So much to say, and yet nothing to say.
There are two things in the news with which I am thinking a lot about. The first is the Ft. Hood incident. I keep checking WashingtonPost.com and cnn.com to see if there are any articles about Major Hasan (why don’t they call doctors in the Army Doctor?) It’s interesting how every article refers to him as the “alleged” shooter of the 13 victims who died. He “allegedly” opened fire, and he is “suspected” of the shooting. He did it! Why can’t the media say he did it?
OK, aside from that, I am wondering what has been going on in his head. I bet he thought a lot of bad thoughts. People who think bad thoughts should not have access to guns. My psychologist says there is nothing wrong with bad thoughts, only bad actions. But how do you know that your bad thoughts will stay thoughts and not turn into actions? One never knows, do they?
The other news item is John Muhammad, the Washington DC area sniper. I live in the Washington DC area, mere miles from the site where the snipers first began their rampage. It was a terrible day, and only one year after 9/11. In some ways this was worse than 9/11, as far as day to day living is concerned. We couldn’t let our children play outside, we couldn’t even let them walk to school. We live one block from the school! They couldn’t go outside for recess for months.
But I’m wondering what Muhammad is thinking tonight. What must it be like to know the exact day and time when one will die? I’m thinking about this a lot, and I’m not sure it’s a good thing.
This morning at 6am I had a dream. I was running on a trail in a park near my home and I fell into quicksand. I screamed really loud (in my dream, not out loud) and woke myself up. I wonder what this dream says? I’m getting really sucked into my running? Hmmm, what would Freud say?
And here is a project I worked on last week. It’s very difficult for me to meditate by just sitting still doing nothing. I made this mandala out of paper glued onto foamcore. I wanted to make it out of stained glass (I used to do a lot of stained glass mosaics, but I lost my inspiration), but I was afraid of working with broken glass (self injury, etc). I still had to use an exacto knife, but it was ok. It took me a few days to make this and it was very meditative. My sister says I must be a kinesthetic meditator. Is there such a thing?
It’s supposed to represent the earth. All around the outside is chaos, lightening, etc. Then the green crust of the earth. Brown dirt under that, and blue oceans and rivers around the whole thing. Then it gets hotter and hotter as you get to the center, with a few places where the hot insides burst through onto the outside. Kind of like me I suppose.
Remember I wrote about my 10K on Sunday? I didn’t mention my guardian angel.
We had done a trial run of the race route the week before the race. Towards the end of the race is a small hill, nothing terrible, but it’s at the end when I’m tired and feeling kind of weak. When we did the trial run I was running up that hill and I noticed a man running at my pace. We passed each other back and forth a bit, and chatted about how we’re almost done, and then we finished the route together. I had never seen him before, and our training group has been together since August.
The day of the race I was running up the really long hill between miles 3 and 4, and my legs were feeling heavy. I was trying to go various places in my head to keep me going. Then I noticed the same man running next to me. Again, we passed each other a few times and chatted about the hill and how it’s almost over. When we reached the top of the hill I didn’t see him again. Until that last little hill, where I had seen him the first time. There he was again during the race. This time I asked him his name, and he said, “Ed.” He said he knew my name because he heard someone shout it out during the race. We finished the race together, crossed the finish line at the same time, and I gave him a high five. Then he disappeared.
A bunch of us from the training group hung out for a while, eating the free food, listening to the music and the awards ceremony. I asked the others if they knew anyone in the group named Ed, and I described him and said I had only seen him twice, at the trial run and at the race. No one could say they knew him or had ever seen him.
When I got home I checked the race results, and there he was right under me. Turns out he is 63 years old and lives in the next town. That night we had a party at the Mexican restaurant and I asked around again if anyone knew Ed. No one did. I was beginning to think that Ed wasn’t real, that he was my guardian angel who came to help me during difficult runs. I don’t believe in ghosts or angels, but I’m willing to change my mind if presented with enough evidence.
Then I checked with the coach. “Do you know someone named Ed?” I described him and the coach couldn’t figure out who it was. I was really started to think I had entered the twilight zone, when my coach said, “Ed Wallace!” I said, “Yes!” The coach told me that he is the husband of someone who sometimes is a pace group leader in our group, and that he joins us occasionally for runs and races.
So Ed really exists. He’s not a ghost, but I still think he’s my guardian angel.
