As part of my therapy, it has been suggested that I write more about my experiences and so I thought I would use one example of a CBT method in this latest post.

So what's CBT?

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a psychotherapeutic approach that addresses dysfunctional emotions, maladaptive behaviors and cognitive processes and contents through a number of goal-oriented, explicit systematic procedures. The name refers to behavior therapy, cognitive therapy, and to therapy based upon a combination of basic behavioral and cognitive principles and research.

- Wikipedia

I have to admit up-front that I was initially sceptical about how CBT would help me in my fight back to "normality" (whatever the hell "normality" actually is).

I'm now 5 weeks into my therapy, and by putting some strategic methods into practice, I am finding that I am now able to manage some of those instances whereby I feel anxious (like on a packed train), angry (like when I'm dealing with idiots) or worried to the extreme.


So if you were asked to imagine mentally placing some (or all) of your problems somewhere out of harms way, where would that be?

I'm told that a good example and a popular method is to imagine placing your troubles into a black bag and throwing it out with the rubbish. Now there's a bit more to it than that, but essentially you have to initially perform the actual act of writing down your problem onto a piece of paper, going out to the bin, putting it in the bin and physically "take the trash out".

I didn't think this particular method was that original, nor very interesting.

So what's MY method, I don't hear you cry...

I imagine placing mine into a glass bottle, throwing it into the ocean, gradually watching it as the tide washes it out to sea. That's the old romantic in me, I guess...

To blog or not to blog....THAT is the question

Well, well, well (3 holes in the ground)...It's been years since I last updated this blog. During this time, my career as a contractor was cut short by the market crash (that's what happens when you line up your market stalls like dominoes), I now have a cat called Ellie, a kitchen that crosses two international time zones, and a mollusc called Dave. (Ok, so I lied about that last bit...his name is Geoff)

During this time, I have discovered the wonders of marriage, kids, cider (and, as a consequence. my ever expanding waistline). The past few years seem to have become shorter as each year has passed, and death seems to feature more prominently in dreams nowadays then it did back then as I enter "middle age". And how is it that you can be happy in your marriage, happy in your social life and yet feel SO unfulfilled? Is this just unique to me, or do other people go through the same?

This blog was supposed to be my attempt at writing an interesting interlude with a view of perhaps doing some creative writing and maybe taking my career on an alternative path. It didn't work, obviously, and yet here I am years later and older, bashing away (at the keyboard, not physically), closer to the end of my journey (I knew I got the wrong bus!), closer to my closest friends and yet none the wiser as to what to do to fix the mess that is the gaping ache that lies just beneath the surface. Whatever happens, will I EVER feel truly "happy", or is THIS what "happy" IS and I just wasn't listening in class when I was 10 years old!

All of this leads nicely into what has occurred between February 2012 and the present. During February, I found myself walking over London Bridge on my way home from work. Now this wasn't the unusual thing, this was a relatively normal process and a route that I followed pretty much every day. what WAS unusual, was finding myself stopping around half-way across the bridge, peering over the side and looking into the murky water thinking "Yeap - that'll do it". Now this was when I realised that I needed help. I had come down with a rather nasty bout of depression, and this has been pretty much my "journey" since.

A lot of good has come out of seeking help, but I wanted to concentrate initially more on the evils. Having found myself write this poem, I was rather shocked at reading it back afterwards:

Depression - fuck depression,
Has no lifestyle or profession,
Drink cheap beer whilst on a session,
Stuck in my own private recession

Depression - fuck depression,
Lightning bolt - devil's possession
Doesn't hide - has no discretion
And each day passes - no progression

Depression - fuck depression,
Comes to rape me with aggression,
Want to die - helpless expression
Suicide is my confession.

Is that how I REALLY felt, or was I throwing in some imagination into the bargain bucket? The journey has begun...