My diagnosis of Ulcerative Colitis was a bit of a major moment for me. I had plans to go into the police (as I have spoken about) and all of this changed pretty quickly. I was left in hospital for a number of days, I was not working and I had to change my career path. Suddenly people were telling me that I was going to have to change my diet, I needed to work out ways to cope with stress better and all sorts of different things. I was taking medications, sorting medical appointments and trying to manage a house, a relationship and a dog. It was all a little bit too much.
I have never been great at managing my stress, I am quite an anxious person and this has got worse over the years. After I came out of the hospital, I decided that it was probably best for me to have some counselling. Some of this was to think about the diagnosis that I’d just had and process all the information that I had been given, but some of it was to help with the other anxieties that I had before I was hospitalised.
I started with a company that’s called Off The Record and they gave me a counsellor who I arranged to see every Monday. I got on with my counsellor and I was able to talk to her about anything. I spoke through lots of different things and learnt lots of things about myself. I was given some strategies to deal with the anxieties that I was feeling. Interestingly as I went through counselling, I spoke about lots of different things and not all of them about topics I thought that I would need to talk about. Very interesting. I decided as I did more counselling that I would probably benefit from some more help to cope with everything. I spoke to the doctor but decided that I didnt want medication. This is a personal choice, mainly linked to concerns that I have about side effects (especially considering I seem to react to EVERY medication I take) but this meant that I needed to think about something else. I spoke to the wellbeing service and after a consultation with them it was decided that I should start with some CBT to help me to cope with my anxieties.
I am due to start in a few weeks meaning that I have now stopped counselling, so I will let you know how it goes and the differences between the two!