Transcript
Intro: Welcome to A Bunch of Therapists, the podcast that goes behind the doors of the therapy room. Our guests will be sharing their experiences of counselling and psychotherapy, and all the lessons they’ve learned on the journey through life. This episode is hosted by Dipti Solanki and me, Michaela McCarthy. Our guest this week is Seda Albay.
Dipti Solanki: Welcome Seda, it’s really good to meet you and thanks for being part of this conversation today. So what we’d really like to start with is what brought you to the world of therapy?
Seda Albay: I think for me it started off at a very young age. I have always been known in my family as someone who’s very good at listening, someone who’s the one that people go to. And I think for me when it started, I was very unsure what to do. And one day one of my cousins said to me, why don’t you look into psychology? Because you’re very good at listening.
You’re very good at being there for people. And I think that’s when I realised that. I think before that, I hadn’t really thought about that for myself in terms of that being something I’m good at at all. So that was a kind of light bulb moment for me.
And from there it started, I would say, in terms of thinking in more detail about that, what that might look like for me. But deeper down, I think, it’s the listening side of me, probably is very much related to having to listen to myself very much. I think I didn’t talk about my own issues. I was going through a lot of struggles growing up, secondary school mainly, primary school was not so bad, but secondary school was where I felt a lot of difficulty in being heard, I would say. I had difficulties at school being bullied and…
Michaela McCarthy: How long did the bullying… just out of interest go on for?
Seda Albay: About four years.
Michaela McCarthy: That’s a long time.
Seda Albay: And so I found myself very much going inwards into my shell and running away from people at school can you imagine I just used to if I saw someone that I thought and was kind of categorised as one of my bullies, I would move towards, or I would hide until they went and I wouldn’t go by them at all. So, it kind of grew in that way. No one really noticed it at school. I don’t know if they did notice it, or didn’t say anything, in terms of teachers. No one ever brought it up to me or spoke to me about it. And what I did was I just internalised and just tried to deal with it on my own. At home, I think my family were very hard working and so they were just working all the time.
My dad, I don’t have a lot of memories of my dad in terms of you know doing things for my dad because he was always working. He was you know out looking for things to do and looking for more opportunities. My mum was also working, so it was very much like my dad would go out find a work, my mum would do kind of the work that needed to be done, there work, and so it was very much we grew up right and they were there, there was a lot of love which I’m very grateful for and they did the best they could. So, their way of supporting us and their best way was by earning money and giving us good education because they didn’t know how else to do that they couldn’t help us with our homework so they had tutors for us to help us.
Michaela McCarthy: Okay, so a more practical type of love.
Seda Albay: Yeah.
Dipti Solanki: And just for context, so what is your heritage?
Seda Albay: I’m Turkish.
Dipti Solanki: Okay, so am I right in thinking that the family were immigrants to the UK then?
Seda Albay: Yes, exactly. So…
Dipti Solanki: So that’s very typical of a lot of immigrant families where, you know, imagine going to a new place and having to set up home and find work and things and that that impacted and obviously they did that because for so the family could thrive but that had a knock-on impact on how emotionally available they were able to be for you.
Seda Albay: Yes, yes I would say so it was very survival I think for them and coming from nothing.
Dipti Solanki: And for you as well, it sounds like.
Seda Albay: I think it became that. From coming from, I guess, nothing for them, to trying to survive and give us what they thought was best and what they thought would be best was education, they thought. And so that’s what they worked towards. And within that, yes, I think through their own stresses, through trying to get to that, not being able to go on holiday, for example, because they were trying to do that for us. They obviously went through that, and so missed other bits that they didn’t notice. Maybe they still don’t notice to this day.
Michaela McCarthy: So can I ask, so when you were younger at school you said the bullying wasn’t so, whether it happened or not, but were you more outgoing and more, did you speak more than, did you just sort of go much more implode when the bullying started? Was there a difference in your personality?
