Obstreperous

 There is not much in life that throws off my rhythm more than spending time with my parents; the yearly visit winds down and my cuticles are red and raw and bloody from picking at myself incessantly for several days.  The excoriation rituals do not relieve the pressure; they leave my fingers sore and throbbing. I tried to tell them about the book being published in the fall; I tried to tell them about the foreword being written by the famous guy whose name I won’t type. My mother responded by telling me about her book and her foreword (again). These moments that I feel sort of invisible, sort of flattened, I assume this feeling is just part of this relationship. We sometimes move in a better direction, but we always come back here. 

Sometimes my counsellor perspective-taking brain plays games with me. What if I make them feel bad all the time too? What if I think I am carefully protecting everyone else’s feelings and I’m actually doing a terrible job of it and they always leave feeling that I have somehow slighted them? My inside-out world mind games. You never know, though. 

To gracefully let someone in and back out

 - RG is in Australia, an interesting development. He has remained in touch, a thing that surprises me each time he does it. I look for his angle and I do not find it. It is possible that he is my friend. 

- I went for beers with MK last week. I know his angle.  He wants free therapy and I don’t really mind providing it.  It’s fine. MS is looking for the same and I accepted her invitation too. It’s funny that they don’t just use their health spending accounts. 

- I went to my own session last week, the third one so far. I told her she is good at what she does, and I think this is true. Especially the part about ‘sitting with it’ for a moment when everything in me wants to blow right past it and move on.  Sitting with it is a good instinct on her part.  I do not sit with it very long or very often. 

- I will be presenting at FP next month about social media and mental health. And at a counsellor conference in October on decolonization of mental health services in schools.  And in November on adolescent sexual health.  Giving presentations is not something I particularly enjoy but it is part of my job now and so I am working at becoming desensitized. This can be done via gradual exposure. Maybe I will learn to like it. Right?

This captures only facts and nothing, really, of how it feels. I might be too tired to think about that. 

Bountiful

Occasionally I reread things I wrote in 2008, when my sister was alive and drowning. And drowning and drowning.  J was just a little girl who wanted nothing more than to have an Aeropostale hoodie. S was commuting 3 hours on the highway to work every day, and I had four puppies who smothered me with love and saliva every time I sat down. I was a theatre teacher with hordes of moody and artistic teenagers needing my support and being prickly and needing more support.  And l barely recognize me, I barely recognize any of us.  I miss some pieces of that life, so much so that thinking about them has to be titrated in order to bear it. And some aspects of that life were so hard I cannot remember how we survived them. 

If I found myself back in 2008 now with my current brain I would slow my pace and let myself be more open to my own feelings. Instead of holding the lids on all the compartments so carefully I think I would open them up, at least a couple of them, and see what that feels like.  See if I can function anyway, or maybe give myself permission not to function so well all the time. And in that process maybe I would give them all permission not to function so well all the time either. 

On Friday I went to my old school to be a substitute teacher for a day.  I maintain the teacher credentials so I can continue to do mediation work for the union, actually, and not to be a substitute teacher, but I was invited in a way that was tempting and so I went. Most of the day was very pleasant until I had a bit of a run-in with two fourteen year old boys who thought they were going to run the show and who made me use the scary loud fast talking finger-in-face don’t you DARE teacher voice that I have not used in a decade, and I felt the old familiar internal chaos of having to work hard not to burst out laughing because these two boys looked so scared of me and I know that they could easily pick me up and throw me if they decided to. I can still intimidate teenage boys if necessary, and that is a little bit fun.

. 

Do I like it?

I dreamed I lost control of my mouth the way I do when I have three glasses of wine and it becomes so important to be understood, so important that I begin to repeat myself. I spouted and spouted the way I do when I am rosy with wine and then later returned (with my emotional hangover) to the scene of the crime, surprised to be met there by a rebuttal. The rebuttal was angry, which was fair, but what stung was that it was also cold. (Fiery anger is one thing and cold detached anger is something else entirely.) I was dismissed and devoid of explanations and ashamed of all the clumsy swirling words lying tumbled around the space, some now upside down and inside out and with their glasses askew and their sense of direction impaired by the rapid drop in temperature. It was too late to gather them back up and put them away neatly, and so I left them there like that, messy and disorganized. And I slunk away.  This dream felt very real.

