Feels good to make some connections with other mums, and just be a ‘mum’.

Due to so much anxiety, depression and dealing with trauma, I haven’t made any effort to connect with other parents of children in my 6 year olds class. I’ve had a few conversations, but nothing more and I’ve not been in a place where I can consider getting together and becoming connected, or form school mum friendships.

I’ve been too busy trying to stay alive and deal with severe trauma and severe grieving. Which considering how social I used to be, shows how severely this last 3 years has affected me.

Today, I went to my 6 year old son’s friend’s Birthday party and sat chatting and laughing with two parents, one of whom is the mum of my son’s best friend.

It was really nice and even though I had anxiety and could feel myself doing my usual ‘being funny’ and talking a lot – anxiety behaviours – they didn’t mind, because they were really chatty too.

I think counsellors need to realise, they can ‘misbehave’ too.

At my last counselling session, where I wanted to explain how I know I am not an easy client, the first words out of my counsellors mouth – were about ‘misbehaving’ clients and how others wouldn’t tolerate me as a client.

I haven’t done anything other than what she told me repeatedly to do….let her know what was bothering me.

It is very patronising to talk about clients ‘misbehaving’ and she herself has spoken to me about things which are completely inappropriate for me to hear. And I’ve had this validated by other mental health professionals.

I think my counsellor is someone who rarely hears how she might be wrong, how her views may not be wisdom, how I disagree with some of her thinking and how I know she lacks empathy and have given examples.

I think she is more used to people telling her how wonderful she is. She is used to having big audiences to clap at what she says and people around her talking about her in positive ways.