Hi!
I'm not sure this is the right place for my post but hopefully somebody can help
I have been suffering anxiety/depression related issues for about four years with no help. Today I finally went to my GP about anxiety and she told me to self-refer to my local community services for a course of CBT, and then go back afterwards to discuss if I need beta blockers or antidepressants.
I have two questions for anyone who has done a similar route to me; firstly, my doctor asked me if I was depressed and I said 'I don't think so, I don't know' and we left it at that. However, looking at the questionnaire I have to complete before my telephone assessment with the community services, depression questions are included and tbh I want to answer it honestly. Doing this will mean answering 'most days/lots of days' to a lot of the depression criteria. How would this link with the service? Do they assess you and diagnose or is it just assessing for the purposes of what treatment you need?
Secondly, do you have much say in your CBT? My GP said it would be either one on one or a group session, and either 6, 9 or 10 sessions. My main anxiety comes from situations involving strangers, situations where I don't know who will be there or if I will not know anybody there, etc. Would I be reasonable in requesting one on one sessions at least at first? I really don't think I would be comfortable or able to attend group sessions and I really want to get this sorted, it ruined my first and second year uni grades and now I've graduated it's stopping me from taking part in all of the courses my employer wants to put me on. But, due to the nature of WHY I am going for this treatment, I really don't want to do a group session
Any thoughts or experiences of others would be really helpful and hopefully calm me down a bit!