So was out of the house most of the day on Thursday. Saw my psychotherapist for the first time since January in the morning at 11, then headed down to the nearby shopping estate – had a look around PC world, Staples and Halfords – then drove down to Fleetwood to pick up the shoes I saw yesterday, then went to the beach again for another look around, came back home for a while and had my lunch then headed out to Tesco for a look round and ended up buying a new belt. In the evening dad was out and I did some practice as well as looking on the net for cheap tickets to Singapore.
Therapy session
Just had a one hour psychotherapy session this time, but it spilled over a little and ended up finished around quarter past. A good thing really as I spent £35 on petrol on Monday, £55 at Freeport yesterday, today’s session would £30 and I was going to spend another £45 on shoes later.
It was a bit of a strange session. Firstly I felt very inarticulate. I remember always going to these session and feeling very articulate, but today I felt I could hardly find the right words. Thinking about it I wonder whether it is because lately I have been having mostly dumbed down conversation with the people from the pop band, the guys at the house, Australian girl, etc. Before I was kind of in my own world not speaking to anyone, just formulating thoughts in my own head mostly, reading things on the Internet etc. I guess it’s been a bad influence speaking to these kinds of people of late.
Another thing I noticed was the dynamic between us wasn’t quite the same. In previous sessions, although I may have turned up never feeling in a particularly good mood, often our sessions ended up with lots of genuine laughter, in fact, sometimes even uncontrolled laughter! But this time, even though I was possible a bit more switched on and not quite as down in the dumbs as usual, I felt the counsellor was not bouncing off me as much as usual. He might say something mildly funny and I would laugh but it would not be the kind of genuine spontaneous laughter of previous sessions, more a “friendly” slightly over-the-top polite kind of laughter. He did not seem to bounce off this and would perhaps just smile in response a little, but I didn’t see any genuine reciprocal laughter.
I was wondering about this. Either he finds people down in the dumps amusing, tries to pick them up, finds my extremely negative deadpan interpretation of things amusing, likes to try and pick people up who are genuinely down in the dumps, just bounces of genuine spontaneous behaviour more, doesn’t like friendly affected banter, prefers to maintain a more professional atmosphere and is thrown by any signs of over-familiarity or friendliness in sessions. I’m not sure which. But then I was reminded of a session with my first counsellor from when I was 18 who remarked in one of my sessions, “I’m aware that, as you have mentioned in previous session, you have this desire to always please others. And I don’t want you to ever feel that you have to please me, that you have to be the perfect client…” With him, I think he would have been more accepting of the way I was in this session and even encouraged it without ever showing any signs of discomfort. Where as A was not quite as good about it. He made me feel pressurised to conform to his way of conducting the session and made me feel a little awkward.
Anyway, we discussed what had been happening since we last spoke at the beginning of January. He sensed from what I was saying that I was disappointed with where I was now – still jobless but living in London doing new things in music, with girls, with the PUA gimps etc. I guess I am dissapointed. But he pointed out where I am now compared to where I was this time last year, which, incidentally, was April – apparently my first session back then was 20 April. Amazing really. So that means I’ve been driving about a year now?
He pointed out the progress I’ve made and that he felt I was now on the precipice of something, and that I was out there doing it rather than before just kind of planning it as before. When I was stuck in the flat in the North West just existing going out a couple of times a week to play in dance bands with old men and going to my parents’ house to lift weights in the garage, nothing was happening and nothing was likely to happen – no girls, no jobs, very few opportunities. But now opportunities were much abundant and I was out doing much more.
Would the me of April 2007 have been able to do what I am doing now? Actually, come to think of it, I probably would have – I did go to Rome, Vienna and Prague to meet a stranger off the Internet, and I did go to Poland with another girl off the Internet. But I guess it’s true, I certainly wouldn’t have been able to do all this as easily as I am doing now.
I don’t remember much else of interest from the session. We talked about my experience in town yesterday and how my anxiety came back again. But the only other thing I remember really from the session was the fact that he had a huge poster of Europe on his wall and some travel books for several European cities. Apparently he was going for a European drive this year and visiting lots of different places, including Vienna. I wonder if I inspired it with my stories of European misadventure last year? The thought of driving through Europe in his nice Mercedes under beautiful blue skies, through France, to Austria and back is an inspiring thought. If I had a good car and some money and a female companion, that’d be a brilliant thing to do.
So, I just about got everything in I wanted to talk about that session – the girl situation, spending most of the first few months in London under a cloud of obsession about her, money issues with the benefits offices, job interviews and disappointments, loss of motivation, bands, PUA thingy, meeting new girl, slipping back into old ways of hibernating. Not much input on most of it, not much to come away with, but it was good to discuss I suppose and his insight about the whole thing not being something I should be disappointedly about but something I should be happy about made sense.
The rest of the Day
The rest of the day I did the stuff noted above. In the evening I made the decision I didn’t want to pass up going to Singapore even if it would cost me £500. Being out of pocket would be slightly depressing in the short term but in five years would it bother me? No. However, having missed the opportunity to live, to experience, to go to Singapore and see all my family again for the first time in 9 years would definitely be something that would eat away at me in five years. I survey the past five years of my life and no doubt there were times when money was tight, but I can hardly remember all that. However, what I do remember is opportunities missed and the relentless of time.
So anyway I decided I should go. And I managed to talk mum into possibly paying for half the ticket £250 would definitely be less of a blow. In fact I could probably make that money back with benefits in the weeks I was away. I’d have to wait until tomorrow though for her to decide. She’d have to discuss it with dad. After all they’d already given me £500 at the beginning of the year for help towards my move to London, dad had paid £400 for my computer last year and I’m sure they’d given me money for my birthday and other stuff. So yeah, I owe them come to think of it.
