What do you do when a man enters your session telling you he’s afraid he will end up killing himself. He was breaking down and didn’t know how to stop it.
So confused he came to me with a quest to save his relationship which was really dead for him and his partner.
This gentleman is a well known professional in his field and has been kind enough to share his words after a few weeks of us working together. He has asked for his words below to remain anonymous.
A 20 year relationship ended by my infidelity, and a breakdown which came seemingly out of nowhere when I ended the affair were the just the start of my problems.
I approached Stephen because I felt I had never given my long term relationship with the mother of my children a fair chance. I believed that my addictive reaction to my affair partner had doomed my attempts at rebuilding the relationship when it first fell apart.
During my first sessions with Stephen, events made me realize I had my perspective wrong. Stephen has been enormously helpful throughout – life-saving, I would say – and as our discussions have moved from a long-shot attempt to save a long-dead relationship, to how to deal with the severe emotional fall-out of mistakenly ending another relationship, Stephen has always been right on target with his perspective and his advice.
Most importantly, Stephen has the ability to shift my perspective, to correct my erroneous view of things and to help me to understand how the mind works, often in self-sabotaging and contradictory ways.
He has brought me in touch with reality, painful as that may be.
He has helped me to see that a desire to protect my family is understandable, but not necessarily the best guide to action. He has made me understand that I can only bring value to my children and wider family if I am happy and fulfilled, and that sacrificing my own happiness simply to try to be physically present at all times has been a terrible error, to everyone’s detriment.
The last few years have been troubled for me. After 40 solid, successful, and hopeful years of life, I have now hit rock bottom more than once. I have seen several psychiatrists, a slew of therapists, and have comparison-shopped at least ten marriage counsellors. At my worst moments, I have struggled with depression, rumination and suicidality. I’ve been medicated (to no avail) and hypnotized.
It’s no exaggeration to say Stephen Hedger has had by far the most profound effect on me of any professional I have consulted. He really is in a league of his own. I only wish I had discovered him sooner – he could have saved me untold anguish, years of wasted time and a lot of money wasted elsewhere.
