The importance of a professional Psychologist
For a long time, basically as far back as I can remember as a little boy, right up until I was about 35 years old, I had never seen a Psychologist. I somehow managed to cope in my own way. Mostly I physically escaped my environment by going away on a retreat, like a mini holiday so to speak. In the early days, this was returning to Brisbane to stay with my late grandmother Marnie. Later on in my college days in Rockhampton, it was travelling to Mackay to see my Aunty Evon, or perhaps staying in motels around the place, especially one longer stay I did in Townsville in 1988. My family will remember I also travelled to Brisbane for Expo 88. The reason wasn't specifically to see Expo 88, it was more one of my coping mechanisms. But from about 2004, I had a major breakdown, and started seeing a professional Psychologist for the very first time. Her name was Lynn O'Donoghue, and I saw her at Red Hill in Brisbane. She was amazing, and I immediately had a strong connection and rapport with her. She never knew, nor did I for a while, that the core root of all my problems was suppressed homosexuality and Internalised Homophobia. Initially we thought it was the typical 'father-son' issues where I was seeking approval from my father that I never received. Sure that was actually true, but as time passed, I realised what the core issue really was, but I simply couldn't do anything about it until I came out to myself first, then worked out what I wanted to do about it, and as history now shows, what I then actually did about it. Lynn taught me all about Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, and it's been the very best skill I have ever learnt in my life, and I use it all the time in just about everything I do to rewire my brain, to ultimately retrain my behaviours into positive responses, not the automatic defensive behaviours I learned over time to protect myself from all the pain and hurt as a lonely, isolated, rejected (and as most of society said years ago 'deviant' and 'sinful') child, teenager and young adult. These days I see a new Psychologist Adam Sadd, from Uplift Psychology in Brisbane, and he is just amazing. Through him, I have learned many, many things about myself, but more importantly, he set the pathway for me to action massive positive change in my entire life, and these days, I now action positive change quickly and with total ease. A new saying I have, which for some is a little confronting, is "You can live a life of adventure or you can stagnate wishing for one". Without the help of a professional Psychologist, I would not have been able to make sense of my life, and who I am as a person, and am pretty certain, I would not be living my best life now, and as a deliberate choice by me, back in Bundaberg, where around 1983, I made that fateful decision to lead a straight life, thinking you could actually do such a thing, all because I was simply too scared to be gay in the 1970's and 1980's. But not anymore! I am totally rewriting that chapter of my life now, and loving every minute of it.
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