173- CBT2017- 15 (1)

I'm back from my 15th CBT session that was very positive - in spite of a mix-up regarding the appointment (in short:  therapist called me yesterday morning to change our meeting to today, telling me 2:30 PM but meaning 3:30, which she had noted in her calendar. It happens that she had a 2:30, but ran half an hour late to take. It was with a woman who had to run to pick up her children at school, so I naturally let her pass, not only because she was more pressed than me but also because her actually session was supposed to be before mine).

So, I sat there, reading in the waiting hall, and which turned out to be a difficult task due to the constant movements of people - constant, and with the sounds of clunking high-heals on all the stairs. Next time, I'll bring an easier book than Tolkien, which requires a lot of concentration.



On, now, to the main topic of this blog entry - today's session was three-fold :

1. I discussed first the emotional difficulties I met in January, especially battling cyclothymia & and the notion of grieving that I have felt with the fact that I can no longer press chargers against my father for all his abuse - even if I'd ever be ready for that financial and psychologically, because of statute of limitations. 
2.  I discussed my exposures from 14th session and overall feelings of accomplishment and success for the ones that I managed to do ; especially the ones that came with the highest anxiety levels (75 to 100/100) . 
3. I asked her advice regarding this upcoming Sunday. I invited some local friends to an open-door gathering, to celebrate my 5000th day as a vegan and expressed to her the anxieties surrounding this event. She gave me a lot of food for thought and advice. 

• So, each of these results differently. For instance, the topic of point 1 is outside of this CBT as its primary goal is to learn to face and alter my social phobias. I only discussed it with this therapist as a background to what exposures I could or couldn't do since session 14. I'll be able to address these topics with my other therapist in March. 

• The exposures from point 2 (almost fully disclosed in the hyper-linked blog entry - I had forgotten to mention a few additional details) ended quite well, with great personal achievements. There were no particular points for my therapist to further advice me about in this regard, only to pursue my exposures in the same way and progress towards generalized improvements in my capacities to face various social events and busy places. 

We talked about mostly about the last topic ; I shall create a separate blog entry for it, because otherwise the length of the present one.