Oh Chaotic Dust,
Remember how brave you were? You were very open about being in therapy. You talked to your friends about it. You talked to your girlfriend about it. You even spoke about it at events on campus. But you never really spoke about it, did you? Everyone just thought you were talking about what happened during your teenage years. They didn’t know what you really spoke about in therapy. As proud and brave as you were, you were a fraud. And so, when that Christian counsellor failed you, you didn’t have a group of people to talk to, but a group of people who thought you were done with therapy, all cured.
So you were alone with your thoughts again, alone with the demons, and through those religious therapy sessions a subtle shift had occurred in your perspective. As useless as those sessions were, they reinforced your view that the intrusive thoughts in your head needed to be prayed away. This was a spiritual battle and so it would have a spiritual solution. You needed to pray and have faith and, in time, God would heal you. Bizarrely, you actually got a little ego boost out of this. Being worthy of a “spiritual attack” meant you were in some way doing something right. Oh the lies you believed.
That Christian counsellor didn’t even use the terms ‘mental health’ or ‘intrusive thoughts’. It’s all too easy to pick up the vocabulary and the ideologies of those around you, especially of those trusted to help. Looking back, if someone had just used those words you’d probably have been able to put it all together. You’d at least have known the correct phrases to google.
You did great at school, learning all the curriculum required, but when it came to mental health and wellbeing you were absolutely clueless. That’s one of the sad things about mental illnesses: so many of them are avoidable. And many of the ones which aren’t are very treatable, but we don’t prioritise learning about mental health; not in schools and not anywhere. Despite being a studious, attentive student, you had a complete misunderstanding of the condition you were suffering from.
They say admitting you have a problem is half the battle. You’re not sure that applies when you don’t even know what the problem is, or believe the problem to be something it isn’t. You’d admitted to having a problem, but instead of being halfway there you’d taken two steps backwards. Here’s a heartbreaking fact for you, Chaotic Dust: after that Christian counsellor it would be another two years before you spoke to anyone else about what was going on in your mind.