Seda Albay: Yes. Primary school I think I was much more outgoing. I had a big friendship group. I had lots of friendships then. I didn’t struggle much at all there. And then secondary school. So, my friends all went to, most of them went to the same school. And I went to a different school, so I was on my own, I didn’t move with any of my friends. And at the time, I think I went through, I don’t remember exactly how it all started, if I’m honest, but I just remember being very inwards, and I think that inwardness just went, it became more and more, I became more and more quiet as time went on. I stopped, I didn’t talk much really, I don’t think I talked much with people around me at school.
Michaela McCarthy: So would you spend a lot of time at home?
Seda Albay: No, to be fair, I didn’t, I kept going to school, I didn’t want to go to school. To the point where actually, this is quite interesting when I think back to it, my cousin was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease. I was, I think 11 or coming towards 12. And back then, I remember my mum saying, oh, she’s in hospitalised, you know, she’s gonna have to go through certain things, she can’t go to school, anything like that. I remember so clearly thinking, ‘Oh, I wish I had some sort of similar illness so that I don’t have to go to school’. And lo and behold, a few months later, I actually got colitis, a similar disease.
Dipti Solanki: So interesting, isn’t it?
Seda Albay: It’s really odd now when I think back about it.
Michaela McCarthy: And so what happened then when you got this? How were your family? Were they different because it was physical?
Seda Albay: Yeah, well, it was a really bad time, I think. They were very worried. Very worried. But I don’t know. How were they different? I don’t think they were different as such. I think the feeling side of things didn’t really come up very much, if I’m honest. I think it was very much assumed, like, I would come from school, and I wouldn’t talk. And my mom might say, ‘How was school? How, what did you do today?’ and the normal things that a mom might ask or my dad. And I would just not want to say anything. I just want to ignore, I don’t want to talk. I’ll just be like, yeah, or, you know, just not really respond in any way. I guess, and when I look back at it, I’m trying to, you know, I was showing in some ways, but they wouldn’t notice that. They would see it as, because of their own experiences, of course, and not to blame them in any way, they saw that as disrespectful, of, you know, we’re trying so hard, we’re doing all of this for you. And, you know, we’re not doing this, we’re not going on holidays and you can’t even respond to a question, kind of thing. And I think that just would always take me a bit more back and want to not talk at all.
Dipti Solanki: Such a disconnect on both sides, right?
Seda Albay: Yeah.
Michaela McCarthy: But what about when they found out with the colitis, did they say, oh, that’s what’s wrong, or it gave them a focus?
Seda Albay: What happened to the colitis was one day, I didn’t even get really ill. I was just at school one day, and I’d lost a bit of weight, but at school I just felt so dizzy. And again, I didn’t tell anyone, I didn’t tell any of my teachers, I didn’t say anything.
I remember one of my school friends said to me, you look really pale, are you okay? I said, ‘I’m fine’, I just carried on. But the whole day I felt a bit dizzy. I remember being at IT and the screen, I just saw like double. And I just waited until the end of the day. And my mum came to pick me up that day and I said, I just don’t feel very well. And she took me straight into hospital that day. And that was it, I was taken in. And I stayed there for some months, I think three, four months.
Michaela McCarthy: So what was it like after you went back to school then when you’d been physically unwell?
Seda Albay: Yeah, it was really interesting. The bullying, had it stopped? Yeah, it decreased. I’d put on a lot of weight at that point so I was very slim growing up, I was just very slim always. And then when I got the illness, I was losing a lot of weight quite quickly after that. So they had to give me steroids. And also milkshakes and things so that I could get something in my stomach. And what happened with that, I just then put on a lot of weight. So when I got back, I went back to school months after that. I think, yeah, in the new year I think it was, as in the academic year. And I had nothing, in terms of they didn’t send me anything, no academic homework, nothing. I didn’t do anything for months. So I fell back behind quite a bit, which was quite difficult for me at the time. But I just remember it being people just being, oh where have you been? And a bit more interested in me. And that’s what I remember of it in terms of, oh people seem to be a bit more, I don’t know if nice is the right word to use.