*

Yesterday I taught a full day and felt more calm than I have so far in my new career. This time I slowed down enough to catch my breath and to notice the people as well as the content. The students provided (unsolicited) positive feedback at the end of the day, which also made it easier to breathe. I was more aware than I used to be that these Masters students have the same needs, essentially, that my high school students have. They want to be invited into a dialogue. They want me to share some expertise so they can take notes and feel they learned something new.  But not so much that they are overwhelmed.  They want me to give them actions they can try tomorrow and begin practicing. And mostly they want me to slow down and connect with them.  Smile at them. Listen to their stories. Laugh when they say funny things.  Got it. It’s all about slowing down the inner race enough to notice what’s happening outside my own head.  It has taken a few racy breathless attempts, but I think I’m getting it. Breathe in. Breathe out. 

*

Classified

Awhile ago someone I liked to read about said “I am afraid that I am incapable of having a relationship that is not a competition”. This was an interesting thought to consider. I think I have also felt this way. Not now, but in a different phase. Competition is inspiring when you think you stand a chance of winning. And later I have learned to be invested in the success of others, particularly loved ones. 

In an effort to walk the talk, I decided to go for counselling sessions, the first of my life not including family counselling in my childhood that revolved around my sister and did not invite any meaningful participation on my part. I have only attended one appointment, and in the first session it is typical that the counsellor does most of the talking to cover all the informed consent and limits of confidentiality jazz.  So I was not pressed much.  And still it was activating, pointing at some boxes that might warrant opening. I know exactly why I have avoided this process my entire life. I am doing it now, because I want to be brave, but I expect it to be difficult, very difficult. Avoiding counselling, in spite of my personal and professional belief in it is something like cutting my own hair at home in the bathroom mirror, like I am not worthy of a $32 trim from a professional. It’s an old struggle and I am working to change it. Finally. 

J and I have tickets to see the Violent Femmes tomorrow night and this makes me happy, pretending it’s 1996 again. They are older. I am older. Instead of going early so I can push my way up to the front, I am going early to make sure I find somewhere to sit. 

Sugarless

Yesterday CW sent us a therapy manual she wrote for her work with narcissistic personality disorder. On the cover of the manual she lied about her credentials, and I took a couple of deep steadying breaths designed to calm the brief moment of emotional chaos. Stifled laughter but also something darker that I prefer not to acknowledge yet.

A. continues to send me small notes which I refuse to answer. I will not be forced into this conversation; I just won’t. These thoughts about these people are connected by the DSM thread. But let’s not forget that the DSM is just a construct, and a colonial one at that. 

Shawn is going away for a week and I feel a little adrift in anticipation. We have been together a lot since I left the old job and started working from home. We share a staff room. Codependence might creep up on me. 

Nothing.

I don’t really say things here anymore. I wonder what changed, exactly.  Many things, maybe. 

Everything is different now. I am about halfway through the doctorate. I am really doing it, resplendent with imposter syndrome. In some spaces I feel like the smartest, in some spaces I cannot speak. Mutism is my theme.

I have taken over an important portfolio at the university where I work now. My manifest destiny persists. 

Shawn is going away for a week with his work. I was meant to be with D-dog but this has not worked out this way; our D-dog died. We don’t have dogs anymore. And that is a strange thing; we were a house full of canine madness for so long. I will be alone for a week and I will not mind that, I think. The quiet is okay. I am choosing differently now. But I miss being buried in the pile of sweet pups who just want my warmth, and nothing more. 

I live more in my head these days, less in my heart, and this is a challenge because I trust my heart more. 

Inhale. Outhale.