And how did that make you feel?

I've have problems with anxiety, and with depression. As a result, these are the counsellors I have known.

1. Counsellor at the Doctors when I was at school.

I don't remember her name. I went to see her after my parents split up and I wasn't seeing my Dad. And again when I was about 16 and my Mum started seeing K. I don't remember much about her, she was oldish, greying. She would often say the classic 'and how did that make you feel'? She used to tape all our sessions, I don't remember why. My mum used to see her too and I would wonder if she would compare our perspectives on the same issue.

2. Stress Management guy

Also known as Mike. He lived in the village, and was a private stress management guy, using hypnotherapy and all sorts. My mum paid for me to have a couple of sessions with him, the summer after my second year of uni, when I was having all the panic attacks. He's a nice guy but it was weird that I knew him, and it made me tense that it cost so much, which almost defeated the point. He said I used negative images to motivate myself ('the fear') and that I should picture myself passing the exams and being happy to motivate my work. He made me a tape to listen to when I went back to uni.

3. University counsellor.

I got to see a regular counsellor through the uni service in my third year, after all the craziness. He was a bit strange, when I arrived and sat down, he would look at me and then just gesture for me to start talking, without asking me anything. I could totally picture him as like a sex therapist or something, or something Freudian. I liked him though, I think.

4. Mental health nurse

When I was still feeling anxious and stuff, after I graduated and was living at home, the GP referred me to this nurse who put me in on a cognitive behaviour therapy group course. That was weird. I don't really see how it could have worked, no one was really able to say much, because we didn't have long in each session and there were about 10 of us. No time to find out really why people got anxious. I remember, in the last session, we had to say what we learnt. I felt like I hadn't learnt much. This one girl then said she was feeling a bit better because she was considering visiting another town, and she had been feeling too anxious to leave her home town for months. It was like, woah, because that had never come up when she'd talked in the group. The nurse looked a little taken aback and asked her to stay behind. I'm sensing she was going to need more than that course.

5. Counsellor at the Kilburn doctors.

I asked to be referred to her when I was feeling really anxious again, about a year after I moved to London. It was after R broke up with me, we slept together a few times and i became convinced that because we weren't always careful that he would have given me some awful STD. He didn't, but I drove myself crazy with anxiety over it.
I saw her 3 or maybe 4 times, about a month apart each time, and the sessions were only for 30 minutes. That was weird, because it felt like as soon as the session started, it was over. She wanted me to join a club, or a course or something, because I was so lonely in London. Then she went off sick, my appointments were cancelled and I never saw her again.

6. My current counsellor.

I think I like her the best. She seems smart, and she's the first one to have a little joke with me. Only her, and the counsellor from uni, have been interested in getting to the bottom of why i feel the way I do, and work out a way for me to feel better. I feel the most hopeful about her.