My first CBT session and other things

So. Yesterday morning started off pretty badly. It was hot the day before and the French doors were open all day. The boys were up for the day pretty early, and it was Robert who discovered the water wasn't working again. I thought he was trying to get out of washing his hands, as he dislikes doing that and tries to put it off as long as possible, but we soon discovered he was telling the truth, so I had to apologise to him for not believing him. Oops!

Then Jonathan headed downstairs after the boys dry-brushed their teeth, to discover a load of ants gathered under one of the boys food plates that weren't cleared away from the night before. Apparently under the plate was a MASS of black. Bleughhhhh. I didn't feel up to seeing that so I stayed upstairs while the boys had their breakfast and Jonathan cleared up. I was pretty annoyed that the water was out, as I'd not had a shower in waaaay too long and really needed to do it that day. I asked my mum if she could bring some water with her, as she was coming up to have the boys while I went for my appointment, and I didn't think the water would be back on til I went for my appointment! Then as luck would have it, just before we were ready to go out to Tesco, the water had been turned on! (I heard the water tank in the bathroom filling back up again) My mum brought a 5 gallon container with her anyway, filled with water, and said keep it in the garage in case there's another water-outage!

The Tesco trip was quite stressful, as Christopher was crying on and off the whole way round, and Robert was yanking on the trolley, or running off (never too far, he's pretty good in that respect, and always comes back when we ask), or stopping to look at, and pick up EVERYTHING he saw that looked remotely interesting! I had to threaten to put back the rice cakes several times! I was feeling quite frazzled by the end of the shopping trip and was pleased to head out of the shop! It must be a sign though that although I felt quite stressed at the end of the shopping trip, it didn't affect my driving at all. I've not had a close call for ages now - I can't remember the last one actually! And being the end of May, it's been about a YEAR now I've been driving... 6 months of those with a licence!

Anyway.. I managed to get a shower before the CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy). Mum arrived about an hour and a half to spare, so I could get the boys their lunch, and have my shower, and other stuff before setting off. I tried to sneak off without Christopher seeing, but he did and started crying when I went to the door, but mum managed to settle him very quickly (with the help of the tv lol).

I didn't know what to think about the session. She started off by explaining about the sessions, and then asking me questions about my moods and what physical affects I had with it, how long I'd been feeling low, and at one point she asked if I felt quite isolated (this might have been after she asked if I had kids and what ages they were - but I can't remember! Crazy! But I guess I did get a lot of information so it's hard to remember exactly what she said and when), and at this point I started crying, and said that yes I did, and that I'd had a friend, and explained the situation with S. As I was telling her about S, I suddenly stopped in my tracks, and realised that I noticed the low moods getting worse around March time, and that co-incided with the time I realised that S was breaking off from our friendship. And that it had been building up because since December she had been giving excuses not to see me, and it was only March that I realised that she didn't want to.

The lady I was talking to, called Nicola, was very sympathetic, and she also helped me see that my low moods were causing a lack of motivation, and low energy, and that my feelings about various things - the state of the house, my parenting skills, and so on, were all feeding back into a vicious cycle, so she has got me some sheets to fill in - firstly a sheet about what I do in the day, so we can see if I am actually doing much - if I am, then I need to work on my cognitive approach to break the cycle, and if I'm not, then we need to work on what I am doing and increasing my productivity to help break the cycle. Also a sheet to fill in when I start feeling low, what my feelings are, the situation I'm in at the time, and my thoughts at the time. Also to think about what problems I have and how much they affect me, and what goals I can work towards to help solve the problems. I'm seeing her again in two weeks.

So that was basically my first session of CBT. I've started on my diary of what I'm doing each day. And so far it's a productive one. I'm hoping that will carry on. I have such a huge list of things I want to do, storage to sort out for getting the house tidy and to a state I'm not ashamed to have people see it. Hopefully soon we will be getting the storage under the stairs sorted, and I'm getting itches to paint the downstairs cloakroom/toilet!