Here I am, once again, typing from my school's library on the blog. Its not a bad habit to form, actually, getting through the day with nothing more to do other than schoolwork can sometimes be a drag. I do have two presentations that I have to get finished and get through over the next week so I've been doing that as well, not to mention working on papers. School is nice and all but sometimes you want to have a reprieve from the ongoing stress of being a student and having to make good grades.
Anyhow, thats not what I wanted to talk about, in fact, I had wanted to touch on the topic of therapy. Sometimes its a hot topic to be brought up in many households and among many social circles about the benefits and the harms of therapy. I, personally, don't think there is any harm to come from sitting on a couch, so to speak, and chatting about problems to a third party who stands on the outside looking in and offers you good advice on how you should conduct your life, if you want to listen, and gives you advice on problems that you have. From personal experience, I've done well in therapy and I've come out with many things that I can use to help me benefit not only my life but the lives of others. I've already helped a number of people through their own problems and I've been able to help some people through virtue of improving their friends' lives. Through many people I've come to find out that therapy is a good field to go into, not myself because I couldn't see myself sitting in an office every day, day in and day out, listening to problems. Sometimes the people I talk to refuse to take my advice and I want to give them a good smack upside the head, but that's generally not the majority, thank god.
I'm talking about therapy as far as being a cleft palate survivor. I was teased horribly when I was a kid, those kids showed no mercy when they went after me. My, my, my. I have never seen a group of kids that were as nasty as these kids happened to be. Quite frankly, I've never managed to even think of kids who would have been this nasty, thankfully, since then. But I haven't been paying attention to much in the public school system since I was pulled out of it at the end of the fifth grade when I was failing every class I took. I was happily homeschooled until I became around eigth and then placed back into a school that I call a concentration camp now. Only because of the strict rules and guidelines that were made to be followed if you went to said school. But thats not what I want to get involved into, instead I want to say how it benefited me. Sure, it happened to be a mini hell as far as rules went, but the social interaction benefited me and I was able to see that I wasn't all those mean things that those kids had said. Unfortunately I didn't know what I did now and I still had those thoughts controlling everything I did, so I was stuck, in that aspect.
Right around the end of the eighth grade and on into the ninth was when my life really began to unravel. The only reason it had stopped itself from unraveling was because of my dog, who I still have today. Dogs are excellent therapy, I know I wouldn't be here except for that little ball of fluff I call my baby. But it doesn't last, as far as therapy goes. Sure it was great but the stress of social interactions took its toll on me. I remember sitting across from my friend who was taking a test and I wanted to rip the pencil out of her hand and stab her with it because she was taking it too slowly for my liking. Not to mention the feelings of drowning when I lay in my bed at night watching my lava lamp marveling at how it matched the inner turmoil inside me when the sparkly pieces of confetti swirled about. I finally told my mother because I just couldn't take it anymore, I told her I felt sad, that I would feel like I was drowning at night and I didn't know why. I actually wanted to stop drowning and just die already. Its a horrible feeling, the drowning, because you feel like you're suffocating on your own emotions but you don't know what to do about it. Not to mention you have no idea what is causing it and you're helpless to stop it. When I was that young I had no idea what depression was, much less what was causing my problems in the first place. If I had, I most probably could have solved them on my own but I needed some help because I was so young.
My mom decided that it was too much for her to handle, thankfully (because I don't think I would have done as well had she not sought outside help for me), and got me in to see a therapist. My first therapist was a bust. I remember standing outside her office after one of my sessions and my mom patted me on the rear (something I didn't like) and my therapist got onto my mom about it when I said I didn't like it (also something I didn't like) and because of that comment, I decided I wanted another therapist. I felt that her getting involved, directly, was unacceptable and I felt that it was time for me to find another one. I did and that was the best decision ever because I have managed to find so many helpful tips and tricks to aid me in my life that I feel I can just go about doing anything without her help anymore. But I still need to work on some things but the majority of the things that involve myself and my cleft lip and palate are out of the way. I feel fully confident of myself and I feel like I can take on the world now, not to mention my self esteem is great and I believe I am a very beautiful person. I use the analogy of coming from a caterpillar to a butterfly or the ugly duckling blossoming into a beautiful swan. All the people who have teased me only have aided in who I am today and I feel powerful in the knowledge that I am okay.
