#7. Therapy.

Yes, I went to therapy and yes I am going to share a little of what went on in this post. Despite it being a private endeavor at the time I still feel that the information can be of use to someone, perhaps someone not willing to speak up or someone unawares of exactly what can come of it

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In my first session with the psychologist, I was very apprehensive, uncomfortable and unsure of how I was meant to approach it. After a lot of awkwardness, eventually the lady got down to asking why I came in the first place.

I responded that I was having nightmares of a crash I recently had and that I needed them to stop. I needed her to tell me how to make it stop.

Questions of why I was having them, questions about whether they meant something came at me and forced me to think a little deeper, to make reasoning.

She said “You thought that you were dead?”

“Yes, somehow I knew it was the end, so I gave up, closed my eyes and let go of the wheel.”

“Yet your nightmare was the opposite?”

“Yes, it was terrifying.”

“Interesting.”

No, its not .. it was awful.”

“Perhaps the dream is trying to tell you something the incident didn’t.”

“Huh?”

What followed was a lot of silence whilst I perused my thoughts, pondering why my dream was the opposite to the actual experience. Is there a reason and what could it be?

Perhaps the experience was that I was going to die, and the nightmare was to remind me that I didn’t die, that I was truly scared and shouldn’t take the incident lightly.

“You were scared of what?” She asked

“Of dying.”

“Well,” she leant in. “So if you didn’t die and were in actual fact scared of dying what do you think that means, what can you learn from all this?

“I don’t know … maybe that if I didn’t die then I should live, really start living.”

What followed was another couple of sessions on what it was that I felt I wanted out of life, the things that I regretted not doing and the things I wanted to do.

The list I came up with goes a little something like this

- I always wanted to write a book.

- I want to learn how to be a better person, for me and towards others

- I want to be healthier and look after myself more

And so began the three years of growth.