I’ve just had a letter through the post that I have been waiting for for over a year, and although I’ve been waiting for it, it still took me by surprise - an appointment for my first CBT session.
This time last year, when I was referred, I was in a truly awful place and I’d finally realised that it was okay to ask for help. So to be told that I’d ‘met the criteria’, but the waiting list was almost a year long, you can imagine my disappointment. How do I know where I will be in a year? If I will even need it then? I need it NOW, I thought.
To think back now, it’s all very blurry in my mind. But I still remember how intensely overwhelmed I felt at all times. I remember the sleepless nights, and the night sweats that woke me when I’d finally managed to drift off. I remember not being able to get out of bed in the mornings, and even though I knew my mortgage depended on me going into work, I still couldn’t bring myself to go.
Fast forward to today and I am in a much much better place than I was back then. I owe a lot of my recovery not only to my mum and my friends that helped me through it, or to the pills that I still swallow every day that helped (and still help) to take the pressure off, but also to myself, for eventually overcoming it.
The road is never easy, but #yougotthis. ‘If you can’t survive, just try.’ - I Always Wanna Die (Sometimes), The 1975.