![](\"https:\/\/drben.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/hand.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
In 2009 I was referred for counselling. Nothing that other people saw as major or extreme had happened. There were a build up of stressors. Work had changed considerably & was causing a lot of people in my office on-gong stress. There wasn\u2019t any support for staff, we just had to deal with it. At the end of 2008, my home was hit by a flash flood, we lost our cars & a lot of things, but we didn\u2019t lose everything. I had two days off work. We had to move house. When I got back to work I was told I could only claim one of my days off as \u201cspecial\u201d leave due to the flood.<\/p>\n
That was roughly it. I wasn\u2019t asked if I needed more time to deal with the aftermath. So,we kept going to work & coming home to piles of the things we\u2019d hurredly moved & piles of things we could clean to save. That was 2 months of go to work, come home, clean. Nothing else.<\/p>\n
Then, in early 2009, I learned of an aborted suicide attempt of a close, family member. He lives interstate, so I couldn\u2019t just drop round & he was withdrawing so he wouldn\u2019t answer my calls or emails. It was a huge emotional drain. The fatigue from the work situation & the post-flood cleaning had left me vulnerable & meant my relative\u2019s near suicide hit me hard. That was enough to push my stress levels to the point that I was getting anxiety at work. I\u2019d sit at my desk trying not to cry or feeling like I wanted to just scream, which stressed me out more. Trying to appear \u201cnormal\u201d when internally I was struggling was hard. I kept that up for a couple of months until the chest pains got bad enough that I went to my GP. He immediately recommended 2wks leave from work & gave me a referal to a counsellor. Work also insisted I get a health assessment. She agreed with my GP & approved the assistance my counsellor was providing.<\/p>\n
I used the 12 sessions normally covered & my GP approved an extra 6. I consider myself a fairly normal person. The combination & timing of events in my life caused me to need 18 sessions. If I hadn\u2019t had them, who knows how much time I may have had off work (I had 2wks & a 1mth graduated return to work). I had accrued 3mths of sick leave. If I didn\u2019t get the assistance I needed, I might have had to take the entire 3mths off work. My GP & both counsellors were concerned about the heart pain I was experiencing.<\/p>\n
There could have been serious, physical consequences without the psychological support I received. Who knows what the cost could have been? To me, my family, society? If this is how life can affect a pretty \u201caverage\u201d person, how can we even think of reducing the help available for people with serious psychological issues? Any person at any time can find themselves in need of help. How can anyone decide, without knowing the situation or the person, how much help that person needs? There\u2019s a \u201cnormal\u201d range of healing times for physical problems \u2013 a broken leg can take 6wks to 6mths to heal depending on the type of break, it\u2019s location, the age & health of the person, etc, etc. At each stage of healing the Dr will check that healing is progressing as expected, if not, the treatment\/support is continued.<\/p>\n
How can we treat psychological health less seriously? How can we say any person, regardless of their situation & impacting factors, will be all better in 10 sessions? Or that, if you\u2019re not better in 10 sessions, sorry, you\u2019re on your own?<\/p>\n
Oppose the cuts to psychological treatment by signing our petition<\/a> or writing to a politician<\/a>. You can also share your story<\/a> on our website or express your point of view in a short video clip. Every voice makes a difference!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In 2009 I was referred for counselling. Nothing that other people saw as major or extreme had happened. There were a build up of stressors. Work had changed considerably & was causing a lot of people in my office on-gong stress. There wasn\u2019t any support for staff, we just had to deal with it. At […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":347,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-personal-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drben.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drben.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drben.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drben.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drben.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/drben.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drben.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drben.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drben.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drben.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}