Category: Therapy

The Seed Of Anger

I finished reading Anger by my Monk.  He said something that was a bit disheartening.  He said Anger never goes away, its always with you.  He used the image of a house having a livingroom and a basement.  When one is confronted with something that pisses us off it’s the same as watering the seed of anger in the basement and it grows into the livingroom.  When you allow someone to water your seed it just gets bigger, and bigger until your howl livingroom is consumed with the soul eating plant.  (The flower from Little Shop of Horrors comes to mind).  He instructs that we smile at it, breathe deeply in and then again out until you feel the anger return to a seed.  Through practice, meaning mindful walking and mindful breathing so the time spent with the anger in the livingroom is as short as possible.

The thing that gets me is the whole smiling at it.  What if I do that during the irksome têt et têt and I give my anger a smile, it would serve to piss off some people more.  I’m sort of looking forward to the opportunity to try it out though.

I realize I have a lot of work to do in regards to my Wounded Child.  I’ve purchased Homecoming by Bradshaw which is what Connie said I should read to work with my wounded child and then I got a new book from my Monk about how to be mindful in everyday life.  Kind of like the book I read about Holiness in Every Day Life.  Between those two I should be on my way to heal the wounded child and to practice Mindfulness in everyday life so the seeds of anger will never get past the stairs from the basement to the livingroom.  My livingroom is crowded enough with my characters and plots, I don’t need the anger to crowd them out again.

Stung Again!

There’s this fable or tale or anecdote out there about the frog and the scorpion.  The scorpion asks the frog to take him across the pond, and the frog responded:

F: No, you’ll sting me.

S: No I won’t.  If I did we’d both die.  That isn’t in my best interest.

F: Okay

So, the scorpion mounts the frogs back and the frog glides out into the dark green water when the scorpion stung him.

F: Why did you do that?  Now we’re both going to die.

S: It’s in my nature.

I’ve been working with Mom in trying to build a better relationship with her by letting her in, and it has been going well.  Until, the reason why I stopped sharing with her came back to me today like a ton of bricks being hurled at me one by one, each deftly hitting every tender spot on newly exposed heart, she used them against me.  SHE EVEN USED THE SAME WORDS THAT I TOLD HER I FELT WERE HURTFUL.

Yes, it hurt, and yes, it’s my fault.  I keep forgetting that just because I’m on a fast track right now, I’m trying to grow and heal she isn’t.  Her nature is to be a manipulative bitch and to open myself up to that will only mean that I will drown, whether or not she goes down with me.

Good thing I have therapy tomorrow, huh.

Bright Eyes and Bushy Tail

Went to see the Doctor the other day.  We were scheduled to discuss my meds to see if the latest cocktail was strong enough and working.  To my dismay the Lexapro has hit it’s maximum because I’m having problems with clenching my jaw, which is what drove me from Zoloft to begin with.  I’m still having episodes of anxiety when I’ve been poked at too many times until I have to keep from crying.

The trick in getting the meds right is to keep them high enough so I can function normally but not be completely numb to the emotional stimulus that I’m trying to reconnect with.    I want to get this part of my life behind me, I WANT TO BE BETTER.  I want to have a normal, okay maybe a high-gloss-normal life, but normal nonetheless.

Dr. W. did say something that has given me hope.  When I walked into his office I have a spring in my step and a light in my eyes that hasn’t been there before.  So, I am getting better, slowly but surely.

Facing my Fears

Let’s see if I can get this to post again….my computer ate my last post.  Little bastard!

When I left therapy on Thursday Connie challenged me with going to the gym three times and working in my rooms for a few hours.  The instant they were on my plate I was overwhelmed.  How weak is that?  Seriously, I must be the most frail person on earth.  Needless to say, they didn’t get done.  Tomorrow is the last day to do anything and I’ll try to get something done, but again, no promises.

I have my excuses, very good ones if you ask me.  For exercise, I’ve had gastrointestinal distress, not the normal IBS, but a flu like distress.  I have a standard rule that I need to curtail any and all possibilities of fouling my britches in public.  I’m just now getting over it and things are back to a some-what solid footing again.  Yea me.  Working in my rooms?, too tired and just not wanting to.  It doesn’t help that I’ve been plagued with the feeling ill and then the whole dumb-bunny move of not taking my pills.  I need to not do that any more.  I didn’t take it yesterday because I didn’t want to take them too close together, but I think that needs to be for-gone with because I don’t think it would do me any harm to have extra calm in my system.

I’m feeling the effects of not having my pills.  I hate that the anger returns to quickly when I go off them.  I know I don’t have a lot of lead way with these little white life savers, and so I push it anyway.  I’m irritated to be around Mom so much and I wish the sisters would be more supportive and take her off my hands from time to time, but as the closest unemployed person in the family, they feel it is the least I can do.  It just irks me that I’m stuck.

I need to get better about these things.  I can’t just hide behind my overwhelmed self forever, no matter how much I’d like to.  I want to re-enter my life and take it by the horns and drive it to my desires, not to the worlds whims.  The start of that is to take my therapy more seriously, to take my drugs regularly and to participate more in my life.  It’s so much easier to say, so much harder to do, but I need to make the strides necessary, no matter how hard and/or painful.  It won’t kill me, or so I keep telling myself, and luckily I’ve gotten to a point in my life when I realize I won’t kill me either.