J, my therapist, said something that I found intriguing during our session yesterday. But of course I forgot what it was the minute I walked out the door. That frequently happens. I emailed him to see if he remembered what he said, and he did. Wow, I don’t know how he remembers something he said to me at 11am when he sees 6 or 7 more clients afterward.
But what he pointed out to me is that, for me, internalizing guilt, which I am guilty of (no pun intended), might diminish anxiety. I don’t have to worry about anything going wrong because it’s all my fault already. The guilt is a defense against the anxiety. Cool insight, huh?
I feel pretty good about my session today. I’m actually functioning and not a crying, devastated mess. First thing I asked J if we could talk about little things occasionally, instead of big things all the time. He said, of course, that it’s actually important. He asked me why I felt that way and I told him how difficult it is for me when I leave after talking about big things. That I walk out the door and he just goes on with his day, while I’m a mess and what am I supposed to do with all of that? I told him that I started the Wellbutrin again, and took a little klonopin last week too.
I asked him if he remembered during the last session he mentioned that if he had a flat tire he would call a friend to help him. He didn’t really remember that, which is understandable, he said it totally in passing, but of course it’s something that made an impact on me and I remembered it. Before I even mentioned why I was bringing this up he tried to explain that he would call a friend to help in certain situations, I think he was nervous that I was accusing him of something. But it was just a lead in to my situation, where I had to pick up my daughter’s car from the body shop and in order to do that I would have had to call a friend to take me. This caused me a lot of anxiety and I wanted to talk about that.
So we talked about that for a while, and J said it’s actually also difficult for him to ask for help. I’m not sure how I feel about this after he so clearly told me last week that if he had a flat tire he would call a friend to pick him up. But I appreciate his honesty in telling me how he really feels about it.
We also had a discussion about how I aspire to be like him. After all, I really don’t know much about him. He doesn’t tell me the bad things about himself, so to me he is perfect and someone to idolize. He seemed surprised that I felt this way, which surprises me. I think this might be a common thought for clients of therapists – that their therapist is up on a pedestal. I know that no one is perfect, of course, and I’m sure he has issues just like anyone else. I just don’t know about them.
A couple of times J started venturing into “big things” and I stopped him. I said, “You’re talking about big things again.” He respected that and I was appreciative. Especially when there was five minutes left in the session and he tried to veer the conversation into another big thing and I said, “no, especially since we only have 5 minutes left.”
Towards the end he again asked me if I ever meditate and he talked about being in the moment. I said that I don’t believe that someone can truly be in the moment without the experiences of the trillion moments that came before influencing how they feel in that moment. He disagreed and said that one can truly be in the moment. Not all the time, of course, but at times. He said, “Look at this moment, right now, you have nothing to feel guilty about right now in this very moment.” I replied, “Actually I do. I feel guilty for keeping you four minutes over our scheduled time.” He said, “Well I am choosing to stay over.” And I said, “If I wasn’t here you wouldn’t have to make that choice.” He said, “Well you are here.” I told him that I was starting to feel really anxious that the session was running overtime. He said, “OK, go.” I said, “Leave?” He said, “Will it make you feel better?” I said, “Yes.” He said, “OK, no problem. I’ll see you next week.”
I was kind of proud that I told him what I needed throughout the session, without worrying TOO much about what he would think. It did cross my mind plenty of times that he would think talking about little things would be trivial, or I was being too demanding, etc, but I didn’t let that stop me from saying when something bothered me.
One thing I wasn’t crazy about was his assertion that I can choose not to feel guilty. I told him that was Oprah-ish. If it’s that easy to choose to feel a certain way then we wouldn’t need shrinks, right? I’m not so sure it’s a choice.
I’m pretty proud of myself after this morning’s 10K. Last week we ran the race route and I ran it in 1:10:45. For the actual race today I finished in 1:04:09! I came in 319 out of 420. That doesn’t sound too good, I place in a much higher percentile in 5K’s, but I suppose that is because more people run 5K’s slowly. I placed 19 out of 28 for my age group. That doesn’t sound too good either, but in any case I’m proud of myself!
I told my husband to be at the finish line to take my picture and I said I would be there at 1:10. Well, needless to say, he got there at 1:03 thinking he’d have some spare time, but as he is attempting to figure out how to work the camera I crossed the finish line. Oops!
