This blog is my therapy

My Mum said to me this week "Don't be slow on asking for counselling if you feel you need it".

I have had counselling twice in my life before. Once in my early twenties for an eating disorder and associated depression and then again when I was pregnant with Will for antenatal depression. I am not sure that either time it made a notable difference to me but it was good to talk. I think, it is always good to talk.

My fiance has cancer. Our second baby is due in just over 5 weeks time. Our son is only 20 months old.

This has undoubtedly been the hardest week of my life so far.

Over the past few years, as you will probably know from my blogging topics so far we have been through a lot. There has been burglary (Jan 2010), miscarriage (Jan 2011) and now cancer (Jan 2012). The pattern is not lost on me. I am giving up Januaries. In between there have been traumatic births, post traumatic stress, hearing deficiency diagnosis', MRI scans, ECGs, dead grandparents, broken bones, ceilings collapsing.

Anyway, my point is that despite all of this, I do not feel like I need counselling. I don't think that talking to a stranger is going to help any of these things. It certainly will not make them go away.

And yet that is exactly what I am doing. I am talking to you, perhaps you are a friend but there is a chance you are a stranger. And it does help. It doesn't make anything go away but it makes me feel so much better just to put out there what I am thinking and feeling.

Since the diagnosis on Monday all of our friends and family that we have chosen to share the news with have been fantastically and unwaveringly supportive. But so have so many strangers. For Yeah Write #41 I wrote this post and the comments have brought me to tears on more than once occasion. I feel so lucky to have people that listen and empathise, both close to me and far away.

So thanks. Thanks for being my counsellors, my therapists and for not charging me a penny for the privilege. You honestly do make the dark days lighter.