I’ve stopped crying….

The last blog was written over a week ago. I ‘drafted’ it until I calmed down and then I forgot. I don’t cry, as a rule and I certainly don’t cry in public, it’s humiliating enough to blubber behind closed doors. The stress caused a massive IBS attack and, trust me, you don’t need details.

Therapy today is about taking control of the idea that you have no control and to step consciously into you fears. So, I have to exercise three times before next Tuesday and call my therapist and finish up my office and bedroom. Which are on my check-list.

I’ve been trying to figure out what it is I need to do to get from the I’m-back-on-my-feet-but-don’t-know-where-to-go-from-here? to the next step. But by small things can  all things come to pass. This week it’s eating three meals and taking my meds and BSL to employed and writing again and, dare I say it, even happy and at peace again. I’m not a coward, I know I’m not, but I am afraid of the moving forward part of this
process. Why? I dunno, maybe it’s because I’m afraid of making a giant fool of myself.  I’m afraid that everyone knows that I’m in the Void….again….and know that I can’t make ends meet no matter what I try….that people just won’t like me.

So, working out this week and finishing my rooms…..maybe roll out the yoga mat too.

Connie put up this interesting diagram today about fear, despair and anxiety and their
polar opposites…..

Negative-Positive

Fear – Trust

Anxiety – Peace

Despair – Hope

I have always believed that depression is a profound loss of Hope, peace is one of the fruits of the Spirit and trust is something I need to learn to have with Heavenly Father. I’m going to try the basic lessons I used to do on my mission. I’m going to give to the Lord what is His and trust He will help me get the money back to Cyndi for the rent. Sometimes walking in faith means you have to take the fist couple of steps without seeing where your foot will fall. And I’m talking about all faith, no “back-up” plan, no consequences for Him if He doesn’t come through the way I want Him to. I’m just going to trust that everything that happens will be for my benefit and good. Heaven help me!

I’m Normal Within My Deviance

How can the word ‘Normal’ evoke both pride and disappointment at the same time?  I’ve always wanted to be normal.  That my feelings, or lack there of, were normal.  That my life isn’t so way out of proportion as the rest of the world.  And still, I reveled in the idea that I wasn’t normal.  That my uniqueness gave me insight, gave me a position as a writer to have a better or different or novel way of looking at life that would be of value to my reader.  But I’m normal in my reactions or someone that has been raised by a narcissist (Mom) and the favored of one parent (Papa).  C was liked best by my Mom and I was liked best by my Dad, which left S to have to fend for herself a lot of the time being the quintessential middle child.  Totally not fair to her.

Lack of connection, lack of intimacy, lack of confidence are all hallmarks of the child of a narcissist. And as much as I don’t want to blame anyone, especially my  Mom in this journey, at this time, blame is the only oar in the boat.  Blame yes, fault no.  I don’t believe that Mom has any control over her self-projecting behavior any more than her mother and her mother’s mother before her.  The clay from which we are founded is colored by all the people before us, what we mold urselves into is completely our choice.  I have chosen to no longer be the lump that pleases my family, I want to be a classical-Renaissance-modern piece of work that inspires and inhabits the space she has been allotted in this life.  The purpose of therapy is to give me the tools to subtract the clay that has blocked the best form from emerging from the whole.  So, I’m normal.  It’s a good foundation to start my sculpting from.

The funny thing is, I’ve known this.  I’ve been told this by dear friends, that considering the family dynamics I’m normal, even better than because I’m aware of it.  But hearing it from someone who has studied and worked with other ‘Normal’s seems to make it that much more real, and solid.  Yea, we’re off on a good start.

First Therapy Appointment

Met with my therapist on Tuesday and have been trying to plow through my homework since.  Homework.  It still makes me cringe.  She sent me home with a book called….

Necessary Losses

The Loves, Illusions, Dependencies, and Impossible Expectations That All Of Us Have To Give Up In Order To Grow 

At first I thought she misunderstood why I was there: to prepare for the necessary and eventual loss of my aged mother.  I explained the family belief that my Mom, Dick Clark and cockroaches will be left when the world ends, and that nothing short of a semi-truck will bring her down.  But she corrected me and explained the idea that sometimes we have to let go of a lot, losses in order to gain so much more.  I was game to take on a new reading project.

Dr. L seems like a level-headed woman.  Though she’s not of my faith she seems to know what it means to a practitioner and is willing to work within those parameters.  She indicated there would be things in the book that don’t apply to me, and I should just skip over those.  She laughs at my jokes.  I deflect a lot and hide behind my rapier whit….okay, these days not that sharp….but she laughs at my jokes.  She wants to see me in a week and have the book read as well.  I can’t color and write in the book like I like to do so, despite my financial difficulties at present, I ordered it.  Mom is talking like she wants to read it too.  I’ll have to be a little cryptic in my margin notes. {sigh}

I’m still a little apprehensive about going to therapy.  The uncomfortable intimacy needed for healing is something I run from as a rule.  I felt my anxiety climb with each passing minute leading up to my appointment.  I tend to be a little bulimic about therapy.  I feel if I can vomit out everything as fast as humanly possible I can get to the end and be all better that much faster.  I have to keep reminding myself; there aren’t easy outs, there aren’t quick fixes, there’s no running this time.  I’m in it for the long haul.  I’m getting out of the void.