One bad thing was that I got a cramp in the back of my calf at 3.5 miles. It’s a really long hill at that point and my leg started to feel weird, like heavy. Then it started to cramp. I kept thinking I would have to quit, but I just didn’t want to quit so I kept going. It’s still hurting, I’m sitting here with a heating pad. Luckily I have a massage scheduled for tomorrow. Here’s a graph of the hills:
See that long hill between miles 3 and 4? It just about did me in.
Tonight our running group is going out for mexican - margaritas and chips, here I come!
Today is Halloween. My kids are teenagers and do their own thing these days. My daughter is visiting a friend who is away at college, and my son is going to a basketball game. We don’t get many trick or treaters because we live in an older neighborhood and there aren’t many children. Halloween used to be one of my favorite holidays. I made and bought lots of decorations and candles and I had the house all fixed up for at least a month before Halloween. I don’t feel like doing it anymore. I don’t feel like doing much of anything frankly. Maybe the wellbutrin will help me get more motivated, interested in life again, able to have some fun. I don’t know what is wrong with me.
I keep thinking about the girl who called the hotline Sunday who wanted to cut. I think about her every day, and every time I think about her I cry. She said she was holding her stuffed tiger while she was talking to me. I can picture her curled up on her bed with her tiger in one hand and her phone in the other. It makes me sad.
So I called my supervisor today to see if the girl has called again, and my supervisor said that she talked to her yesterday and she is adding her to regular callers list. I’m so glad that she is continuing to call. She shared some more details, which I won’t go into here for confidentiality purposes, but it’s good that she is opening up. My supervisor said, “I’m sorry you’ve been thinking about her so much.” This got me worried, I don’t want her to think that I’m getting too emotionally attached to anyone. I explained that this was the first child that I’ve talked to on the hotline and I was just concerned, but I’m fine. Yikes, I don’t want to get kicked off the hotline. I’m missing my shift this weekend because I’m running in a 10K, and I’m disappointed that I won’t be there. I think I may check and see if anyone is looking for a sub for next week so I can fill in a shift or two.
I woke up today and couldn’t get out of bed. I didn’t take any klonopin last night, and I had a bad night. I get this thing that feels like I need to jump out of my skin. I don’t know what it is, and it doesn’t happen all the time, but it happened last night. Maybe because I took two klonopin the night before, and I had a really great sleep, and I took two more yesterday morning. I can’t believe I would have withdrawal after just 2mg of klonopin though.
I’m feeling anger, because it took me so long to get off the damn klonopin. I have three bottles of it in my drawer and I never touch it. Until Tuesday night. And it makes me so damn angry that I sleep so well when I take it, but I can’t sleep when I don’t take it. Is it too much to ask for a good night’s sleep.
I also started the wellbutrin yesterday. I never had a chance to talk to J about it, there just isn’t time. 45 minutes once a week goes by quickly. But I guess I really need it and I’m going to give it 6 months and see how it goes. I see my pdoc next week. Yesterday at about 2PM I was so tired, I guess from the klonopin. I was at work, alone, and I fell asleep on the couch for about 45 minutes. The klonopin also seems to affect my cognitive skills. I had a really hard time remembering what I did for lunch and what I ate. I had to search my brain to remember. God knows what else I did that I forgot. I only took 1mg in the morning, not a huge dose or anything, and no liquor with it.
I also cut a little. But I don’t want to talk about that. Except to say it didn’t even hurt, so it was waste.
I woke up today feeling sad and also angry. I’m angry that I go to therapy every week, and I try, I really do. I think I do. Maybe not enough. But I feel like it’s all I can do to talk about my feelings, it takes everything out of me, and then I’m told that my feelings aren’t logical. So J explains the logic of whatever the situation is, and I get that. I really really GET the FUCKING logic!!!!! I would tell anyone else the same thing.
But I CAN’T FEEL it. It is so frustrating. How do I FEEL it? I’ve read books, I’ve asked people, I’ve told J I can’t feel it. But no one has been able to tell me how to feel the logic.
I had a time frame for therapy. If I didn’t get better by a certain day I would use my backup plan. But due to a change of circumstances I can’t use my backup plan. Now I feel like I have no therapy and no backup plan. All I want to do now is be numb and sleeping.