Why I didn't do my homework.
Apr. 22nd, 2009 12:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysobelleAs I'm sure you know, I have a therapist. I don't talk about her a lot, cos it's no one's business, but I don't deliberately omit the info, cos I despise the stigma that seems still to be attached to any kind of emotional problems. Robin is absolutely awesome, and if you ever need someone, I'll give you her number in a heartbeat. So much I've gone through, around, and over with her.
But last session was something new. I've been sad, enraged, confused, euphoric, apathetic-- you name it. Last session, I was scared.
For a few weeks, now, I've been thinking a lot about something that happened several years ago. Something I haven't really been able to come to terms with, because I can't classify it, put it in a box, and move on. It was bad, and confusing, and broke part of me. And I'm so used to being able to process things and dissect them and rationally discuss them that when this happened, and I couldn't do any of that, I think I just shut down. I go round and round and round this one incident, and some days it's huge, and some days it's pathetically minor. Some days I shut it away, and some days I'm angry and hurt and sad all over again, like I've just been cut afresh.
So last week, Robin and I started actively trying to deconstruct it. She asked me questions I hadn't asked myself. And then she asked me if I was scared, right there as we talked. I had to admit that I was.
She nodded. "You stopped breathing there for a minute."
I hadn't even noticed. I never even felt it.
She wanted me to write about it this week. I told her that that's what usually helps me-- writing about things, slowly pulling my brain out through my fingers, like some literary ancient Egyptian embalmer. I usually have no problem writing about my feelings: even if I begin not knowing what's swirling in my brain, by the end, I know. It's there, in print: the sometimes-surprising mess is contained, isolated. I can look at it like a specimen in a jar. The experience becomes the writing, like an old boyfriend is reduced to a photograph in an album.
And maybe it would have been this time, at last. Except that I didn't do it.
Was it because I just didn't have time? Was it because I didn't know what to say? Was it because I just want to avoid thinking about it? Was it because I want to keep this hurt to myself, hidden and secret, like a jewel of pain, a wellspring of black? I don't know. I don't know.
It's been an unbelievably difficult winter. I'm trying not to completely collapse on Spring's doorstep. But I can't put this off. I wouldn't have brought it up last week if some part of me weren't ready to pull it out into the light and dispel it. But that doesn't mean I might not fight to the end. And I really have no idea what will, at last, emerge.
But last session was something new. I've been sad, enraged, confused, euphoric, apathetic-- you name it. Last session, I was scared.
For a few weeks, now, I've been thinking a lot about something that happened several years ago. Something I haven't really been able to come to terms with, because I can't classify it, put it in a box, and move on. It was bad, and confusing, and broke part of me. And I'm so used to being able to process things and dissect them and rationally discuss them that when this happened, and I couldn't do any of that, I think I just shut down. I go round and round and round this one incident, and some days it's huge, and some days it's pathetically minor. Some days I shut it away, and some days I'm angry and hurt and sad all over again, like I've just been cut afresh.
So last week, Robin and I started actively trying to deconstruct it. She asked me questions I hadn't asked myself. And then she asked me if I was scared, right there as we talked. I had to admit that I was.
She nodded. "You stopped breathing there for a minute."
I hadn't even noticed. I never even felt it.
She wanted me to write about it this week. I told her that that's what usually helps me-- writing about things, slowly pulling my brain out through my fingers, like some literary ancient Egyptian embalmer. I usually have no problem writing about my feelings: even if I begin not knowing what's swirling in my brain, by the end, I know. It's there, in print: the sometimes-surprising mess is contained, isolated. I can look at it like a specimen in a jar. The experience becomes the writing, like an old boyfriend is reduced to a photograph in an album.
And maybe it would have been this time, at last. Except that I didn't do it.
Was it because I just didn't have time? Was it because I didn't know what to say? Was it because I just want to avoid thinking about it? Was it because I want to keep this hurt to myself, hidden and secret, like a jewel of pain, a wellspring of black? I don't know. I don't know.
It's been an unbelievably difficult winter. I'm trying not to completely collapse on Spring's doorstep. But I can't put this off. I wouldn't have brought it up last week if some part of me weren't ready to pull it out into the light and dispel it. But that doesn't mean I might not fight to the end. And I really have no idea what will, at last, emerge.
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no subject
Date: 2009-04-22 10:53 am (UTC)You are not alone.
Hugs
no subject
Date: 2009-04-22 11:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-22 01:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-22 02:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-22 06:17 pm (UTC)*hugs*
no subject
Date: 2009-04-23 12:09 am (UTC)(((much huggage)))
no subject
Date: 2009-04-23 12:20 am (UTC)Some people want to talk, some want to forget, and some still feel better by hearing about other people's pointy things and shared upsets.
I can help with any of these if you'd like to talk, or not.
Hugs babe.
no subject
Date: 2009-04-24 03:09 am (UTC)*hugs*