Recently a friend wrote this sentence in an email to me: "I used to be a HUGE oversharer before social media was a thing." I thought about social media. Lots of people just put up pictures of their vacations / parties / marriages / children at their finest moments and call it a day. I actually know of numerous people who have deactivated their Facebook accounts b/c the competition got to be too much. They feel like everyone else is saying, I have the best vacation, the best husband/wife, the best baby. With the implication of, and you don't. I got the feeling that this friend who emailed me feels like sharing their life, in all of its dimensions, is frowned upon.
I have a problem with the term "oversharing." Also, the word "needy." "Oversharing" assumes that no one wants to hear your personal stuff, that it's impolite or socially wrong to share your personal stuff, that we should all walk around projecting only positivity and the more shallower dimensions of our lives.
Everything looks shiny; no one allegedly has to feel anything except YAY YAY YAY.
When really, I think it's a continuum. At my old job, I sure as hell would not share personal things with certain people. Especially administration. Most jobs are like that. But I think it's okay to share things with people who are your friends or close colleagues. Because what the heck are friends for if you can't be there for each other during the positive *and* negative times?
My friends are some of the best people ever because they have listened empathetically to me and really been there for me, especially over the past year-and-some-months, when things happened with my mom. Or they have distracted me with wonderful things like coffee and Indian food and visits and children and simply the beauty of their presence. I never feel judged by them. And I in turn feel special and honored when they come to me with important emotional things. Like: wow, they trusted me enough to ask me to listen. I feel capable and strong when I can support them.
The word "needy"gets kicked around a lot, just like "over-sharing." "Needy" pathologizes the idea of interdependence. As a culture, we live under this delusion of self-sufficiency, like that's the ultimate thing to strive for. It's very American. Or United-States-ian, I should say. But when you dissect it, the idea of INdependence is fundamentally impossible unless you decide to become a hermit on top of a mountain. And then what happens if you break your leg or need to go into town for food?
Each in their various ways, my mom and dad raised me to believe that self-sufficiency was the ideal. In reality, they were not self-sufficient, but I was raised to believe that I should strive to be. I think they thought they were doing me a service. This created a schism in my thinking which still continues. On one hand, I feel the old emotional pull: do it yourself at all costs. Appear strong at all costs. If you can't, that's bad. Other people will take advantage of you OR You're weak. Incapable. Less-than-adequate.
On the other hand, I know my reality, and I try really hard not to judge myself for it. Ahem, I'm not saying I succeed in being nonjudgmental, but I try. Yeah, sometimes I need. Everybody needs. And sometimes I NEED. And everyone in their life goes through a period of that NEED too, whether they admit it or not.
I think about need, and sharing, and interdependence also as it applies to teaching. I think about it a LOT. When I went through teacher training in grad school (ages ago… yikes!) I was taught that students are people, that learning is collaborative (students learn from the teacher, students learn from each other, the teacher learns from the students), that each student will have a different learning style, that it's okay to be honest with your students when you don't know the answer, that it's okay to be vulnerable and to expect (and accept) your students' vulnerabilities.
Then… I taught at a certain place for awhile and it really made an impression on me. The culture was rather the opposite of the way I'd learned to teach. Not necessarily through word but through example, the ideal classroom was presented as: the teacher makes the rules, the students follow the rules, the students get punished if they don't follow the rules, each student is an information bucket into which you deposit key skills, and then they somehow translate those skills into a well- or poorly- written paper and then you grade them. Nobody needs to be feeling their feelings all over the place b/c there's no room for that in the syllabus.
I really tried to be that latter teacher and I did not do well being that teacher, and it burned me out. I had colleagues who taught at that place, and still do, who somehow managed to be a combination of the former teacher and the latter teacher. Or colleagues who were so untouchable (some concept called tenure of which I know not) that they could be the former teacher and the administration could go… fly a kite.
If anywhere I thought I could succeed as the former type of teacher, it would be in the teaching of writing. Whether you are writing poetry or a thesis-based argument, the idea of empathy is important. The ability to accept and not vilify emotions is important.
