Taking the Plunge

I started my group tonight. It was interesting, definitely different from what I expected. I expected it to be just like individual therapy, but with 5 other people. Definitely not the case. We still express things we're feeling, thinking about, working on, but it's mostly our own leadership of the group. That made it fairly awkward until one of the guys broke the ice and started talking.

I didn't end up saying much about myself, which I realized shouldn't be surprising. I started going to counseling because I don't open up to people. As we were beginning to come to a close, I started thinking about what I would do when I got back to my room. I knew at least a couple people would ask about group. My initial feeling was that I wouldn't want to talk about it. But I'm in this to improve, so I decided instead of being minimal in responses, I'd be excited and share things.

It was hard in a way, I wanted to talk about myself, the things I've been going through and working on. But there were five other people there. I didn't want to feel like I was hogging attention. I was torn between asking them lots of questions about what they were saying, and bringing up things about myself. Upon initial contemplation of the session, I thought maybe I ought to just stick to individual counseling. In individual, I'm the only one who's supposed to be talking, so I don't feel like I'm taking away from what others might need. But that's not a real life situation.

To put it in comm disorders terms, group therapy will be easier for me to generalize from. Perhaps next week if I initiate conversation, and topics are more related to what I'm working through, I will be more able to share about myself. When I got back I was able to share quite a bit of how things went with a few people. By the fourth and fifth person I could feel myself closing off though. I was going into the "I don't want to talk about this" mode that's really a facade for "I'm probably bothering this person with sharing all this." But I do feel myself improving, I still have a long way to go though.

My current goal is to just be able to tell my mom I'm going to therapy. The fear holding me back from doing that now is the can of worms it will most likely open. For now I'm excited to go back next week, although when Wednesday comes, I will probably be scared again.

Thank you Lord for being with me in this. I know I'm not alone