So, I Called a Therapist and Here’s What Happened Next

I pulled into the car park of a rural country pub and phoned the therapist. My friend had given me the number over a week ago. Not the most conventional place to start therapy, but hey, desperate measures look different for everyone.

A friendly consultant answered almost immediately. I explained the reason for my call, and then she left me on hold for a few minutes whilst she went to collect a form.

The standard questions first—name, age, profession.

Then the one that, bizarrely, I wasn’t prepared for:

'So, why are you looking to start therapy?'

I scrambled, Hmmm…' I stared at a crow that picked at a disposable coffee cup, 'I think I’m just struggling with my mental health a bit… if that makes sense?' She let the silence hang, so I filled it, 'like, I’m not in crisis or anything… but I’m definitely orbiting that planet, you get me?'

She assured me she got me, but I imagined her scribbling "Patient is absolutely crisis" on the paper in front of her.

Once I hung up, I shoved it to the back of my mind. Work had picked up, and I was planning shoots to remote Hebridean islands, hiking up the Cairngorms for interviews on the side of mountains and trying to figure out the best place to film beavers. Basically keeping myself too busy to dwell on what I’d just signed up for.

A week later though, mid-shoot prep, I got a text. My therapist had been assigned, and I was invited in for my first session.

The clinic was nestled amongst a row of grand old Georgian buildings. The original boot scrapers were still outside the front door. The entire row would have once been privately owned by prominent members of Glasgow's elite but was now home to a mix of law firms and accountant offices. I could hear the roar of the motorway and heavily engineered traffic systems that never seemed to enable the cars to do the one thing they were designed to do - flow.

I pushed open the heavy glass door and the receptionist greeted me from her desk like an old friend. The door thudded behind me as I took in the dark wood panelling and black-and-white tiled floors. It had the air of an old-school gentlemen’s club—except for the plastic purple orchid perched on the receptionist’s desk, the only pop of colour in the room. I appreciated her attempt to bring some cheer to the place that was dedicated to improving people's moods. She offered me a cup of water from the dispenser, which I took before sinking into the well-worn dark brown leather sofa.

I pulled out my phone and flicked to the page I'd been looking at last night. I Googled my therapist before the session (obviously). Her bio read:

"I specialise in helping women increase their confidence, using cognitive behavioural therapy to overcome any blocks that may be preventing that."

No idea what any of that meant, but I was keen to increase my confidence again, so I figured I was in safe hands.

A few minutes later, she appeared at the top of a set of stairs to collect me. She was about five years older than the photograph attached to her biography suggested her to be. She had a friendly but firm face—business-like, but not cold. Exactly what I wanted.

I didn't want to be friends with my therapist. She was there to be a professional support system, not someone I wanted to text for a catch-up or go for a glass of wine with.

After brief introductions, she led the way down the spiral staircase that, once upon a time, would have taken us into the sweltering kitchens and wine-stocked cellars of this grand house. We made small talk about the weather (unseasonably warm, we both agreed) and passed through the labyrinth of corridors and closed doors. I noticed some were marked Session in Progress. Then we arrived at our tiny room with two blue chairs facing each other. Heat blasted from the radiator and a blank whiteboard hung on the wall. A low white table held an ominous box of tissues. A small rectangular window was fixed close to the wall's ceiling, and a small clock ticked away beside it. I noticed a pair of shoes walk past on the street we were now below. I took a seat in the chair she gestured towards —my back to the clock, so she could keep an eye on the time.

The details of this setup would become so familiar that, for the next year and a half, I could have walked down the stairs and into that room blindfolded and still found my seat.

She lifted a clipboard from her chair and sat down.

We spoke about the structure of each session—how our time together would last a therapeutic hour (50 minutes) and that she specialised in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). CBT is essentially a way to retrain your brain. It helps you spot unhelpful thoughts, challenge them, and replace them with more balanced ones.

Think of it like this: your thoughts are like a path through a forest. If you've been walking the same self-critical, unhelpful route for years, as I had, it becomes well-trodden—an automatic response. That’s why I felt trapped in the way I was feeling. But CBT helps you carve out a new path—a healthier, more constructive way of thinking—until that becomes your brain’s natural route instead.

Then came a questionnaire.

She asked me to rate different statements from "not at all" to "most of the time".

Things like:

"Over the last week, I have had trouble getting to sleep and staying asleep."

"Over the last week, I’ve felt tense, anxious, or nervous."

My responses to these questions formed the basis of our chat. For example, if I responded that I'd felt anxious, we'd look into that more.

And that was it. Each session always started the same way - small talk on the stairs, the blue chair, the questionnaire and then the 50-minute deep dive into my brain.

There was something about the predictable structure of our sessions that I came to find comforting.  Something helpful too - therapists will try to get you in at the same time every week, or however often you choose to see them, to build a consistent routine. Having that regularity in your life, especially during times when things might feel a bit all over the place, can be a key part of anchoring you into the healing process.

That session was the first of many more to come. I had no idea what lay ahead—how much I’d have to unravel, how much harder things would get before they got better.

But ever since that first session, I knew—with absolute certainty—that for the first time since leaving Bristol, I was exactly where I was supposed to be.