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I know, I know, they say it's beauty, but I think that ''negative'' is also in the eye of the beholder, the eye that is in one's mind, one's psych and one's heart : one's approach to negative, and failure can really determine the outcome of what we call ''bad moments or events''.
Yes, there are of those things which harm us and we might easily label them as bad and negative and feel we'd failed - but often, there's another side to it, one which isn't always easy to see, or be aware of immediately, but it can really be there.
Such is the case of my ''bad CBT'', that I mentioned in the earliest days of this blog.
To summarize that long post, I had about 6 or 7 sessions with a therapist, spread over 15 months. The first was mere paperwork, and subsequently he made me read a couple books, and make lists upon lists which lead nowhere.
When I pointed out that he'd given me no tips and that I was tired of these lists, that he should've told me exactly what he wanted right from the start instead of making me alter them on each session, he was very condescending and responded with ''you'll see, it's complicated for me to explain this right now, but you'll see'' and threw me out his office, even though I was in there only for 10 minutes and he'd made me wait for my turn for a good hour!!
After each session I felt worse than before, and with 0 tips to help facing the myriads of planned social situations, I researched and found out that the basic CBT doesn't make you make lists for 15 months; it's only in the early stages and then the therapist is supposed to help you identify automatic thoughts and work on them and expose you to social situations in gradual difficulty levels.
I put an end to that and had found another therapist with whom my first session shall be this upcoming Monday.
In the meantime, I went ahead and searched for my own tools, with the help of more psychology books, as well as listening to many vlogs on youtube where over time I grew an admiration of those courageous vloggers who dared to talk about their mental illnesses with stupendous candor and found a sense of community.
At first, I only took, but a couple months ago I decided to give back to this wonderful community and started commenting their vlogs, and more recently exchanging messages.
Without that ''bad CBT'', I wouldn't have EVER thought of taking matters in my own hands and seek out my own tools.
I grew a deeper sense of self-worth, because I could take care of myself in spite of a bad therapist.
The old me would've given up and crawled back into his deepest depressions and withered...
The new me feels accomplished, even if there is still a lot of work to do.
Without this bad CBT experience, I wouldn't have found that community, nor started to create new friendships - which are, granted, at their earliest stages right now.
I managed to implement some of the suggestions of these vloggers and it helped improve coping with my anxieties, and knowing that I wasn't alone really boosted me into a more active participation :
Kristen's mental health week, and more regularly posting on this blog for self expression and sharing with my readers : this is my 20th post in 4 weeks. I never ever managed to post so often! and that is just huge for me.
I even created a poll which helped one of my friends do a self-analysis so she could answer to my 6 questions and found out a lot more than she imagined. In this sense, the poll helped her pinpoint her own social anxieties, which she never really thought about before, and this in turn can now launch her healing process.
If all this can come from a bad CBT, I think in the end in turned out to create really positive ripples.
Negative is indeed in the eye of the beholder!
PS : I don't agree with ''beauty is in the eye of the beholder'' because it perpetuates the sense that only others can decide what beauty standards are and many suffer from bad self-image when they don't meet with those criteria.
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