PERSONAL

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Counselling Progress

2 years ago717 words

The ball has started rolling!

I got a new phone a couple of days ago! My contract was ending on the 4th, and while renewing it I decided to also replace my phone which I've been using since the year before I had brain cancer (2017 or 2018), mostly because it's been having some issues playing certain games.

Our phones become like extra limbs, or external brains, coming with us wherever we go, but when we replace them, is it the norm to just unceremoniously discard (sell off, put in a drawer, literally throw away) the old one? That's pretty much I've always done, but it feels so... sad.

Also, did you know that to transfer your old phone number to a new phone, you have to take out the old SIM card and put it in the new phone? Because I didn't, and panicked when the new SIM they'd sent me apparently had a new number. "What if now people and various websites have no way to access me??" and similar thoughts weren't a very pleasant start to the day. Seems like this SIM transferral is an example of something other people probably just know but I didn't, probably because I'm so isolated. But because I'm so isolated, I don't know if that assumption is accurate or not. Whatever!

Anyway, I figured that out this morning, and good timing too because I got a call from some counselling service I thought would be contacting me tomorrow.

I started the call by saying "Oh hello [my friend's name]!", because I'd messaged her earlier about all this and her ringing as a result of that would be a completely expected thing. So greeting this stranger like that led to an awkward start to the call, which was embarrassing.

Though it was a woman in her mid-twenties - that friend's age - so she sounded similarish, at least compared to the women in their 40s to 60s I'm used to interacting with relating to all this mental health treatment stuff.

What she introduced as 'probably a 10 minute call' ended up lasting about an hour, and for much of it we were just essentially chatting. Talking about our lives and stuff. Not just me doing that while some poor person endured my social ineptitude; she volunteered more than I did.

It just made me think about how different and refreshing that was compared to the more formal, rigid interactions I seem to have with those older people. I felt like I was interacting with an actual person.

(Though I wonder how much her working from home at the time affected that?)

I saw a thing on Reddit the other day about how someone's dad texts like a work email, or something like that. My mum does too. I suppose it's just a generational thing, with younger people raised to be more open and less formal (or at least they're still in a stage of their life where they've yet to have their individuality hammered out of them, or something).

Made me wish I had more experiences actually interacting with real-world similarly-aged peers. Oh well. Maybe everyone's 'like a real person' in actual workplaces. I wouldn't know. It's all some distant, abstract thing to me.

Anyway, the counselling service they offer is free and it lasts as long as I'll need it. It also sounds like it's either in exactly the same building I used to have counselling years ago (despite them being an unrelated organisation), or it's right next door, so that's convenient.

I also asked, concerned, about whether there'd be a months-long wait before it starts, but I was told no, that's unlikely. There will be a wait, but it shouldn't be too long. So that's good.

So yes! Progress, finally!

She also seemed to have liked talking with me in a way that sounded to me more sincere than some forced formality, but I don't know whether that's just wishful thinking. Makes me wonder what other types of people she must have to deal with though. Maybe the majority of people who reach out for mental health help are difficult in some way or another. HMM.

I've also done a decent amount of work on this game over the past few days, though I'll write about that on the weekend!