I have started blogs before and kept them hidden from the world. I am not sure my words are ones that people would care about or would want to read. But the more I learn about me, and the further I walk in training to be a counsellor, the more I find I have words I want to share. Not because I think I have any great knowledge to give, but I am used to seeing the world through multiple sets of eyes and sometimes this gives a different perspective.
I am not writing this as an expert. I am writing to start to share things from my world, from my point of view. A place to put things I have learnt or seen or realised or need to rant about. A place to explore the worlds of working in mental health and living with mental health and how for me they collide, recognising they collide for everyone else in different ways. A place to share quotes which resonate and why they do. A place to put out ideas from what I have read.
I used to think counsellors had to somehow be perfect. That they had to have life all sorted and put together, that they wouldn’t get affected by things and always knew how to handle everything. But, this is not why people become counsellors. Most people who I have met along the way, are working or training as a counsellor because they have walked along their own paths, and many are still walking along them. It gives a greater and deeper understanding. One thing I am learning is sometimes life can feel like it is too much, like somehow what I have gone through is too big or too overwhelming to allow me to be training. This is all lies, but it’s something that doesn’t often get talked about and I think needs to be. I think that will be a separate post. But it is to say that we all have things we tell ourselves about our lives and it can be difficult to see them as truth or lies.
As I am starting this blog, we are in the middle of a global pandemic. The mental health implications of this are still very much unknown, but more and more people are finding it difficult, and that includes counsellors. It includes me, but I think it could be argued that mine has been a little more unstable for longer than this, as it has for so many others. What we are learning is the pandemic is shining a spotlight on to certain areas.
If and when I start to share this blog with people more, I would welcome comments and questions. I will endeavour to answer them as best I can in the hope to help others view the world in a wider more colourful way.
Fragmented Therapist 