Last year I started having some sessions with a counsellor.
It was during my blue period. I was experiencing a very strong attraction to
dark, indigo blues. My paintings were being pulled in that direction. I seemed
to be drawn to dark blue fabrics and items #myindigoobsession Indigo, cyan,
navy, cobalt, azure, cerulean. Even the names of the blue pigments attracted
me; their mellifluous sounds haunted my mind.
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| all artworks my originals |
I found myself nesting, actually curling up on the couch pulling the soft blankets in on top of me. The television may have been turned on but I wasn’t. Books couldn’t hold my gaze; their words raindrops beading on my skin. I avoided phone calls and even refused to read text messages or emails. Bailing on prior commitments, I found the clutter of people draining. I attended my job in automatic mode, flicking the switch that would shut off 8 hours later when I crawled back into my nest. The bills still needed to be paid even if I didn’t feel up to it.
I don’t precisely recall who or what finally made me phone
the counselling service but I did and a session was set for 5 weeks time. Five
weeks could have seemed an aeon away but knowing it was booked in was a
comforting thought. Day by day, the five weeks passed.
There’s an odd thing about counselling sessions. Two
strangers sit opposite each other in a neutrally aesthetic room on chairs that
at first seem comfortable, and one opens the flood gates on the issues at hand.
I can see the counsellor sifting through the oncoming waters trying to pick up
the pieces of a jigsaw without knowing what the final image looks like.
My counsellor (we’ll call her Kate cause that’s her name)
seemed to know when to raise the levy so we could more intimately discuss a
point. Knowing the right question to stop me in my tracks, she was adept at
asking questions I didn’t know how to answer. One thing I’ve discovered about
myself over the years of journaling is that I have a gestation period of
roughly 24 hours. I need time to digest an idea and roll it over in my
sub-conscious before I can formulate my response. Even when I was dating I
found that I didn’t really know how I felt about someone until the next day.
Counselling appeared to be similar. The next day, I could articulate what had
taken place but straight afterwards, my head was in the clouds.
I managed to get some great clarity on a few issues during
our sessions. I may have made the initial appointment after some depressed
episodes but we never directly dealt with depression. By discussing a variety
of issues, I suspect we dismantled the depression brick by brick bringing the
sunshine back in.
Whilst many of my friends may not have ever known that I
suffered from depression, which in and of itself can be a trigger word, I have
discovered that by talking and writing about it fears of stigma have blown
away. It is precisely people like me who are bubbly, talkative and energetic on
the outside who others don’t suspect would suffer from anxiety and depressive
episodes. We can. We do. I guess that’s the point. I don’t know how I got lost
but I talked to a professional, I took it easy on myself and I climbed out of
my nest ready to face the world. I still like my indigo blues and find it
grounds my visual art but I’m no longer stuck in my indigo obsession.