Michaela McCarthy: So did you tell them then?
Seda Albay: No, I don’t think I did. Oh maybe I did. I don’t really fully remember. I feel like I’ve erased some parts of it But I remember my year not being too bad. My year group not being that too much of the problem. It was more the older – I think the year above me and the year above them were the ones that were a bit more troublesome for me And by time I’d gone back to, I think it was their final year. So it was getting a bit better at that point.
Michaela McCarthy: And so how would you say it’s affected you in your life, being bullied as a child?
Seda Albay: I think I’ve taken, in terms of being able to, like I said, that whole just getting on with things is something that has stayed with me. I still to now, at this day, I notice myself and I notice myself trying to deal with things on my own. Only when someone tells me something, I’m like, ‘Oh, that’s what I’m doing, right?’
Dipti Solanki: It doesn’t even occur to you to ask anyone for help. Yes.
Seda Albay: Or when there’s an issue, I won’t just say it and it obviously becomes a bit of a communication problem in relationships because you need to talk if there’s an issue and if you’re not happy with something you need to say it. But I find myself going inwards, very inwards, and having to just hold that. And when I notice it, when I’m told mostly,and when I notice it, that’s when I then look into it and reflect and try to move on from it. But I still do to this day, even though it’s really lessened after therapy. I think I really notice certain things about myself, of course things I did in the past as a child. So what did you learn from therapy when you went in?
Michaela McCarthy: What was it like for you to talk about yourself because that’s what therapy is about too.
Seda Albay: Yeah I loved it I think when I first started I think there was a bit of I loved being able to talk about myself I really enjoyed that part of it, for sure. But there was always also difficulty. I think going to the cultural side of, you know, not really opening yourself up in terms of your issues or what’s happening in your family mainly, to others as such, that was something I struggled with a little bit at first.
Dipti Solanki: Can you expand on that a little bit? Yeah. Yeah, for anyone listening as well, who may resonate or not understand that at all. Yeah, expand on that please, if you will.
Seda Albay: I think with, you know, you have, I live, or I had a family with two mums and two dads, right? So saying that sounds funny, but basically my uncle and my auntie are married. So my auntie, my mum’s sister, older sister, my dad’s older brother, married. They never had children. They always, we had a life together always, basically. They always lived with us and they always worked together. So they were a team of four. And we called them mum and dad always, together, so they were a team of four. And we called them mum and dad always, as well.
So I’ve always known them as mum and dad and I wouldn’t want to, even when people say differently, or they say, ‘How’s your uncle?’ I’ll get annoyed by that. But because of that, I think, my mum, both my mums have always been like a team. They’ve always been very close. And obviously you have problems, you have issues growing up, especially with my mum, biological mum. I’ve always, we had a bit of a rocky relationship when I was younger, probably because of what I was going through, what she was going through herself as well. And so I think for me, when I went to therapy I found, it’s the whole protection thing I felt a bit like ‘Oh I can’t really say that because it might look like I’m saying something bad about my mum’.
Michaela McCarthy: That happens at the beginning of therapy so being a therapist you’ve got to allow people to start feeling comfortable talking about themselves and then eventually they start saying a little bit about their parents or whoever they brought them up and I say you know you reassure it’s not a criticism it’s your experience and it’s okay to talk about that you know.
Seda Albay: That’s it, I think at first I just found that very difficult and with my therapist’s help I found I could slowly just allow myself to explore.
Michaela McCarthy: And so with therapy, coming back to your therapy, so would you say you kind of healed a bit or that you opened up a bit more or?
