What Is Help?

Help.  What does that even mean?

When I was in grade school, probably in third grade when things began to get really bad, I first heard about counselors and learned what they did.  The ideas of someone willing to listen and knowledgable  to help me were very appealing.  Unfortunately, I quickly learned that I could not discuss the things I needed to in order to address the real issues.  At that time, I didn't know what most of the issues even were.  I still tried, often visiting the school counseling offices through the rest of my time as a student, but it never got me anywhere.

At some point, Mother got it into her head that I needed private counseling for depression.  Depression was the big mental illness of the moment at that time, and she was sure that I had it.  I didn't, and several counselors told her so, but that didn't seem to matter.

When I struggled with eating disorders, I sought help.  I realized I was at rock bottom, and I knew my options and outlook didn't look good.  At first, I looked into online counseling, or phone counseling. I'm not big into being face-to-face with people while discussing my difficulties.  But I tried.  My search turned up a whole lot of nothing.

Getting desperate, I called around for some referrals.  I was given the name of a therapist who held some local support groups for people with eating disorders, and, breaking with my antisocial tendencies, I actually went way outside of my comfort zone and attended.  It wasn't easy, but I did find a tremendous benefit in it.  The one stipulation, however, is that all participants were required to have a personal therapist.  I suppose I could have lied, but I am honest to a fault and I admitted that it was just not a step I was ready to take yet.  The woman who ran the group unceremoniously removed me from it, despite my tearful pleas to stay.  I started spending a lot of time in cemeteries and considering my final arrangements; I didn't need to make a choice to kill myself, because I was already well on my way with anorexia and bulimia.

With few other options, I decided to take a leap and get counseling through the center on my college campus.  In keeping with my good fortune *cough, cough*, I met a counselor who evidently believed that scare tactics were the way to go.  I won't go into details, but it took me years to recover from the damage that was caused by that attempt to seek help.  In addition to the eating disorder, I developed crippling panic attacks which left me temporarily housebound and almost ended my college education.

Eventually, I recovered from my eating disorders.  It was only out of the realization that I was completely alone and my reality was facing death or fixing shit myself.  I chose the latter.  No one helped me. And, while I was empowered by recovering from something that professionals said could not be conquered alone, I also felt saddened by the fact that getting help was such a pain in the ass, and doing so had only given me more to recover from.  Things, once again, were not as they should be.

As I spiraled down into the hell that is OCD, I often considered how nice it would be to find a good therapist to help me.  Thing is, and I know my opinion is unpopular here, I am adamantly opposed to taking medication, which should be a last resort but has become a first line of treatment in the field of mental healthcare.  I will not do it.  I don't believe that the benefits are such that it is worth the side effects.  Eventually, the disorder has to be managed.  There is no pill that will cure OCD; the pills might take the edge off and make it easier for some people to manage, but it seems to cause more problems while failing to address the original problem more often than not.  I believe CBT (cognitive-behavioral therapy) and ERP (exposure and response/ritual prevention) are the only ways to truly conquer OCD.  Thing is, a road map or an experienced guide would be freakin' spectacular tools to have.

For a long time, I wanted to beat this, but didn't know if I could.  Now I believe that I can, but I've lost so much along the way that I barely know where or how to begin rebuilding the pieces of my shattered life.  Just as I'd done in the past, I recently sought counseling via phone or internet.  It yielded no results, again.  I found a guy who was willing to do some phone-based counseling using EFT.  While I always prefer natural and alternative therapies, I was rather unimpressed, and he seemed rather unenthusiastic.  I think he was more interested in getting the call over with so he could ask me to send him a donation in the mail.  Sigh.  So, here I am, back at square one.

Sometimes I wonder, could I just get out of bed one morning, say screw it, and just do what I used to do in spite of everything telling me to freak out?  Maybe.  My husband seems to think this is not only possible, but that I should have done it long ago.  I tend to think that his views of OCD are selfish and simplistic, but whatever.  The truth probably lies somewhere in the middle.  I'm running out of options; I either have to tape a leap and get my life back, or accept that my world is equivalent to the square footage of this house and the extent of my self-worth hinges on whether or not I get the fucking laundry done.