Now that I'm feeling a lot better, I'm going to start revising / submitting my own work again in January. I'm also thinking about teaching (as a concept), because I really miss it. But, especially given my geographic limitations, I don't know where the right place is for me, if any.
Tuesday, December 17, 2013
Monday, November 11, 2013
20 things : Positivity
So for those of you who read my blog and think that I've fallen into an abyss of morbid reflection... you may be right. However, DBT is all about the "and." Simultaneously acting on behalf of your recovery while accumulating and acknowledging positive experiences. I wanted to make this entry b/c I need you to know, and to remind myself as well, that there are positive things in my life. These are in no particular order.
1. I helped Mike re-jigger his office set-up in the apartment last weekend, which involved the purchasing of a desk, the disassembling of another desk. I felt... well... helpful and not burdensome. It was a really REALLY good feeling. And the new set-up, although it will not be complete until December, is already looking smashing. It unblocks some energy in the apartment, allowing for new openness and flow.
2. I've taken advantage of National Novel Writing Month to write a poem a day. The official NaPoWriMo isn't until April, but I wanted a project for November to push through my writer's block. In regards to beginning a draft, Stacey Waite said "writing ain't no thing." Because all my emotions have been so weighty lately, it's bled into my attitude about writing as well. Every possibility becomes too heavy, too important. When you write a poem a day, they just can't all be important. So far it's working out well. I'm eleven poems in.
3. Autumn: the colors, scents, tastes, sounds... except the sound of leaf blowers. Use a rake, dammit.
4. I lost a lot of weight and thus dropped some sizes. I went from a size 12 to a size 6 or 8. Probably I'll opt for 8 because I like things to not be too tight. I like jeans better now. So I bought myself some pairs of jeans. The losing weight did not make me happy or sad --I did not intend to lose the weight. But I'm trying to keep it off. The reason this qualifies for Positivity is the jeans. Jeans are nice sometimes.You can just put them on. I forgot. (for those of you who don't know me IRL, I wear dresses and skirts).
5. I've been making a lot of progress in my healing process. I don't really want to talk about it right now though. But I can notice the progress, which gives me hope for the future.
6. I've had the fleeting desire that it's time to consider making a plan to go back to teaching.
7. I like Thanksgiving and Christmas. And my birthday. They all take place in November and December. It's like bathing one's brain in mulled cider to make January and February go down more smoothly. Not saying it works 100%. But I'll deal with January when it happens.
8. Friends. They are good to me. I value them like family. I love them. I need them. They mean more to me than words can say.
9. Shutterdown <<< this is a friend's project. It's also the music of dream alchemy. You should click / listen / support.
10. I made soup for the first time this year. It's possible that I made soup for the first time in two years, because I may not have made soup at all last year. Now I have a lot of soup. Chicken soup anyone?
11. The art community at Polyvore. This site may look commercial and material on the outside but once you peel back the layers you find many amazing sub-communities of collage artists.It's not actually all about clothes.
12. Our apartment keeps getting cuter as we make improvements to its layout and decor. I'm tentatively planning a crepe party for my birthday. Like, I make crepes and everyone brings a topping and then there's a lot of eating and celebration.
13. It's a year since I started IOP and I can notice how much better I am. I'm listing this one separately from #5. [It's my blog and I can list stuff how I want to.] It's just that... at the time, I didn't / couldn't see ANY way that my life could get better. It was all raw emotion. There are still days when I take life in hourly chunks. Sometimes minute-ly chunks. But that is okay.
14. I've gotten back into yoga. Yoga is good.
15. I can read stuff again. You might not know this b/c I've kept it quiet, but a year ago my concentration was so bad I could barely watch a half-hour sitcom without getting restless and amped up. I wasn't able to read a magazine, much less poetry. Reading poetry made me cry. It reminded me of how much I [thought that I had] lost in a short period of time. But last week I read a fucking essay on poetic theory by Lyn Hejinian, and it made sense to me --relatively speaking-- the argument was not very accessible. So yay for the restoration of cognitive function. Therapist N said it would come back.
