Counselling

I've asked for some.
At first I thought it was a sign of weakness, despite giving others the advice to get some but it has been along time now that I don't feel I am able to cope all the time.
When you ask, who am I? Not in a philosophical  way but in a, I don't recognise who I am sometimes and I don't know if I like myself, then it's time to admit that with the best family and friends in the world, maybe you need a bit of extra support.
I don't feel like that often and I've had a few days of late where I feel quite positive, right now in fact I feel happy and well.
Well... as happy and as well as I am capable of with all the waiting.
I'm not sleeping and I haven't done for a long time.

I can go to sleep now, for a while, when I had the cancer I used to stay up late (for me) watch TV and have a couple drinks so that I would sleep.  A friend gave me some lavender spray to try instead. She was worried, as was I. I stopped using TV and drink to lull me to sleep.
I still wake up, wide awake at 3 or 4 or 5 sometimes all 3. Wide awake with a head full of everything and nothing. I've tried various suggestions, counting back from 500, naming things with each letter of the alphabet, remembering mundane lists of facts, doing my timetables (mine you note) and running happy memories over and over.
They help to distract me but sometimes the various emotions just hang on and I toss and turn, get irritated with my husband for breathing, snoring, moving and being asleep.

Sometimes I go and sleep in the spare room. I refuse to get up before 5:30 as that would be giving in.


I went to my GP and made it clear, I don't want to be on anti depressants and I don't want sleeping pills. I want to have a private space to vent and cry and say some of the things I can't even say on here. Can't even write in my diary and it isn't all VHL. It's other stuff because my life isn't all VHL. Despite feeling like it right now.

I am capable of being a very happy person. I'm known for it... I am just full of self doubt and at times loathing and I want to make sure that full feeling gets a bit more balanced,

Yesterday a colleague and potential friend came over and she has had that kind of support and said it was the best thing she ever did.

I've had it before, not long after my brother died. I learnt that I was desperate for a boyfriend! My counsellor cried, I didn't. I just told her my life story, it was already longish.

I've since learnt that VHL has given me a sense of never wanting to need anyone. Do you thnk that is ok? I've said it often enough, I can get over anything. (I've changed my mind on that, if anything happened to my little girl I'm not sure I would be able to)
Do I get over it or just push it down with all the other repressed emotions?

Who knows. I suspect that's what I'll see if I can find out and well, if it all starts to flood out then I might be happy with me again.

I currently feel like a fraud.

Complex aren't we, humans.