Ok I want the life preserver back!

What does depression mean to me right now? Eyes and a head that hurts all the time. hehe

ok back to the regularly scheduled blog post....

I had the difficult experience today of saying goodbye to my psychologist who has graduated and is subsequently moving on. She has set me up with someone new so no one panic I am going to still be seeing someone but it was a difficult experience as I have experienced so much with her over the past 6 months and she has been (maybe the first helping professional) someone who has really been able to see past my front I put up for others (and often to myself). It is very scary to move on when in such a crisis mode to someone else. To trust someone else.

The new person (just due to scheduling) is going to be her supervisor who is a man. Although this is good as he is familiar with my case so I can not start at ground zero I don't think I even realized how much anxiety I had around having a man in this position of trust. My blood pressure sky-rocketed when he entered the room. Like he said this will be an excellent opportunity to deal with some issues but it was also nice to get validation from her afterwards that with all that i'm dealing with right now that it would be ok too if I feel this on top of of all of it is too much to deal with at the moment and they'd find another female psychologist.

In the course of discussing how bad I feel as of late and how I don't understand or know how to make it better, she used the analogy of how for a long time I've been swimming in the middle of the ocean but I had a life preserver on, this life preserver being all the walls I put up to myself and others; the need to please and to help others, the carer of the family to the detriment of my own needs, etc. I am now swimming without this life preserver (or trying to) and of course this is exhausting out there in the middle of the ocean. So long story short don't be so hard on myself eventually I will learn to swim without the life preserver without being so exhausted (and depressed etc.).