16. I had both kitties with me on the couch the other day.
17. I've managed to not fall off the DBT wagon, and my last IOP stint ended in early August.
18. My hair came out this really unexpected, pretty color the last time I dyed it.
19. I've made the decision that in January, I'm going to start again to send work out on a schedule. Last January I was not ready. I'm taking it slow this time. Planning two months ahead. I'm excited that my psyche has / will have mended to the point where I can actually consider a work schedule again and not just make stabs at it and beat myself up when I don't fulfill my expectations. Even though January 2013 did not work out so well, the month of January has momentum. I broke away from university and started my full-time devotion to writing in January 2012. It feels like longer. Can you believe I only got seven months into my one-year [ha!] sabbatical when my mom did what she did? I was at the top of my game. It was like being smacked down by a force of nature.
20. My dad and Pam said they were gonna come to Pittsburgh and visit me. Maybe it will be near my birthday. I really miss my folks and although they can probably only do 48 hours, it will still be good to see them.
20. My dad and Pam said they were gonna come to Pittsburgh and visit me. Maybe it will be near my birthday. I really miss my folks and although they can probably only do 48 hours, it will still be good to see them.
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
20 things : Radical acceptance is going to drive me more crazy rather than make me more serene
1. I was riding the bus home (of course?). The second leg of the ultra-annoying-because-it's-cold-and-two-buses-early-morning-Tuesday-yoga commute.
2. I felt rather centered.
3. Plus, I'd been in terrible pain all yesterday evening and this morning. We did some serious shoulder stretching that actually relieved it.
4. As we lurched along, I reflected on my progress of late and thought I've been doing pretty good. I have been SLOWLY desensitizing myself to the World of People.
5. In order to get better, I have been doing these things, in order: therapy, meeting friends, poetry stuff, and yoga. Every week. And it's still challenging to get most of them to happen --everything except meeting friends.
6. But I'm starting to feel good because it's less challenging now. Thought I'm frustrated with the crawling pace, I'm also starting to be more okay with that too.
7. So I'm contemplating these thoughts, and I go to get off the bus.
8. As I'm walking up the aisle, I let go of a pole too soon, the driver slams on the brakes, I severely unbalance and run into a crowd of old people waiting to get off at the front.
9. I could feel myself fall forward, try to stop myself, know I'm going to hit them. I'm helpless in my momentum.
10. I hit them.
11. I rain a hail of apologies on them. Not just like sorry but SorrySorrySorrySorrySorry!
12. This old man turns to me and gives me the look of death. Like, "you're nothing." Like, "I curse you and your future generations." And then slowly looks away.
13. The bus doors open. They get off and proceed to the intersection.
14. I stay farther up the street and have a panic attack.
15. Finally I make my way to my apartment, barely able to keep it together.
16. During my, um, surrendering process, this thought occurred to me: what would it be like for me to be able to forgive myself? Especially for stupid shit. Stuff I can't help. Stuff that's an accident.
17. I monitor my every move. I'm choreographing all the time. I rarely stop being self conscious.
18. Monitoring and choreographing is a life-long trait. That is not a Jill-had-a-setback-after-her-mom thing. The self-loathing I feel when I slip up is also perpetual. Post-mom-suicide, the amplitude is higher.
19. But, you know, what if it weren't? What if I could somehow stop hating myself so viciously? [I can't believe I'm blogging this to the entire goddamn internet. Well, theoretically.]
20. I see no concrete way forward to this goal. It's like saying I'm going to build a rocket from recycled cereal boxes and shoot myself to the moon.
Here's a photo:
Choose Life
Friday, September 20, 2013
20 things : the group
1. I feel such a sense of relief, having experienced the first iteration of the Survivors of Suicide support group last night.
2. I was worried that the group was only going to be heavy, crushing, scary, and not show its helpful aspects immediately.
3. I want to give an indication of my experiences without breaking the confidentiality of others... so no details about other group members. Which means that I probably won't blog about the group much other than this first week.
