who you are) you have been truly amazing.

On the couch

In an effort to untangle the emotional fallout and confusion that is the current bomb site of my life, I yesterday evening submitted myself to the first appointment in a course of 'turn your head and your heart inside out' counselling. Unfortunately there was no couch though...I was most disappointed!

To say I was looking forward to it would be something of an overstatement, therapy is not my idea of entertainment on a Tuesday evening but it has to be done and so do it I will. The alternative I suspect would be too live the rest of my life with some pretty hefty and entrenched emotional issues and whilst my life might have imploded on me recently I have no intention of living the rest of it as headf*cked as I have been the last six weeks!

I used to be a cheerful soul, short on cynicism and long on trust and for now the reverse applies and I don't like it and it's not good. The problem with trust of course is that it renders one vulnerable to to pain and given that I don't ever want to be subjected to the level of pain and hurt I have experienced since I was so 'royally dumped', I need among other things to understand what happened to enable me to trust anyone again...not in the sense of being cheated on, that was not the case in this instance, but trust in a more profound sense, the trust that allows one to be vulnerable and not become closed,cold and cynical about the motives of others.

I want me back, I don't want to remain feeling so damaged and whatever it takes, I'm determined to get me back...I am nothing if not stubborn!

And so it was that I sat down in front of a complete stranger and began the process. I talk easily, I don't find it difficult to be open but to have to talk in minute detail about the very things that I spend most of my time trying my damnedest not to think about is about as tough as it gets emotionally and by the time my escape was made good I walked out into the street feeling utterly dazed and shattered again.

That of course is how it works, you can't deal with the pain if you don't face it full on and however tough that might be for me it's the only way forward I suspect. My nature is that I have to gain some understanding to move on and so for the next however many weeks/months it takes I shall persevere and keep at it and hopefully by the time I come out the other end, maybe, just maybe I will begin to feel at least like a partially functioning human being again!

I may or may not blog further sessions, depending on the route this therapy malarkey takes will depend on how appropriate it may or may not be to put it 'out there' but whatever, again I want to say a massive, massive thank you too all of those around me who have suffered me over the last weeks, and suffered they have I promise you, in providing unending and stoic support to get me this far.

You know who you are guys, you have all been more than fantastic and really, I don't know where I would be now without you all and your patience in picking me up off the floor time and time again and letting me talk and rant and cry and do whatever I needed, whenever I needed, to keep me at least vaguely sane through all of this.

Thank you!

Baby steps

It doesn't need reiterating here that the last few weeks of my life have been pretty dire, a time and place I never want to visit again as long as I live and that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.

So where am I at now? Really I don't know, I feel like I'm functioning on auto pilot but an auto pilot system with more than a few technical issues, pretty directionless and with my mind flailing around wildly trying to find something to hang onto and/or focus on, though focusing seems to be difficult, my levels of concentration are shot and my thoughts are constantly disrupted by memories and questions.

To that end I have made made the decision to submit to a course of counselling. For me, and I know there are some of you who don't necessarily agree, a need to understand the what's and why's of how I came to be in this position is an inherent part of how I deal with things and without gaining that insight I just can't move on. There is nothing I can do to change what has happened, much as I wish there was, so instead I have to try and understand the reasons behind it from a psychological aspect. It's just me, it's how I have always been, without some understanding I will never be able to draw a line under the whole sorry story.

It's going to be a long journey, one I don't relish and one I wish with all my heart I didn't have to face but I do... and for me I think it's the only way forward. Tiny baby steps, one thing at a time, there will be many ups and downs no doubt and much self searching but counselling session number one last Friday helped me see at least that maybe I can make it through and maybe I can stop blaming myself entirely. Already aspects of what happened have been bought to my attention by the professionals that I hadn't seen or understood previously!

So, a better understanding and perhaps I will 'get there' in the end. I feel very fragile still and there is no doubting I will be a different person at the end of all of this, it has changed me already and I won't ever be quite the woman I was before. My trust and faith in life are shot to pieces and my cynicism levels are pretty high..... and I don't like it. I have always been a trusting person, always believed strongly in communication, always tried to see the good in people and situations and I have to learn now how to fix it instead of carrying it around inside me as a form of damaging self protection.

Baby steps... they are going to hurt like hell some of them, counselling works but it's tough, believe me I know, but it has to be done and do it I will!

In no uncertain terms

Yesterday evening, completely without preamble, the final nail in the coffin of my disintegrated relationship was hammered home in no uncertain terms. I made one final attempt at a possible route for further communication, believing strongly that 'we' were worth a try, but it was not to be and I was duly and quite swiftly dispatched along with all my hopes and dreams.

I suppose I should be thankful that this happened to catch me on a day when my senses were pretty numbed by a diazepan haze but somehow I can't feel thankful, I can only feel desperately sad and sorry and with a feeling that I lost the most important thing in my life by my own error and that there was no chance open to rectify the situation.

I gave it my all, I believed in it, I believed in him and I believed in us in a way I had never believed in anything before and I suspect I won't ever again but I have no choice but to now try and find a way to come to terms with my situation and the feelings of loss, hurt and devastation.

The last three weeks have been the worst of my life and those of you who know me personally will know I have dealt with some pretty heavy shit in my life in the past....but nothing as painful, confusing or completely shattering as this. I don't really know what, where or how next and I feel I am hanging onto my sanity by a thread at times.... but somehow I will find a way and maybe tonight that journey will begin when I have my first session with a counsellor trained specifically in unravelling all the emotionally disastrous detritus I am left with.

At this point I have to say a MASSIVE THANK YOU to all those who have supported me so unendingly through this, without whom I know I couldn't have got this far. You know who you are guys but a special mention goes to Lisa, John, Jac, Tracey, Sarah, Zoe my parents and my brother...all of whom have listened unendingly to the rantings and wailings of my broken hearted madness and kept me from completely losing the plot. If I have forgotten anyone my apologies, blame the meds, I can't quite get my faculties in order right now but thank you all just the same....you lot have been bloody marvellous!