by Penny Boreham, Intake Manager
Testimonial Two
I
n this new occasional series of blogs we hear from those who have received treatment at both Khiron House’s residential and day clinics. They share their thoughts and reflections about their experience of attending the clinics and more generally about their healing and recovery. This is an extract from one interview with a client at Khiron House’s outpatient clinic. You can hear the full audio interview on our testimonials page.
The interview with “M” was conducted by Penny Boreham.
M: Because I was in such a bad way [when I started treatment] and there was so much to deal with it was pretty intense.. I didn’t know what to expect, and it took me a little while to understand all the body work .. I was so closed off, it took a bit of time to unlock what was going on in my body. It was a learning curve for me as well as a process .. there were a lot of chemicals floating around in my body, it was strange in a way, I had no control over what was going on there, I had to sit through it and let it process ….Now my body reactions are calming down.. a lot of that intense energy has left my system. I do somehow have similar reactions but they are not as potent. Nowadays I can go to a session and plan to do something afterwards, which before just wasn’t the case.
Penny: How do you describe the treatment to your friends and family?
M: They don’t quite understand it.. most of my friends think it is going to therapy, talking to someone, and going home and I say ‘no it’s a very different thing to that’, I try to explain that everything that happens to you builds up and is stored like a memory in your body, and it intertwines in your nervous system..I say it is like having gunk in your body, and you are very much trying to balance the body and the mind to get that out, and that is the most basic way I try to describe it to them..
My family and a fair few of my friends have said that they see that the change has been huge .. not only the way I interact, and the way I just sit in a chair, but it’s the actions I have as well. There are some things that I would never have done before that I am doing now, I am in a place now where I can start doing them.. I was so afraid with the diabetes of ever doing exercise, before it was just too stressful for me .. [but now] after years I have started to play tennis again, because of the [therapy] sessions I have been able to do that.. I wouldn’t have gone to any social gatherings where there were a lot of people, I would have been outside of my comfort zone, but I went to a party literally about 2 days ago where there were a lot of people and it was all just great, it worked out really well, and I worked the room, which I would never have done before!!
Penny: Do you feel you have a lot more resilience now?
M: Because a lot of the ‘poison’ has gone, there is a lot more space for things to come in.. for me to be able to process them, understand them, and react accordingly and not in a reflex or a protective way like I would have done before , but in quite a logical manner actually as well as emotional.
Penny: That feeling of spaciousness, when you are in a really bad way that is what you lack, isn’t it?
M: Yes, now with my resilience, if something does affect me in a negative way I won’t have the build up of energy that I would have had before inside.. because there is that space it kind of goes in and spreads out a bit more as opposed to bundles up into one big ball which is what would have happened before.
In therapy [Sensorimotor Psychotherapy] we have been delving quite deeply into things that have happened in the past ..getting to the roots of things.. and the reactions in my body have been changing….some of them have become more intense of late, I haven’t had that for a while, so it has been quite strange having that come back again but it just shows my capacity and that I can cope with it now. It doesn’t completely overwhelm me like it would have done before..
Before, because I was also bullied at school, I was very lonely, .. I was kind of desperate [about] that at one point [and] I thought I needed to do as much as I could to impress everybody, to be what they wanted me to be so that I was accepted.. One thing that has happened with this therapy is that I feel that if I make an effort with somebody and they don’t respond like I would like I think well, you know what, they are not really worth my time. I am worth more than that. They can come to me fine but I am not going to keep chasing them and being a doormat for everyone.. My interactions have changed. I would be afraid of confrontation, even if there was something that I felt was wrong, I would just take it as I was too afraid to respond. But now it has gone the other way, I am probably too aggressive at times! [But] I recognise it and I am able to some extent to control it, I don’t explode…
Before I would never have dreamt of having a relationship with a woman because I was so closed off and afraid .. even now it is not as easy as it is for some of my peers and family, but I am getting more confident about that.
I actually feel like this therapy could work for absolutely anyone and I mean literally anyone, no matter what your problem is, because.. there’s a lock inside that everyone has, no matter what you have been through or how bad things are for you, it’s just about finding the key and that’s what this process will do – it will be just about finding the key.
A lot of people I know have a few issues but I feel like I have got a combination of about ten people’s issues in one body.
If it can work for me I feel like it can work for absolutely everyone, that’s how I see it from my personal point of view.
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