I hadn’t seen the benefit before

Today, I spoke to a professional.

The Director of the Region Ten facility talked with me for over an hour. I had spent some time yesterday writing down questions to ask. That was very helpful. Also, having read up on their intake process, I had an idea of what was going to happen. It was much less painful than I expected.

The goal of the meeting was to discuss what my needs are for services.

I am looking for a Therapist to help me develop skills I can use going forward. And I need someone to prescribe my medication. It turns out I was able to get an appointment for next Friday with a therapist. After three sessions, they will schedule a meeting with a psychiatrist to evaluate my medication. This can involve increasing, decreasing, or changing the type of medicine.

I am proud that I was completely honest in answering the questions.

I did not see any point in sugar-coating my responses. This is quite different from my past encounters with medical professionals. I have been very good at projecting a positive image, at the expense of my true feelings. Not good. Today, like in the hospital, I was open and truthful and shared my feelings.

With the next step scheduled, I am feeling like progress is being made.

This was not clear to me most of last week. Last week, all I could see was fog and uncertainty. But today, I can already see a difference in my ability to think more clearly. This is exciting. My long-term success is looking better to me. How does that make me feel?

Excited, and scared. Excited because I want to be myself again, without the unhelpful thinking styles that I have used to disrupt the good times. Scared, because I know if I do not learn new thinking skills, the depression will take over, and I will be back against the wall, without seeing any options.

My plan is to:

1. Communicate more effectively
2. Recognize unhelpful thinking styles
3. Keep working my plan especially when things are better

Region Ten literature says that they want me to develop a plan.

Then the therapist’s role is to help share tools I can use to meet my goals. They will provide up to 12 weeks of therapy. After that, I will need to find a more long-term solution if I want or need to continue therapy sessions.

I did find value in the CBT skills workshop Wednesday night at On Our Own. I plan to continue going to those meetings.  That’s my multi-pronged approach to not going backward. I must keep saying to myself, depression is not my boss.

As the future gets brighter, historically my ability to see my depression lessens.

This cycle is clear to me now. The biggest skill I can learn from therapy is how to avoid this. One reason I haven’t learned from the past is I have never acknowledged my depression or the role it has played in my life. It has been easier to push through and get back to “normal” without spending time seeing why it happened. This is a life skill I need to learn.

My track record proves I can do anything I set my mind too. Keeping depression from being the boss of me is now Job #1.

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