So lets imagine you are driving along and you are feeling lost and you are running out of petrol – you might decide to stop and ask for directions from someone to get you to the nearest petrol station.
The first person you stop (let’s call him Tom) knows that there is a petrol station quite close but the one slightly further along is owned by a friend so Tom tells you that you need to take x road then y roundabout etc. and direct you to his friends station. You wont know that this dynamic is going on but you might feel grateful that Tom seemed to have an idea of how to get you out of this lostness and Tom’s ego has been a little boosted because he helped someone, plus he put business his friend’s way to boot. Tom carries on with his day bouncing along full of happy hormones about how kind and useful he has been.
Lets now imagine that you drive along a bit and actually you are still lost and you stop someone else (we’ll call him Harry) – well, Harry had a really bad experience at the station that Tom suggested, the service was awful, it was over-priced and for Harry who is quite poor at the moment, saving the pennies is everything. Harry knows the cheapest station in the town for petrol but it is in completely the other direction to the first station. He suggests that a better option would be……..and reels off a whole new set of direction. Harry’s ego has been a little boosted because someone asked him for help, plus he saved them a bit of money which is bound to be the best thing, surely. Harry carries on with his day bouncing along full of happy hormones about how kind and useful he has been.
So now imagine that you drive along a bit and actually you are still lost and you stop someone else (we’ll call him Bob) – Bob doesn’t drive actually and cannot recall where a petrol station is but he is lonely and is grateful for any kind of human contact so is happy to keep talking and making suggestions and umming and ahhhhing about where petrol may be. You don’t get any directions at all but you don’t want to be unkind to Bob so you try to extricate yourself from the conversation but it takes you a while and all the time you are running out of petrol and not getting any closer to getting what you need. Bob feels better because he had contact with someone – he wasn’t actually able to help you but he feels better nonetheless. Bob carries on with his day bouncing along full of happy hormones and thinks no more about the fact that you are now driving on fumes.
This time you are starting to panic and worry – you start to feel a little bit of doubt about the reliability of the information you have been given and so you become reluctant to ask again preferring to drive around blindly on your own hoping you can find somewhere and this could go on for a very long time and then finally
You run out of petrol
…you are amongst probably many things mistrustful, doubtful, exhausted, frustrated, cross and a bit angry at yourself that you were not able to find your way on your own.
For survivors and people embarking on any kind of self-discovery/recovery, it is important to let you know that there are a vast amount of people out there who are keen to ‘give you directions’ to where THEY think you need to be in the way THEY think you should go. They will all have their agendas, their preferences, their issues, their frame of reference and they will all in their own way be right! FOR THEM – not for you!!!!!
The best thing that survivors can do is to be in charge of your own directions –
LEAD THE WAY DON’T BE LED
Firstly and importantly – get a handle on where you want to be (ask yourself if your life was better, what might it look like – that’s the first step towards knowing your destination), find out what you need to do that journey, identify the resources you need FOR YOU, get an internal SatNav and take charge of your own progression.
Tom, Harry and Bob are not bad or anyone else that you come across; hopefully none give you the wrong directions on purpose, but they might by accident. All of them will have different views on what is best to get you the petrol you need – and perhaps one of them might be just the right set of directions but you cant actually be sure. Not unless you know precisely where you need to be.
And as you probably figured out now Tom, Harry and Bob represent counsellors, psychotherapists, doctors, solicitors, compensation lawyers, self-help books, well-meaning friends and family, peers and mental health specialists etc. All with a different focus and frame of reference.
You have the power to decide your path, where you want to be, what you need for the journey, where the stop-overs are, what you need to get you to where you want to be.
You too have the right to have your own frame of reference, your own preferences and ways of doing things. You have the power and right to take a few wrong turns but of your own choosing. Start to be the routemaster of your recovery.
Louise Rooney MBACP AIP
