Hi

I went to the cousellor's yesterday and she tried an imagery technique on me. I dont normally believe in things like this but I'll give anything a go. Whilst it didnt sort me out (still so far to go) it really did make me feel a bit better about myself. I felt so relieved afterwards. Havent felt that relieved in goodness knows how long.

She told me to imagine my trauma as a stain, a sticky stain on my body. So I imagined it as black tar. She talked through what happened during the trauma and told me to think about each thing that happened. This was very upsetting to say the least.

Then she told me to imagine myself peeling the tar stain out of my body and roll it up into a ball. I was still very doubtful that this would help and just thought "Well, I'll play along". Then I had to put it on a bonfire and light the fire. The tar then melted and eventually melted and burnt until all that was left was ashes. That took a long time and I just thought "This is never going to work or burn so we'll just move on". I burried the ashes deep in the ground, in the centre of the earth.

Then she asked me to imagine that I was feeling better, more light hearted (I struggled with this bit and thought "Like its that easy") and that I was running through a beautiful meadow with the birds singing and the sunshine bright on my face.

She said to look at myself and see what a lighter and better person I was now - again this didnt work. So I imagined an angel and that the angel came and sat on me and became part of me. That really did help. It actually felt like I did have some good in me. I'm not saying that I think I'm an angel or anything, far from it, just that i can see a bit more of the goodness inside of me. Up untill now I have only seen badness in me.

Whilst I know that this sounds like complete mumbo jumbo it did help. Keep an open mind and you can be very surprised. I was and I'm going to try it again and again and again. The more I try it the better my self image should get.