Seda Albay: Yeah, for sure. I think after therapy and after university as well, I think the university had a big impact on me and therapy had a big impact on me. University in terms of just being able to, I think I found myself a bit more, who I really truly am a bit more at university, with people I was around and just being able to be much more independent in terms of where I can go what I can do. And I think my friendships too, they really helped me, my friendships. I found the people that opened me up. I think it was acceptance. I felt accepted within my friendship group and so I was just able to really open up for the first time with someone without feeling like, ‘Oh, do I say this?’ Because I used to feel like that a lot. ‘Do I say this?’ Well I used to feel like that a lot. ‘Do I say this? Will they use this against me? Should I be saying this? Should I not?’ And there was shame as well, I think. I think shame is something…
Michaela McCarthy: Shame that you were bullied or shame for who you are?
Seda Albay: Shame that I was bullied, I think. I think it was that. But yeah, I think my friendships helped me at university and their therapy supported that as well. And me really being able to open up more about who I was, who I truly was, I think.
And at first I actually found it quite difficult. I think I reacted in a really, when I think back to it again, I reacted in a certain way with my friendships. I think I was scared when I think about it now. I was opening up, but I was also scared. So I was quite angry. I think I was showing whatever I was showing in a very angry way at the time. And so for a while at university I was very angry. And my best friend, who’s still my best friend, we talk about it now and she says, do you remember how angry you used to get at certain things?
Michaela McCarthy: Do you know why you were so angry?
Seda Albay: I think what had happened in my life beforehand was coming out in this safe space with my friends because it hadn’t been able to come out before. And it was coming out in this safe space with my friends because they hadn’t been able to come out before.
Dipti Solanki: It must be a defence mechanism. There are so many interesting themes that are coming out while you’re speaking but this one thing that keeps coming back up again is shame. Now, shame can be embedded in us, within us, around us for so many different reasons. Talk to me about shame in this experience.
Seda Albay: I think when I think about it I felt there was something about me that was either wrong, what was it, why was I being picked on? And I think that was the point that I felt shame about because no one else around me was, but I was. So there must have been something wrong with me. I must have been… done something wrong, whatever it was, but it was me. There was something about me. And that’s I think the message I kind of held on to. And I think the more I think about it, the more I talk about it, I think it was a lot to do with that why I didn’t talk about it as well.
Dipti Solanki: So I imagine people in situations like yourselves, it would be quite a lonely place as well.
Seda Albay: Oh, very. I think my self-soothing thing was, and it’s something that I did that I didn’t realise again after I started therapy, I realised that’s what I was doing. One thing was, I used to talk to myself. I used to sit in my room. I used to, as if I would have a conversation.
So this is what’s happened, okay, ‘So what would you say to that person? Or I would literally kind of have that bit of a…
Michaela Mccarthy: So you’re having a dialogue? Yeah, with myself. And I would soothe myself in that way. Or I might say, ‘Okay, that’s happened, you feel this way, and I’ll try to support myself because that’s just what would be really helpful to me. Or it might be the absolute opposite of if I’m angry with someone, or someone’s really upset me, as if it’s that person, I would say just everything I want to say in that moment. Let it out, externalise what I needed to externalise. I think that really helped me through a lot.
Michaela McCarthy: And what about, say, young people, teenagers, or young adults now, adolescents, whatever you want to be called, if they’re listening to this, what would you say to them? You know, some people, as you say, they will go inwards and they won’t share because of the shame.
Seda Albay: Yeah, reach out, I would say. I think it’s very difficult, because some people don’t have anyone to reach out to. But they can get professional help, of course, in terms of having that space. I think for me, if I had the chance to go to therapy earlier on in life, that would have really helped me. To have some sort of space to be able to talk to someone. So I valued that so much. When I found out a bit more about therapy and being able to do this, that was something I was really amazed by and I really wanted to be able to be part of, because I didn’t have that. I didn’t, you know, my parents, I don’t think they really had the thing of, ‘Oh, let’s send her somewhere, she’s not talking to us, maybe she’ll talk to someone else’. So that for me would have been a great opportunity if I had that chance.
