So nervous about my first counselling session

Morning all!

I'm feeling very anxious/ scared as I'm going along to meet and be assessed by a counsellor/ psychologist (not sure which she would prefer me to call her) this afternoon.

Before beginning my journey of self discovery I honestly thought I was a very emotionally open person, I have discovered that I'm the complete opposite! I'm terrified at the thought of all the questions she may ask. But am going to go along with the attitude of trying to be as open as possible because I want to recover from this. I want my true 'self' to be empowered to feel/make choices and deal with emotions in a more constructive way.

Wish me luck! And I'll post when I get out x

Kids are being looked after, school and nursery. I'm at home alone waiting for time to leave, I never usually have time to think I stuff any spare time that comes up with things to do to keep me occupied.

I'm terrified, I don't want to go to the counselling assessment I know what she's going to do she's going to try and get me to open up and that's a scary place when someone gets there.

I don't want to go alone, I'm scared. Like a 5 year old starting school (well its how I felt when I started school)

Then I started thinking no one on here cares about each other anyway no one ever replies, I caught myself mid thought and it cheered me up a bit, realising this was an emotional over reaction to no one replying, that realistically that's not the case.

Yeah, she'll get you to open up, and yeah, that's scary. When I went in for my assessments, I felt like I'd just gone ten rounds with Tyson. I can't say I have any advice for you, but you will get through it, I promise you that.

dollyrose4 wrote:Then I started thinking no one on here cares about each other anyway no one ever replies, I caught myself mid thought and it cheered me up a bit, realising this was an emotional over reaction to no one replying, that realistically that's not the case.

That's not fair. Yes, there are some that slip through the cracks, but we try to reply to everyone. I don't know where you are, but many of us are in North America, so we weren't even awake when you posted these (or the ones that were, may have been drunk and in no condition to answer, anyway). So it does take a little time to get responses. We really do try, though.

Yes I know x

I felt like that then realised how silly it was!

Thank you

I felt similar when I put up my first post, taking that step ,hard,, also because it's an online forum i kinda thought there would be thousands of me all waiting to sort my s*** out ,I was certainly very grateful for the replies I got tho

I'm somewhat new here too (a few weeks? dunno) and was also surprised by the slow scroll/response rate here compared to what I'm used to in other places, but it kind of makes sense. I know in my case, I'm about to start DBT and am recently in the throes of the worst of my BPD so I tend not to respond to posts that could be serious triggers for my own stuff, especially since I am far from having any answers for anyone else, let alone myself, pre-DBT. I have a feeling a lot of others are in the same boat, which is why this is a quieter place than others (and I forget, but isn't small talk something we'd be less prone to do anyway, which would also significantly cut down on the volume of posts compared to other bulletin board places?).

But yeah, Ali, and Johnny do a GREAT job making sure no one's cries for help go unanswered from what I can tell, as do others. I think I made a similar comment when no one really responded to my very first post here at first and it was pointed out to me that asking specific questions that can clearly be responded to helps too if you want responses. Otherwise people are likely just reading along and silently nodding their head in empathy but you don't see it.

Thanks, Rolling. You don't know how much that means to me to hear that. Ask Ali; I've sent her so many "am I doing okay?" PM's that it wouldn't surprise me to hear that she filed a TRO against me. I can manage many things, but my lack of confidence isn't one of them, so I really am glad that I am doing some good here.

JohnnyBlaze wrote:Thanks, Rolling. You don't know how much that means to me to hear that. Ask Ali; I've sent her so many "am I doing okay?" PM's that it wouldn't surprise me to hear that she filed a TRO against me. I can manage many things, but my lack of confidence isn't one of them, so I really am glad that I am doing some good here.

You're doing good AND you're doing great