---

i just got back from my counsellor. bla bla bla bla heffa bla. actually, it felt oddly productive. it's weird. i've only been to 5 sessions so far (about 3 more to go according to her - an odd thing to predict) and i can't put my finger on it. is it 'helping'? i have no clue. i haven't had that many anxiety attacks since. i still have morbid thoughts and i feel the depression lingering like before, but... oh, i don't know. it's disturbingly hard to explain. words don't quite encapsulate things right now.

before i went into counselling i felt i knew what it was all about. it never scared or intimidated me, and i never felt weird about the concept of therapy - in fact, i've recommended it to friends who seemed to be able to use it (even though it rarely sounds nice when said out loud to somebody..) it's not something to be ashamed of and i always understood that it is a good tool for when you can't take care of things the way you want to be able to.

i knew it wouldn't give me a one sentence solution by my second session. in fact, i even knew that even though i could be given a one sentenc solution it wouldn't help because i would most likely not apply it. i knew that counselling/therapy is more somebody safe and unpartial who can give you a perspective on things, clue you in on what you need to focus on, patterns and behaviours to think about and learn to analyze and understand, techiques on how to deal with things. it wasn't a mystery to me. i knew.

and then i didn't. because i know so much, i absolutely couldn't imagine another person being able to tell me things about me i wasn't already aware of. i know that sounds cocky, but i honestly felt that way. the first 3 sessions went exactly that way too, i sat there and explained, elaborated and spoke things, and everything i said i had a name and explanation for. i was beginning to wonder if i shouldn't just stop going because i didn't feel like any of the feedback she gave me was doing a thing. and... then..

last friday during my session she began to call me on things. she began to call me on my inassertiveness. the way i trap myself. the bottling up. most of all, she called me on my reflectiveness - last week i honestly felt i had no words. i spent every day and night soaking other people's stories up, finding news articles and topics to talk about. it showed in this journal, if nowhere else. i don't think i even once actually share something personal and real, except for when i talked with angela, and even then there were only fragments.

i can't believe it. i never saw it before. all of a sudden a whole behaviour has been picked out, staring back at me who never even knew it was in there to be looked at. ...wow. so. i'm sticking to it. and that's that.

---

the enormous hershey chocolate kiss i got from aziza as late valentine's day gift astounded and baffled me too. mwa ha ha. it's been an obsession of mine ever since i was a child to get my hands on an actual over-sized piece of candy and just bite and chew my way through it. holding the enormous droplet of solid chocolate (it looked like a breast-implant, but..) in my hand and being able to do just that... awesome. so. yey for wishes coming through!