4. I feel I owe it to those who were extremely concerned after my last blog entry to show that I am feeling somewhat better. I feel guilty about making others extremely concerned. I don't think the last blog entry was particularly extreme, considering all I've written about. Joanna's voice echoes in my head right now we are not responsible for other people's feelings. We are responsible for our own feelings.
5. But sometimes, with loved ones, the boundaries blur. About who is responsible for what. So I write this entry, in part, because of that. To reassure others, and to assuage my own guilt.
6. I mostly want to talk about the philosophies of the group leader regarding suicide. To me they are unusual and comforting at the same time.
7. She believes that suicide is not, in fact, preventable. She has research to show that with or without psychiatric treatment, the suicide rates remain the same.
8. She believes that suicide is its own illness, a massive failure of the frontal lobes' executive function--separate from depression, bipolar disorder, and so forth.
9. She believes that the idea that is prevalent in society "suicide is preventable" leaves the survivors with a huge amount of guilt over what they could have, should have done to save their loved ones.
10. This idea is, in one way, immensely comforting to me --because I am still obsessed with what I should have done to help my mom. If only I had been more aggressive about talking to her doctors. If only I had taken charge and flown her up to Pittsburgh.
11. You see, I'd had this idea that at some point, I would have to move her up here and take more of an active role in her life, sorting out her myriad problems for her. Because her decision making skills had been going downhill for decades, plural. Talk about failure of executive function.
12. But we could never have lived together, ever. Because of how toxic our relationship was when we were that proximal. It was not good for me.
13. I had been trying for years--half my life--trying to and succeeding in repairing the damage that --to be frank --she either caused or set me up for.
14. So I had been putting it off --offering to move her to Pittsburgh --b/c I knew it would cost a lot of money to set her up and she has none. I also knew that much of the time it would be like taking care of a child. And I also knew that the relationship had the potential to quickly turn into me = caregiver and she = a mean, combative, even at times violent child.
15. And I've been struggling with this idea of I PUT IT OFF FOR ME ME ME. And so I let her die. I chose me over her.
16. Ironically, I wonder if my relatives in Georgia thought they were doing the same thing when they moved her down there. Like they could swoop in and fix a truly unfixable situation.
17. My mother had a real talent for inspiring this kind of We Will Save the Day kind of help... and then TOTALLY resisting 99% of the help. It. Was. Truly. Maddening.
18. The DBT version of helping me with my survivor's guilt is : waterfall. I may have blogged about this before. Joanna asked me one day to come up with an image that would snap me out of the rumination (dwelling-on) trajectory that I've just described. I came up with waterfall. Not because it was a beautiful example of mother nature's creation... but because it was beguiling yet destructive. If you stand under Niagara, you will be crushed. The water surges forward under its own power, cutting a channel into the rock because that's what it does. You are just a brittle bag of bones compared to the power of the waterfall.
19. According to our SoS group leader, my mom's brain slowly stopped being able to make the decisions necessary to keep her alive. Complex decisions, but also decisions that we all take for granted. It is a radical idea. However, I'm considering it. Not only do I want to believe it because it lessens my guilt, but it also makes so much damn sense when I look at the course of her life over the past twenty years. If you think about it, it actually connects to waterfall. Well, okay, it does for me.
20. So that's what I got from my first week of group. I'm glad there are only 20 things. It tells me when I can stop writing. B/c I'm exhausted now. Whew. Time to hop in the shower and start my day!
2. I was worried that the group was only going to be heavy, crushing, scary, and not show its helpful aspects immediately.
3. I want to give an indication of my experiences without breaking the confidentiality of others... so no details about other group members. Which means that I probably won't blog about the group much other than this first week.
4. I feel I owe it to those who were extremely concerned after my last blog entry to show that I am feeling somewhat better. I feel guilty about making others extremely concerned. I don't think the last blog entry was particularly extreme, considering all I've written about. Joanna's voice echoes in my head right now we are not responsible for other people's feelings. We are responsible for our own feelings.
