"Taught me to value my own self worth"

My first call for my initial session I'm apprehensive! I had my concerns because I've done things like this before... the how does that make you feel?

Previous attempts at CBT, individual as well as group therapy I felt I was wasting the therapist's time and my own time as I had already analysed myself, taken the logical approach and had already attempted many times, to re-train my logic and thought processes into other ways of thinking in an attempt to self aid my issues.

I was worried that this would be another useless batch of sessions however, I was surprised to hear that my therapist was a specialist in her field...

To my surprise Martha from Walsall Talking Therapy Services called me... she explained during our first call, her credentials. Martha explained that she runs workshops to coach Leadership figures on the wellbeing of their teams and themselves, a pleasantly positive and homely lady, that could immediately tell I had my doubts.

Our initial session was more of an introductory session where she made me aware of the agenda and the plans ahead, they had a structure and framework, she preferred this type of therapy as being more natural and organic, which was to be determined by our findings rather than a check box activity or heavily structured plan.

Martha expressed the most important thing for this therapy (DIT), was to explore all avenues and to look into how we as humans develop our personas and our relationships we make with other humans, be it family or not. How we have been contributing to our own psychological demons and based all of our relationships in a way that is sometimes detrimental.

She allowed and invited me to explore the logic behind why I feel a particular way and how this manifests/may manifest in a physical way that subconsciously I am unaware of however this is abundantly clear to external observers.

Martha's approach was more inquisitive and intriguing than any other therapy I have previously been involved with. Her ability to build a genuine and not forced bond and a natural rapport was also so refreshing and energizing, affording me the opportunity to further explore the possibilities myself.

I honestly can't recommend a better therapist than Martha as there was honesty, truth, support, and genuine concern, and the rough housing to go deeper into my own psyche than I have never been allowed or guided to do.

Martha has genuinely helped me to question and to value my feelings.

She has taught me to value my own self worth.

She has made me actually believe that I may actually be a good person and what's more, someone who is good to be around although I have never believed this in myself. You'd only have to look into my calls to my Employee Assistance Program to see how little I thought of myself. I am not sitting here saying that now I'm on top of the world and I'm cured... I'm just saying that I am massively better off for my sessions with Martha.

Martha has taught me that I am not a simple minded individual and have very high aptitude in own self critique and am indeed, very self analytical. She taught me to analyse more than just how I react/perceive but more why and helped me to validate, based on my own past experiences the notions why I may perceive and react as such.

There were sessions where I would just cry and breathe through my own depictions of my experiences, something I felt so embarrassed about. Where I'm crying down a phone... sessions where Martha would really need to drag it out of me and probe to get anything from me. The best and most rewarding sessions where she would do what I call a Martha Mic Drop and blow my mind with the brutal but honest truth about what we had discovered about myself.

Don't read this and think, Meh! Please give Martha a chance and take up the DIT sessions, as a person who's spent 5 years on the NHS waiting for therapy, have been bounced through talking therapies and CBT block sessions from the GP...

I honestly got to a point where I thought I could not continue, I was at complete bottom many of times! These past 6/7 months with DIT have improved my life, they haven't cured me...

I'm still as I'm writing, a severely damaged person... but I'm not as damaged as I was when I began. Although our time has come to an end and I need to continue alone, I know, from the things I've learned during my sessions that:

A) I can do this!

B) I'd have a life long friend if I'd met Martha elsewhere, with her outlook around me for the last 10 years.

Thank you Martha, You have been and always will be to me the only person who didn't ask me how it made me feel, but asked me what am I going to do about it?

Even my husband knows when I've spoken to you, at first I am silent and shy away but then, because of you, I open up to him and I discuss our sessions. Needless to say if we both had a liveable wage and could afford private sessions, you would be our first call.

For anyone who has ever felt lost, worthless and at the end... I really hope you get Martha or a Martha... someone who actually acts like a human and understands like a human how hard it is to talk about the trauma life can be.

I might not be okay in the future, I might be right back where I was in 2023... but if I am... I will take what I've learnt and apply it and if I ever need CBT/DIT again... I genuinely hope I get Martha again or someone at least as half as good as her.