Dipti Solanki: I imagine that whole initial acceptance of I may be being bullied as well is something that you need to kind of confront before you even take any of those steps. You know, because sometimes people don’t recognise that that’s exactly what’s happening. Or they’re not able to accept it.
Michaela McCarthy: Yeah, they don’t realise, you know, because, you know, it’s almost sometimes severe cases, you know, they think, you know, it’s a phase, it’s a something, it’ll get better. But I wonder, for you, you know, what made you train then as a therapist?
Seda Albay: I think it was very much, so I did psychology. Yeah. And obviously that was quite different in terms of the undergrad. And then I sat with that for a bit after I graduated because I didn’t want to do that specifically. And so once I I started working in a special needs school. Really enjoyed that with the children and adolescents there.
But then one day I spoke to a peer from university and she told me about this and I went to the Open Day at Regents University.
Michaela McCarthy: Okay, so it was a therapy course
Seda Albay: That’s when I think I realised this was exactly what I wanted to do but I hadn’t really explored that. I hadn’t noticed what exactly it was. I really wanted that one-to-one being able to support, because I think for me, that’s what was missing in my childhood.
I think I noticed how this could have made a big difference to me. It could have helped me in struggling less later on in life, in you know college and other parts of my life as well with people, my relationships, with my mum, like even my parents and I think that’s what led me to really decide that this is exactly what I want to do, to support myself, but also be part of that for other people.
Michaela McCarthy: And so when clients come to see you, do you get quite a lot of clients that have experienced bullying?
Seda Albay: Yes. I think before I used to get a lot more, clients that experienced bullying, sorry. Now when I look at my clients, there’s been a real, I guess from my side, a connection with that, an understanding for that.
Michaela McCarthy: Is there a kind of similar thread to how they tell you? Do they implode? Do they feel shame not always sharing with people in their family or it could be even in adulthood they’ve experienced it?
Seda Albay: Yeah I think that’s – not sharing I think it’s is a theme in some way, going inwards and finding other ways. I think for me, like I said, it was TV and talking to myself and going through those emotions because there was no one or I didn’t feel I could talk to anyone else about it for whatever reasons, the shame and everything else. And for my clients, I’ve noticed other things, other coping mechanisms. They’ve found healthy, unhealthy ways of coping.
Michaela McCarthy: Can you give us an example?
Seda Albay: Drugs, alcohol. I think it’s the first thing that comes to my mind.
Michaela McCarthy: So it’s anything that soothes really. It’s a short term soothe, but it does the trick at the beginning. But it doesn’t actually heal the issue.
Seda Albay: Doesn’t heal it, no. So that’s one thing I’ve really noticed when I look at my own story and then my clients’ stories, similar stories in different ways. And yeah, not, I guess, having someone to talk to about it is maybe something that is in common with myself and their experiences.
Dipti Solanki: So, thank you for sharing all of that. many people listening to this will sadly be able to identify with some of it and hopefully it’s going to give people some empowerment to maybe go and speak to somebody or just watch out for a loved one, a friend who may be showing signs of not being themselves.
Michaela McCarthy: What would you be saying to a message out to the viewers and the listeners? What would you say to them? If they are struggling being bullied or they have been bullied or they have a family member or someone they know, what would be your message? Your real clear message to them?
Seda Albay: I would say speak about it. Say something to someone. Get support. There is help out there. There can be someone to support you. It might feel like there isn’t at that point, and it might feel very shameful, as we’ve talked about, to speak about it.
But you realise when you do speak about it that actually it’s okay and it’s not you, it’s nothing to do with you. And there is people that can help you out there so I think that for me is something I’ve taken away from my own experience as well.
Dipti Solanki: Thank you so much for coming on today, I’ve really loved our conversation and thank you for sharing so openly and vulnerably. Really appreciate it.
Outro: You’ve been listening to a bunch of therapists with me Michaela McCarthy and Dipti Solanki. f you enjoyed this episode please subscribe, rate and review. And don’t forget to follow us on our socials to keep up to date with all of our news.