5. But sometimes, with loved ones, the boundaries blur. About who is responsible for what. So I write this entry, in part, because of that. To reassure others, and to assuage my own guilt.
6. I mostly want to talk about the philosophies of the group leader regarding suicide. To me they are unusual and comforting at the same time.
7. She believes that suicide is not, in fact, preventable. She has research to show that with or without psychiatric treatment, the suicide rates remain the same.
8. She believes that suicide is its own illness, a massive failure of the frontal lobes' executive function--separate from depression, bipolar disorder, and so forth.
9. She believes that the idea that is prevalent in society "suicide is preventable" leaves the survivors with a huge amount of guilt over what they could have, should have done to save their loved ones.
10. This idea is, in one way, immensely comforting to me --because I am still obsessed with what I should have done to help my mom. If only I had been more aggressive about talking to her doctors. If only I had taken charge and flown her up to Pittsburgh.
11. You see, I'd had this idea that at some point, I would have to move her up here and take more of an active role in her life, sorting out her myriad problems for her. Because her decision making skills had been going downhill for decades, plural. Talk about failure of executive function.
12. But we could never have lived together, ever. Because of how toxic our relationship was when we were that proximal. It was not good for me.
13. I had been trying for years--half my life--trying to and succeeding in repairing the damage that --to be frank --she either caused or set me up for.
14. So I had been putting it off --offering to move her to Pittsburgh --b/c I knew it would cost a lot of money to set her up and she has none. I also knew that much of the time it would be like taking care of a child. And I also knew that the relationship had the potential to quickly turn into me = caregiver and she = a mean, combative, even at times violent child.
15. And I've been struggling with this idea of I PUT IT OFF FOR ME ME ME. And so I let her die. I chose me over her.
16. Ironically, I wonder if my relatives in Georgia thought they were doing the same thing when they moved her down there. Like they could swoop in and fix a truly unfixable situation.
17. My mother had a real talent for inspiring this kind of We Will Save the Day kind of help... and then TOTALLY resisting 99% of the help. It. Was. Truly. Maddening.
18. The DBT version of helping me with my survivor's guilt is : waterfall. I may have blogged about this before. Joanna asked me one day to come up with an image that would snap me out of the rumination (dwelling-on) trajectory that I've just described. I came up with waterfall. Not because it was a beautiful example of mother nature's creation... but because it was beguiling yet destructive. If you stand under Niagara, you will be crushed. The water surges forward under its own power, cutting a channel into the rock because that's what it does. You are just a brittle bag of bones compared to the power of the waterfall.
19. According to our SoS group leader, my mom's brain slowly stopped being able to make the decisions necessary to keep her alive. Complex decisions, but also decisions that we all take for granted. It is a radical idea. However, I'm considering it. Not only do I want to believe it because it lessens my guilt, but it also makes so much damn sense when I look at the course of her life over the past twenty years. If you think about it, it actually connects to waterfall. Well, okay, it does for me.
20. So that's what I got from my first week of group. I'm glad there are only 20 things. It tells me when I can stop writing. B/c I'm exhausted now. Whew. Time to hop in the shower and start my day!
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
20 things : what to do with the dead
1. My mom's death day (like the opposite of birthday) is coming up on Saturday.
2. I am looking for distractions.
3. The first person whom I asked an opinion about distractions said that I should think how I can memorialize or honor her instead.
4. I don't know if I'm ready to do that.
5. Maybe I will take her ashes out of seclusion and find a place in the house for them.
6. On Thursday, that is TOMORROW, I am joining a support group called Survivors of Suicide. It is the first session.
7. I am grateful for this opportunity to talk about what happened, because I don't really talk about it with anyone, except Mike or therapist N sometimes.
8. Not with friends, certainly not with family.
9. I don't know how to begin the conversation or what I would say.
10. I do envy other people's ability to talk about the dead.
11. Perhaps I am imagining this ability.
12. I think the not-talking-about-it has kept me corralled in a certain area of my mind, so to speak.
13. I don't even feel comfortable blogging about it.
14. Like : that time has passed. Like : no one wants to read that.
15. My favorite cactus died last week.
16. I couldn't tell if it was b/c of over- or under-watering.
17. I think it was under- but the internet says to under-water a cactus is much less common than overwatering. I conducted obsessive internet research but found no good answer.
