Counselling and Counseling: is there a difference?

Today I am sharing another Mental health option with you all. No one has to suffer alone, if you think you have a mental health illness, please reach out to me and I want to help you as much as I possibly can.

 Counselling and Counseling are two respellings of the same word. They both refer to the giving and receiving of advice and guidance. The spellings are different, but what they refer to is the same. 

My story with anxiety and depression began 2 months after Brooke was born, it started as postpartum and just escalated, I had no idea what was happening to me, I did not want my husband to leave me alone why he was at school, 

{let me back up a second here... while I was pregnant, he lost his job as an EMR II, he then decided he would go back to school to get his computer science degree, he had a diploma in computer science previous to this. Our daughter was not a good sleep, she cried from sun up to sun down, it felt like all I did was nurse her and listen to her scream, it left me cranky and moody, I was so exhausted all the time.}

 I would feel a lot of fear and feel like I could not be left alone, so it put a strain on his studies and on our marriage, life for me every day was a struggle, I felt like I wasn't a good mommy, I felt like I was a nothing, little did I know this was the beginning of a bigger problem; I would talk to my doctor but she would tell me to get out of the house more and go to mommy/baby groups, or sleep when she slept, well guess what I don’t drive so I couldn’t just go, secondly- Brooke wasn’t a sleeper so for me to sleep when she did meant i got very little sleep... 

 It was very tough on us financially because he was a student so we were living on a student budget= TOUGH to this day I have no idea how we survived our first year of marriage, as the vows say.. for better for worst, for richer and poor, we were going thru a very poor time and a very bad time, I think back to it now and i am amazed we survived and how did we stay together thru this, money problems is one of the leading causes of divorce, but here we are 12 years later and more in love than ever.  He has been my rock thru this, some times I felt like he didn't understand and its hard to understand when you have never been depressed- nothing bothers my husband, he don't stress, he is very easy going.. so thankful for such a Solid husband. 

That's when it got very bad for me I got homesick on top of the depression. 

I would not stay home by myself at all, while Andrew was at school I would go to a friends house, in fact it was our Pastors house, I felt like I was intruding, yet I could not bear the thought of being alone, I was just full of fear and anxiety. 

I went back and spoke with my Dr. again and told her again how i was , she again told her how it was, she told me I needed to change many things about my life, she never once said it could be anxiety or depression, never offered me meds, just told me to gain control, sorry but I could not do that on my own. 

This went on for weeks and I didn't get out of bed,

I lost weight, 

I cried all the time, 

I begged like to please for life to stop throwing things at me, 

then is when I hit rock bottom... 

I refused to talk to anyone, I did call the crisis line several times because I was at rock bottom the counsellor asked me to come in and talk to her, so I made an appointment and went in It was horrible, I cried and could not get the words out, they were concerned but I was very scared, I loved my daughter and didn't want her to be taken from me( one of my fears), it was very hard to sit in that room and open up to a councillor who i never knew and how I was sure she wouldn't help and she didn't really, she wanted to make sure there was no suicidal thoughts going on. The councilor sent a letter to my doctor as well and finally she knew what was going on... but it didn't end there 

Hitting Rock bottom was very scary for me, I was sure my life was over, I ended up going to the Emergency room a lot with chest pains and face numbness, they would always put the heart monitor on me because of the chest pains, nothing would ever show up in tests, they pretty much gave me something for sleep because I wasn't sleeping well except during the day.. 

Hitting Rock bottom was when i started thinking that people think I'm just lazy. . I'm just so empty and alone. I am married but he doesn't understand. I think he think I am just lazy. And pretty much tells me that. I felt like I needed to pick myself up and move on, but how... I had no idea how to over come this, all my family were very very worried, when I think about it now, I think what was I thinking, why did i let this happen to me, why didn't i have more control... when you are in a depression you cannot bring your self out of it. It is like you are weighed down by heavy chains that wont let you go, you are alone, your a no good, no one wants to be around you, you look in the mirror and cringe, you dislike what you see.. the face looking back at you don't like the face it sees, you feel like you have no friends, no family even though they live in the same house, you feel so alone and no idea how to break out of this thing called Depression.. 

• Counseling is an American English spelling.
• Counselling is the British English spelling of the same word.

Part 2 to be continued :)