In this blog I am going to write a bit about my own therapy journey.

I first came into contact with therapy when in the old days before we had the label Asperger’s syndrome, my sibling’s behaviour was labelled “troubling behaviour” and my poor parents could not find the answer. My brother has a good sense of humour which is at its best when he is a little anxious. We went for family therapy and he was asked what was troubling him at home. His response was that my sister and I were born. Bless him, my sister, my parents and I knew (or hoped) that he was joking. As you can imagine the family therapist wanted to turn this into the real gristle of family therapy.

My own experience of therapy began at secondary school aged 11 when I went to the school counsellor about the homophobic bullying I was experiencing.

I used food as a way of coping. I would overeat to make myself sick so I could leave school as it was not a safe place for me. I went to a faith school and I’m still not sure if the counsellor had any formal qualifications or indeed therapeutic skills. When I told the school counsellor what was happening, they told me school was not a safe place for me to be gay and for my safety I should keep this a secret. It was not till I left school that I began accepting my sexuality though I did not tell my parents till years later.

When I finished catering college, I tried to find a new therapist.

I found one who was very psychoanalytic. They were a bit obsessed with how I was toilet trained. I shared with them the story my mother always told me about a nurse when I was first born attempted to toilet train me using a margarine pot. The psychoanalytic therapist had a field day with this and for the next eleven weeks of the work she only focused on this. Despite my presenting need being that I wanted to talk about how my boyfriend had recently died of HIV related illnesses and how do I come out to my orthodox Jewish parents. After 12 weeks I was no clearer on how to come out and did not feel safe talking to anyone about the grief I experienced. Outside of my first partner’s friendship group this grief remained my painful secret until I was 28 years old when my therapy training began.

I then found a West African therapist who suggested my writing journals as a method in the therapy work.

We worked well together, though I always found it a little overwhelming how they had so many family photos and religious objects in their therapy room. I think we worked together for one and half years. They suddenly needed to return to Africa to see family and the therapy work came to a sudden end and they never returned my journals.

For a long time, I did not trust the therapy process after these first few initial therapy experiences.

Looking at this experience taught me how therapists can often be the gate keepers of us asking for help and if we have a bad experience this can cause us to retreat into ourselves and not seek out help when we need it.

The next time I accessed therapy was through a sexual health organisation shortly after my HIV diagnosis.

I felt I needed to access therapy outside my Jewish community as I was concerned about confidentiality being managed well within my ethnic and faith community. This was a really healing experience, the therapist was warm, non-judgemental and supported me through to accepting that I had HIV and it was not going to kill me like it did my first partner. Just before my HIV diagnosis was when I went from fully physically abled person to having a physical disability. Unless this has happened to you, you may not understand what it is like to make that transition and therapy helped me accept the changes this brought. I continued accessing therapy and this led me to eventually changing my career and retraining as a therapist. The initial intermediate counselling skills and studies helped and prepared me in how to look for an appropriate therapist.

Since then my therapy experience has been on the whole very positive.

I learnt how to loose and find myself again in therapy. I started to understand my gender and sexuality better. I learnt to stop repressing and using things to numb my trauma. I found recovery. I developed skills and strategies to create a healthier and happier life where I communicated better and I could make saner choices. I learnt that therapy is a two-way relationship and things only changed, when I was able to accept and embrace the therapeutic interventions. I continue to access therapy as I see it as part of my weekly self-care and amazingly after all these years there are still things to learn about myself. As a body and trauma therapist having my own therapy also prevents me getting vicarious trauma from the work I do.

I learnt a lot about ethics and working with intersectionality from my earlier experiences of therapy.

I come from a sex positive and LGBTQIA+ affirmative framework as that is what worked for me. Thankfully life brings us lessons which if we choose to, we can learn from. The most important thing is to ask for help when you loose your emotional roadmap and if you can’t ask those close to you for support, seek out and speak to a professional.

Remember learning to trust the process and build a therapeutic relationship takes time.

My advice is always to shop around and make sure that you find someone experienced in the issues you are presenting with. Remember everyone’s journey of therapy is their unique journey.