Talk, talk, talk

I don’t know, how many MSA patients receive psychological counseling, I’m one of them. I never thought I’d be reporting publicly about going to a shrink. I used to think, that this wouldn’t help anyway… Problems in life are hurdles that are part of life and they have to be solved. Now I have a “special hurdle”.

Now, I try to get all the support I can. I was lucky again this time, and did not wait for months for a therapist. I like my therapist too and I like him as a person too. Whatever that means. Well, he’s not one of those, who would bore me. What we do is called, I think, “talking therapy,” so we talk about whatever’s on my mind. Whether we’re doing “behavioral therapy” or “psychoanalysis,” I don’t even know. I have confidence in him after all – which of course took time. It’s very important to me, that he can handle me. I don`t like those pitiful ladies, who handle me like an egg and talk with compassion. This is certainly a matter of taste and everyone has the way he/she prefers.

At least I am glad that I don’t take any psychiatric drugs, that make me numb. I still try to pack and bear, what MSA is doing to me and my life.

I cry a lot – what means “a lot”? A lot for my circumstances – uncontrolled when some, certain, issues come up. Anyway, now I can talk about these topics, until now I have avoided these sensitive topics in public. Now I can cry in the therapy also, without feeling like a failure.

At the beginning, I wished, of course, for some kind of relief, a tip on how to live with this. In the meantime, I have realized – there is of course no such thing. Nobody can make me get rid of this disease, neither can a psychologist, and I just have to realize: it is a deadly disease, and with this diagnosis the life I have known; so far ends. This cannot be softened with anything.

I often, after a “session”, think about what we have said. I often see another approach. Or I question my own decision. At least I learn that I expect a lot from myself. But that usually doesn’t refer to the illness…

I must overcome myself, not to avoid my own topics. I can avoid and bypass the sensitive issues heroically if I want to. What I do so often, in front of my friends… But I don’t go there, to talk about pitfalls in my life, I want to cope with this diagnosis without “jumping off the bridge”. To use a metaphor, of course nobody jumps off the bridge.

Now, after a few months, I wonder what all this means for me. Would everything build up inside me, if I didn’t go and not speak my thoughts out loud? Would there be a big explosion? Stops me all this “not to jump out of the window”?

I don’t know what I’m getting out of all this…

P.S. I’m really glad that the holidays are over. I don’t mind if you crush them all up.
PS2. I am also glad that there is no snow yet.