18. I wanted to conduct an autopsy, but instead I had Mike take it out to the faraway trash, pot and all. I couldn't bear it.
19. My anxiety and OCD started to get so extreme on Tuesday that I only went out of the house to take down the used cat litter, and that made me so paranoid I was hyperventilating by the time I got back. 20. This morning I have already predicted my own death in five ways. The OCD is an unwelcome divination.
EDIT: After having gotten some unexpected responses to this entry, I want to clarify #20. Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder leads the individual to have compulsive, uncontrollable thoughts--obsessions. It is common for those thoughts to be troubling, even violent, in their content. The person with OCD deals with the stress elicited by those thoughts by acting out compulsions or tics. Stereotypical compulsions would be hand-washing, checking 20 times to see if one has locked the door, etc. My OCD is torturing me with death thoughts this week b/c of the anniversary and b/c I am joining the support group. It does not mean I am acting violently toward myself or anyone else. Deep breaths.
2. I am looking for distractions.
3. The first person whom I asked an opinion about distractions said that I should think how I can memorialize or honor her instead.
4. I don't know if I'm ready to do that.
5. Maybe I will take her ashes out of seclusion and find a place in the house for them.
6. On Thursday, that is TOMORROW, I am joining a support group called Survivors of Suicide. It is the first session.
7. I am grateful for this opportunity to talk about what happened, because I don't really talk about it with anyone, except Mike or therapist N sometimes.
8. Not with friends, certainly not with family.
9. I don't know how to begin the conversation or what I would say.
10. I do envy other people's ability to talk about the dead.
11. Perhaps I am imagining this ability.
12. I think the not-talking-about-it has kept me corralled in a certain area of my mind, so to speak.
13. I don't even feel comfortable blogging about it.
14. Like : that time has passed. Like : no one wants to read that.
15. My favorite cactus died last week.
16. I couldn't tell if it was b/c of over- or under-watering.
17. I think it was under- but the internet says to under-water a cactus is much less common than overwatering. I conducted obsessive internet research but found no good answer.
18. I wanted to conduct an autopsy, but instead I had Mike take it out to the faraway trash, pot and all. I couldn't bear it.
19. My anxiety and OCD started to get so extreme on Tuesday that I only went out of the house to take down the used cat litter, and that made me so paranoid I was hyperventilating by the time I got back. 20. This morning I have already predicted my own death in five ways. The OCD is an unwelcome divination.
EDIT: After having gotten some unexpected responses to this entry, I want to clarify #20. Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder leads the individual to have compulsive, uncontrollable thoughts--obsessions. It is common for those thoughts to be troubling, even violent, in their content. The person with OCD deals with the stress elicited by those thoughts by acting out compulsions or tics. Stereotypical compulsions would be hand-washing, checking 20 times to see if one has locked the door, etc. My OCD is torturing me with death thoughts this week b/c of the anniversary and b/c I am joining the support group. It does not mean I am acting violently toward myself or anyone else. Deep breaths.
Monday, September 9, 2013
Water and No Water
When I was a kid living in rural eastern PA, we had a well. As a child, I didn't really understand the mechanism of the well, just that it was underground and through a series of pumps and pipes, provided all the water for our house. I think it may have also required electricity to run. Which means that when the power went out, so did the water.
* * *
Perhaps in response to my stream of compound-complex swear words, Mike asked if I was okay. I imagined the cold shower causing all my muscles to seize up and the fibro ache lasting the whole day. I requested a washcloth so that I could rinse off from the tub faucet and not the shower.
When I turned the cold water spigot back on though, there was no water coming out of there either. More distant knocking of pipes. I had the feeling there was no water anywhere nearby, although Mike said there was still some coming out of the kitchen sink--probably what was left in the lines. He brought me a bowl of water.
