Thursday, March 31, 2011

Changing the subject

There have been a couple of times recently where Tess and I have been discussing something and one of us has become overloaded or can't handle the subject matter and have asked to change the subject. Yesterday it was me, and I surprised myself a little just now by thinking it was a bit of a cop-out.

My reasoning then was that I was at work and getting wound up, which seems a sound motivation. We were talking about my frustration with waiting for assessment with the mental health team, having made the decision to accept the doctor's offer of anti-depressants to try and level me out. I considered that if I were already talking I don't think I'd need medicating and perhaps seeking some private treatment. It occurred to me that I couldn't afford any interim private counselling because of my restrictive budget, and that's when I started to feel really quite shit.

It comes back to the budget again, doesn't it? Damn. What have I already written about this? Oh, I see. Well, I can hardly read that without feeling the darkness descend and my mood drop again, so there's definite strong feeling involved in the subject. And here I am again, desperately wanting to change the subject.

I guess I find this reaction interesting because in a counselling environment it's often impossible to just "change the subject" when things get too hard to explore and, indeed, it's kind of the point. Explore the things that are difficult to face, process them and move on with action, understanding or a change in attitude. I guess that's hard to do now I'm feeling low; previously I'd have sat here at the blog and chipped away and sorted it out. Now it seems easier to run and hide than face it. Gah.

One of the reasons I'm loathe to explore this particular subject is because I simply don't want to think that my trip to Australia in October won't happen...

Actually... *runs and hides*

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