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Tuesday 14th July 2025. Counselling is Hard - Unpacking the Past

A vintage-style pen and ink illustration showing a therapy session between an Ellyllon (mischievous goblin-like creature with pointed ears) lounging on a chaise longue and a bespectacled sloth counsellor sitting in an armchair with notepad and pen - a humorous take on seeking professional help to manage chronic illness symptoms, with the irony that the therapist moves even slower than the patient.
Sloth Counselling AI generated by theaardvark using Nano Banana Pro

Counselling is bringing up a lot of things from my past that I thought I'd safely boxed away because the memories hurt too much. I need to get it out of my head, but I'm not sure I'll ever publish everything that comes up. When I started this blog, I wanted Wheely Happy Days to give me hope and clarity, but where there's light, there's also darkness, and honesty about that feels important.

The reality of trauma therapy: It's taken a while for Paul to help me work out how to express this in a journal. As stupid as it sounds, I can't do it alone. I've discovered voice-to-text, where I can speak my rambling thoughts and Paul helps me make sense of them. I can no longer handwrite; my typing is awful, and concentrating is exhausting. So it's been little by little, line by line, word by word.

What's surfaced: Marketing was my passion; I lived to work and loved it. My previous work life wasn't just about redundancy - there was workplace bullying, deception, and toxic behaviour that I'm only now processing correctly. Being made complicit in things that went against my moral compass. Financial stress that nearly broke our family. The loss of confidence in my professional abilities.

The connection: I'm starting to understand how that trauma contributed to my current health crisis. Stress doesn't just disappear when you think you've "moved on" - it lives in your body until you're forced to face it.

The anger: I'm angry. Properly, deeply angry about how I was treated, how others were treated, how it all ended. My counsellor says anger is part of processing trauma, but carrying it feels heavy. Some days it feels heavier than my wheelchair.

The hope: I'm working on forgiveness—not for them, but for myself. Because carrying this rage is stealing energy I need for healing. I want my "sparkle" back, as someone once told me never to lose.

Today's truth: Recovery isn't just about managing the symptoms of chronic illness. Sometimes it's about untangling the past trauma that helped create them.

This is messy and uncomfortable work, but it's necessary.

Sha x

#WheelyHappyDays #TraumaHealing #CounsellingJourney #ChronicIllnessRecovery #WorkplaceTrauma #HealingIsHard