* * *
Last night in the middle of hysterical sobbing I thought look at my fucking life now --my mother did this to me. One last strike so we could both go down together. These thoughts are pretty close to my worst thoughts: the fear spiral that leads to places too dark to blog about.
How strange that she could be so kind one day, so unmerciful another. I mean it: how strange. I thought it was strange at eight. At thirty-eight my mind still can't get around it.
* * *
When I taught at University, I shepherded my students through a campus lockdown because there was a shooter on the grounds. There were three incidences of gun crime at this school during the six years I taught there. This never kept me from going to work.
Sunday, September 8, 2013
20 things : Opposite Action ftw / wtf
1. So, opposite action is a DBT concept wherein, even (or especially) if all one's emotions are screaming that one does a behavior that isn't helpful, one does the opposite behavior.
2. I realize that if you are reading this and have never worked a recovery program with behavioral elements, it may sound like I'm in a cult or something. For those of you who have known me since 1995 or so, you know this therapy has helped me greatly before, and now it's helping me rebuild again after what happened last year.
3. For some reason my immediate grief response was extreme social anxiety, bordering on agoraphobia. In general, the action-urge for anxiety is to avoid the thing that makes me anxious.
4. [Note that avoiding was a useful and protective device at a certain point in human evolution. Is that a saber toothed tiger waiting for me in the brush? I'd better hide until it passes by.]
5. People make me anxious. Thus, 99.875% of them I would rather avoid.
6. But then I'd never leave my house. Which is sort of what happened in April when I had that relapse bit.
7. Needless to say, never leaving the house would end up with me bitter, angry, ever more phobic, and possibly dead before my time b/c isolation leads to the Circling Thoughts.
[....]
8. Exposure therapy is a thing they do for OCD and phobias. For example, if a person is deathly afraid of dogs, she might start out looking at pictures or videos of dogs, then move to, I dunno, five minutes of a dog on a leash in the same room with her... And end up where she can pet the dog or have it lick her hand and such.
9. The idea is that the patient participates in increasing levels of exposure. She sits with the frightening experience until her fear comes down. Allegedly, her brain can't maintain a fear response with the volume cranked to 11 for an extended period of time. When her brain processes the fact that nothing bad is happening as she looks at the video of the dog, the anxiety will "naturally" start to abate.
10. Although I've had OCD all my life, I had never done an exposure before starting my second round of DBT in 2012. Honestly, I was a cognitive-behavioral therapy hater for a long time because of one bad experience when I was a teenager.
11. I don't want to overdramatize, but every time I go outside, it's basically an exposure.
12. When contemplating the recent (about two weeks ago now) ending of intensive outpatient treatment, I wrote in my therapy journal my continuing recovery just seems like a lot of self punishment, with much alone time and extensive amounts of exposures. Basically, at my worst, I don't want to be with others, nor do I want to be with myself.
13. My prediction has panned out, sort of. But I haven't launched myself into the downward spiral of fear that indicates I am at my worst. I'm managing to mitigate the alone time pretty successfully, but it's challenging. The exposures continue to feel like sandpaper scraping a fresh wound.
[....]
14. When I interact with most people, I just don't feel like I'm behaving humanly... I'm frantically searching for what a human says, how a human moves in the space of the world. And when I get it right, my internal response is somewhere between whew that was close and I've Accomplished Something.
15. When I (feel like I) get it wrong, my breath stops and my head starts spinning. And I want to be home immediately.
16. Home is usually far away. But not as far away as it was when we lived on the south side.
17. Although it is painful, I can see the ways in which my anxiety is coming down. I'm more spontaneous. More talkative. More gracious to others and also (er, sometimes) to myself.
18. I even went to the coffee shop to write yesterday. That was impossible... basically up until the time it was possible. I didn't know if it was gonna work, but Mike suggested starting out with prompts and exercises instead of a blank screen / sheet of paper and that was super-helpful.
19. The thing I have to fight against, or as my DBT therapist would say gently push away, is my rabid desire to be better than I actually am, even though recovery is a process, and rationally I know that.