But beyond this, I remember the multitude of times that I would keep the therapy a secret because I felt that it was a taboo topic. In many cases it still is. I've noticed this when I bring up that topic people become uncomfortable and many change the subject because of it. I, quite frankly, feel that it's not a good idea to believe it to be a taboo topic and, instead, to talk openly about it and not feel ashamed. I know that it's going to take a bit because only now have people been able to come "out of the closet" so to speak about their therapy. I remember the many times that my dad would frown upon it and, not openly, try to dissuade me from ever bringing it up or even going. I would hear, second hand, that my dad didn't agree with the fact that I was going and felt that it was a bad idea. But by that time I had made so much progress that I felt it was a good idea. Sadly, however, I fell under the impression that therapy doesn't help and that you shouldn't need therapy to help you through your problems and ended up sliding backwards in my one year stint away from the psychologist instead of keeping up with the treatment like I should have. That all happened because I had a friend who I thought had bigger problems than I did and therefore believed that if she could do it without a therapist I could. While she had "bigger" problems than I did, so I thought, her own problems were bigger than mine because I wasn't in her shoes. Think about it; your dad is abusive or something, your mom doesn't seem to care and you can do whatever you want, your brother is a druggie and alcoholic, maybe its your sister and she's a prostitute and maybe, just maybe, you're in a abusive relationship. Those are some pretty big problems, are they not? But they aren't bigger than your own problems. Your problems are big to you, and thats really all that matters. If someone says that they aren't big enough to see a therapist about it, tell them that they can go jump in a proverbial lake because, quite frankly, they couldn't handle your problems. The problems that other people have, like the abusive father that I gave a hypothetical situation for, you might not be able to handle but someone else can. Your own problems, whatever they may be, are yours for a reason. Because you can handle them.
Take my brother and I for example. My brother has bad acne problems, he's tender-hearted and he believes that everyone has a heart of gold just like he does. He's extremely social and gets hurt easily by the things that people say. I think that he is a marvelous guy with the biggest heart around. Not many people think the way I do and get to see him the way I do either. But, anyway, this isn't the thing. Then look at me. I'm a cleft palate and lip survivor, I was teased until I cried every single day when I was younger, I'm diagnosed with clinical depression, major and minor depression (also double depression) and I go see a therapist every Tuesday. I was near suicidal before I got my dog and she managed to postpone it until I told my mother what was going on. My brother couldn't handle my situation and I couldn't have handled his. Why his problems look like they're nothing, right? But they're big to him, they're big to him because social problems are all his life, they're everything to him. Social problems don't consume me like they do him. If a friend of his has a problem with him he'll do anything to fix it. If I friend of mine has a problem with me, tough. They can pretty much either suck it up and deal or they can vamoose. While I'm working on that, he doesn't have to work on it at all. He has a multitude of friends while I'm just now getting a social life at the age of twenty. Like I said before, he couldn't deal with my problems and I couldn't deal with his. We are totally different people and we have our of set of challenges and neither of us could take up the other's challenges because of this.
That is another reason why I find it completely silly and juvenile that someone decides to say that another could just "get over it" and not even attempt to see it from their side. Quite possibly this person could have been sexually abused by their dad, you don't know that. This person could say just that they're going for therapy and not say why, then you pop out of the blue and say that therapy is a bad idea and they should just "get over it". Do you have any idea what that could do to a person? If the person is fragile enough or actually cares enough about what you think then it could possibly alter the course of their lives forever. Not necessarily for the good, either. I say this because so many people are insensitive about the issue of therapy. My grandparents on my father's side are, which is why I don't even bother bringing it up to them because I know that I'll have to fight for what I want to say and how I want to say it. They're not bad grandparents and they're not wrong, but they grew up in a different time and they have a different set of values and beliefs. They think that people shouldn't have to see a therapist and they think that if you can't pull yourself up by your boot-straps and get on with your life then you're weak. I don't believe that, I'll never believe that, because I believe that everyone should be able to have the right to therapy if they so see the need for it. I know I did because I felt that it was the best for me to do. You might be sitting here reading this and say it's not for you, good for you! I'm pleased that you have the foresight to see what you do and do not need in your life. If you can do this, then you've grown in more ways than many people do in their whole lives. And if you're sitting here thinking that therapy would be a good idea for you to get rid of all the harmful things in your life or you are actually in therapy, thats excellent for you because, like the person who says they don't need it, you have the foresight to see that you do need some therapy.
I've met many people who seem to think that those who go into therapy are somehow weaker. I've always thought they were stronger because they had the guts to seek out help when they realized that they couldn't help themselves or that what they were doing wasn't enough. I feel that people who see therapy as an "easy way out" or something along those lines are simply ignorant. Its certainly never an "easy way out" because you have to work for it if you want to be better.
I guess what I am trying to say is to never be ashamed if you need to go see a therapist, or that it is seen as being advantageous of seeing a therapist. Certainly it would be in your best interest to make sure that you have the best life that you could possibly have. If that means going against your family's views then it means doing that; do it for you. As a cleft lip and palate survivor I feel that it is right to share every bit of what I went through, even the most painful parts because I feel that it will more fully help someone if they stumble across this and are going through the same things that I am or have gone through the same things that I have gone through. I've learned a lot being in this situation and I've never once felt slighted, I've never wanted to change who I am. Sure, I wished the pain would go away after a surgery and that I might look more normal, but I don't look back on my experiences and wish that I hadn't gone through that, instead, I'm glad I went through that. I've helped many along the way and I've helped myself, I wouldn't be as strong as I am today, I'm sure of it, if I didn't go through this. I'm glad I survived and I hope that this blog, as well as this post, will encourage anyone, even if you're not a cleft lip and palate survivor, to seek help if you need to. Don't be ashamed. You're your own best advocate and you need to stand up for you.
