#MentalHealthAwareness — Tip 4 Have a FUCK IT button.
I remember going to see a therapist when I was living back home for a little while. Now the whole idea of a therapist was crazy, for use of a better word. For me, at that time, you saw a therapist if there was something really wrong with you….if you had voices in your head or murdered your pets or something. So when my doctor suggested that I should go see one I was obviously aprehensive and her suggestion was met with a stern “see a what now? I’m not crazy”!
Anyways, I went along with it, after all you listen to your doctor right? Tony Soprano had one! Plus I was in such a extremly fragile mental state that to be honest I was open to anything.
Who I was met with was the complete opposite of what I was expecting. It wasn’t One Flew Over The Cookoos nest. The door opened and I was greeted by Cheryl a kind, smiling, wonderful lady. I owe her a lot.
As we entered her room I immediately felt comfortable. I didn’t know what the procedure was but basically we had a 1 minute hello and then I just fucking talked. I talked about stuff that I had never told anyone. I talked about stuff I didn’t even know was in my brain anymore. We did this every week for a good few months.
The thing about Cheryl was that the imediate feeling I got from her was that she believed in me. Personally, I was in such a state of disrepair that I never thought I was going to be able to chew my leg out of this bear trap. I never believed I would get back to ‘the old me’ that every single family member kept banging on about. Now there’s one thing trying to explain your actions to your mates and family but it’s completely different speaking to someone impartial. I could be 100% honest, I could tell her the deepest routes of the things that hurt and the things that I carried the most shame and guilt about.
For me they were the main issues. GUILT and SHAME. Constant. When you have dropped in to a pit of such hurt, self loathing, self hatred, zero confidence, guilt, shame, whatever….it doesn’t matter how many times someone tells you they love you or your mates tell you everything is going to be ok. I immediately dismissed it. I didn’t believe them, but Cheryl believed in me. Someone who I’d only met a bunch of times, once a week, for a couple of hours.
Now, Cheryl and I shared an entire galaxy of stories, of ups and downs but there is one thing she said to me that really hit home and started to change the way I thought about everything. She told me I needed to get myself a ‘FUCK IT BUTTON’ ….I know right, what the fuck is that?
So, a FUCK IT BUTTON is a metaphorical button you hit in a moment where you are faced with a dilemma. She wasn’t suggesting that I go through life saying fuck it to everything and everyone but what she was getting at is that it is OK to give yourself a break.
I had to ask myself “is this scenario I’m facing going to be the end of the world” OR has my anxiety catastrophized the situation in to something so much worse than it actually is.
It was never the end of the world. In fact, most of the time it was a nothing situation and forgotten about. If it was something more serious then it was often something that could be fixed by talking, or an apology, or a phone call, or making a list of how to build steps to rectify it. And if it was a really bad situation then it made me think that I had to forgive myself first to then make amends. You can’t fix every mistake you’ve ever done in your life but you can make changes to become a better person.
*I feel I should point out that I never physically hurt anyone or was abusive or got arrested or anything like that.*
Using my FUCK IT BUTTON made me take time to analyse the situation & realise that it is ok to say NO. You don’t have to go to every outing, you don’t have to keep everybody happy, your anxiety doesn’t define you and you are not a horrible person.
True happiness starts from within and by taking the time to reflect on my life made me see that I was a lot happier than I realised and that I could believe things could and would get better. Just like Cheryl did.
Thanks as always
Craig