Counting down the days……..

It’s a month to the day until I expect to be qualifying as a psychotherapist/counsellor and can open AMJ Counselling for business.

My new counselling room has arrived…….painting and furnishing to follow.

It is a far cry from the start of this journey: from a hospital bed in Epsom and St Hellier NHS Trust in December 2014 to being stood this week in my garden in Southport, taking delivery of an office cabin (not a David Cameron-esque shepherd's hut I hasten to add!) at the start of an exciting, humbling new chapter in my life. 

I had no idea back seven and a half years ago that the pneumonia that led to my hospitalisation was the beginning of my breakdown and to a radical rethinking of my life, work-life balance and future, which would force me to question everything I was doing and who I had become.

I had no idea that the road I was on at that time wasn't heading to the long-planned destination of career success and a life as a partner in a big corporate organisation, but instead was leading me into an emotional dead-end. 

With the benefit of many, many hours of therapy (which continue to this day), I now understand that my breakdown was in the post: written, addressed and sent long before I took on that last big corporate job (at PwC) that stretched my emotional elastic band beyond breaking point. I know now that I have lived - and continue to live - with anxiety and depression most of my life, influenced by so many experiences and feelings from across my life which have very little, if anything, to do with work or my career. 

I know too that the combination of my anxiety and depression alongside the corporate cultures I worked within and the choices I made about my lifestyle (too much work, too many hours attached to my emails and phone calls, too little time for me and my health, no attention being paid to battery recharging and living for the here and now and not planning my days and life away) was a toxic mix.

I know now too that without the support and love of my wife, Aileen, I may not be here today to write this blog.

The journey of realising all of this and then trying to reset my life to redefine what success meant to me and how I could live a happy and fulfilling life on my own terms - with me and my family at the centre , not my work and the constant need to be busy - has been long and challenging but it has led me to transform how I work, what I do and why I do it. It has led me to take my lived experience and my passion for people and mental health to train as a psychotherapist/counsellor and to set up my new private practice to kick-in at the point I qualify - which looks like being just 30 days away.

I have completed my 100 client hours on placement and submitted all of the essays, assignments and paperwork required of my university masters course to qualify - I am just waiting for the final assignment to be marked. I have a website. I have business cards. I now have a place to practice - the aforementioned garden office, which arrived last week. I also have an excitement and a drive to get started, after the profound experience of working with real clients over the last eight months, which has been the most rewarding of my professional life. 

In a month's time, I will mark that long journey from my hospital bed to my counselling room with a great sense of gratitude: grateful for the opportunity it afforded me - despite the many downs - to reset my life and to open a new chapter, and grateful for the chance to take my lived experience and my training to try to help others.

I cannot wait to get started.