20. Going to the coffee shop and writing was a HUGE deal. But there were many small unglamorous accomplishments that led up to it.... perhaps I'm writing this entry to myself as well as to you. It's very hard for me to acknowledge the small steps that lead up to the bigger ones. I mock myself, like, whoa, big deal: I went to the supermarket. When it really is a big deal dammit.
That is all.
2. I realize that if you are reading this and have never worked a recovery program with behavioral elements, it may sound like I'm in a cult or something. For those of you who have known me since 1995 or so, you know this therapy has helped me greatly before, and now it's helping me rebuild again after what happened last year.
3. For some reason my immediate grief response was extreme social anxiety, bordering on agoraphobia. In general, the action-urge for anxiety is to avoid the thing that makes me anxious.
4. [Note that avoiding was a useful and protective device at a certain point in human evolution. Is that a saber toothed tiger waiting for me in the brush? I'd better hide until it passes by.]
5. People make me anxious. Thus, 99.875% of them I would rather avoid.
6. But then I'd never leave my house. Which is sort of what happened in April when I had that relapse bit.
7. Needless to say, never leaving the house would end up with me bitter, angry, ever more phobic, and possibly dead before my time b/c isolation leads to the Circling Thoughts.
[....]
8. Exposure therapy is a thing they do for OCD and phobias. For example, if a person is deathly afraid of dogs, she might start out looking at pictures or videos of dogs, then move to, I dunno, five minutes of a dog on a leash in the same room with her... And end up where she can pet the dog or have it lick her hand and such.
9. The idea is that the patient participates in increasing levels of exposure. She sits with the frightening experience until her fear comes down. Allegedly, her brain can't maintain a fear response with the volume cranked to 11 for an extended period of time. When her brain processes the fact that nothing bad is happening as she looks at the video of the dog, the anxiety will "naturally" start to abate.
10. Although I've had OCD all my life, I had never done an exposure before starting my second round of DBT in 2012. Honestly, I was a cognitive-behavioral therapy hater for a long time because of one bad experience when I was a teenager.
11. I don't want to overdramatize, but every time I go outside, it's basically an exposure.
12. When contemplating the recent (about two weeks ago now) ending of intensive outpatient treatment, I wrote in my therapy journal my continuing recovery just seems like a lot of self punishment, with much alone time and extensive amounts of exposures. Basically, at my worst, I don't want to be with others, nor do I want to be with myself.
13. My prediction has panned out, sort of. But I haven't launched myself into the downward spiral of fear that indicates I am at my worst. I'm managing to mitigate the alone time pretty successfully, but it's challenging. The exposures continue to feel like sandpaper scraping a fresh wound.
[....]
14. When I interact with most people, I just don't feel like I'm behaving humanly... I'm frantically searching for what a human says, how a human moves in the space of the world. And when I get it right, my internal response is somewhere between whew that was close and I've Accomplished Something.
15. When I (feel like I) get it wrong, my breath stops and my head starts spinning. And I want to be home immediately.
16. Home is usually far away. But not as far away as it was when we lived on the south side.
17. Although it is painful, I can see the ways in which my anxiety is coming down. I'm more spontaneous. More talkative. More gracious to others and also (er, sometimes) to myself.
18. I even went to the coffee shop to write yesterday. That was impossible... basically up until the time it was possible. I didn't know if it was gonna work, but Mike suggested starting out with prompts and exercises instead of a blank screen / sheet of paper and that was super-helpful.
19. The thing I have to fight against, or as my DBT therapist would say gently push away, is my rabid desire to be better than I actually am, even though recovery is a process, and rationally I know that.
20. Going to the coffee shop and writing was a HUGE deal. But there were many small unglamorous accomplishments that led up to it.... perhaps I'm writing this entry to myself as well as to you. It's very hard for me to acknowledge the small steps that lead up to the bigger ones. I mock myself, like, whoa, big deal: I went to the supermarket. When it really is a big deal dammit.
That is all.
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