Monthly Archives: October 2010

Oct 31 2010

A Week of Endings

First of all – BOO. Had to say that, since its Halloween.

It’s been a week of endings. Tuesday night was my last night on the hotline, and yesterday was my last day with my foster child. I picked him up at noon and we went to the mall. He loves to go to the mall. I hated it – it was so crowded. Malls on the weekend and I don’t get along. But he had fun, so it was ok. He wanted to go to the Apple store to get new headphones for his iphone, which I bought for him. Then we had lunch in the eatery. I wanted to go to a restaurant, but he likes the eatery. OK, fine with me. We walked around the mall a bit, going into all of the athletic stores, shoe stores and young, hip, teenager stores. And definitely the video game store. He doesn’t have a video game system at his new house, and I told him to ask his “mom” for a video game system for Christmas. She can get a used system for not much money. And I said I would buy him a game for it.

Then I drove him home, and he said, “Bye, thanks!” and started to walk up the driveway.
I said, “Huh? This is our last time together and that’s your goodbye?”
He said, “This is our last time together?”
I said, “Yes, remember I said we were going to have a special day together for my last visit? Well, this was it.”
He came back down the driveway.
I told him that I will miss him, that I enjoyed our time together. That I think he will be a great role model for other foster children, that he already is a great role model, and that I respect him so much.
He said, “I hope that you can change another child’s life the way you did mine. You made mine normal.”
I said, “Your life is normal now?”
He said, “Well, except for when the foster kid thing comes to bite me in the ass.”
We hugged.
I said, “You changed my life too.”
I said, “I love you.”
He said, “I love you too.”
We hugged again.
I told him to take care of himself and I would see him at his high school graduation.
He said, “That is not until next year.”
I said I would be in touch in other ways in the meantime.

I watched him walk away. He’s going to make something of himself. I know it.

Oct 30 2010

My Last Night on the Hotline

Tuesday night was my last night working on the hotline. My partner had emailed me that she wouldn’t be there that night, so I worked alone. I took about six calls, but three were particularly special for me. I don’t know if I was in a different mindset knowing it was my last night, or if was the wine I drank after therapy in the afternoon, or if it was my own confusion about therapy that day, but I felt different on the calls that night.

The first special call was from Ed. Ed is angry, he is always angry. He calls screaming and cursing about whatever thing has set him off that day. The things he gets angry about are frustrating, but not life altering episodes. But he also has such a human side to him, I really do enjoy talking to him, even though I have only spoken with him a few times over the last year.

I let him rant and rave. He would go on and on, then he would apologize. I told him that there is no need to apologize, that is what I am there for. If that is what he needs, then I will sit and listen to him scream and curse. He told me that other hotline volunteers don’t feel that way, and ask him to stop screaming and cursing. I told him I don’t feel that way. That as long as he is not yelling and cursing at me it is fine. I will just listen. I validated his feelings along the way, telling him that what happened is indeed frustrating, and the fact that he can’t do anything about it is even more frustrating. I did not tell him what to do, or offer suggestions as to how to fix the situation.

By the end of the call he was calm and he decided he would go to the outing he had planned that night, despite having decided not to go earlier.

Then Alice called. She has schizophrenia and when her meds aren’t working right she hears voices in her head. This is bad enough, but she thinks that others can hear the voices too, and she is extremely paranoid because she thinks that people are constantly judging her. She wanted to know what business it is of theirs to listen to her voices, and why are they laughing at her.

This is a tricky situation because she can really hear the voices, and she really believes others can hear them too, and I don’t want to tell her that they can’t. So I tried to validate her feelings (this is what I normally do when I can’t think of anything else) and I told her it must be very difficult for her, with those voices constantly chattering in her head, and how dare anyone else listen and then make fun of her. She said, “I know! You really understand, you get it.” Which I really don’t, but I wanted to let her know that I think it must be hard for her.

After we had talked for a while about the other people and how it makes her feel to have them judging her, I brought up the fact that maybe others can’t hear those voices. I had to be careful here, because I didn’t want to negate her ideas about this. I asked her if the doctors can hear her voices, and she said they told her that they can’t. She says her parents have told her that they can’t. But she doesn’t believe them. She said a woman on her block told her that she can hear Alice’s voices, so it must be true. I said, “Maybe your neighbor has her own voices in her head and that is what she hears.” This made Alice crack up laughing. It was so good to hear her laugh. She thought it was so funny that maybe her neighbor has her own voices.

After having developed this rapport with Alice I suggested that perhaps no one can hear the voices in her head, but I stressed that I know that this is very hard for her to believe because the voices are so loud, and she sees reactions of people around her which she assumes are reactions to the voices. Alice had called her doctor that day, the dosage on her medication was going to be increased and she was going to the pharmacy the next day to pick up the new meds. I asked her to call back after she started on the new dose to let us know how she is doing. She said she would be happy to call back and she hopes she gets me on the phone next time because “You really understand.”

The third caller didn’t want to give her name, but I’ll call her Laura. She was very upset at the beginning of the call. She was having a fight with her boyfriend, he is suffering from depression and is having a very hard time right now, and she is moving on Thursday and needs him to help her. He told her not to call him for the rest of the day. He told her that his depression had never been as bad as it is right now, and she took this personally. She feels responsible, why else would he be so depressed if not for her?

Later it came out that he works full time and goes to school full time, and he recently did poorly on a couple of exams. He is very high achiever, as is she. They both set high expectations for themselves. She was crying and very anxious. I let her talk, and she did. I asked a few questions here and there, but she was able to talk without much prompting.

After she got her story out, she started to ask questions. “Why is he so depressed?” “Do you think it is my fault?” I don’t know the answers to the questions of course. But I tried to point out things in her story that would lead her to develop her own conclusions. I mentioned that he recently got poor grades on exams. That he is working long hours. She gradually came to see that even though she feels as though his depression is her fault, logically she knows that is not true.

When we got through this stage of the call, I felt confident that we could move to problem solving. She was very worried that her boyfriend would not help her move on Thursday. She said that he was worried that his car would get dirty. I helped her figure out what to say to him when she calls him the next day, first about the depression, and second about the move. We went through this a couple of times.

At the end of the call she felt more confident and less anxious. She said I was a big help to her. I felt good about that call. I felt that Laura could be me, and vice versa.

When I left that night, I knew I felt good about my calls, but I wasn’t really sure how I actually helped these people. I felt that all I did was sit there and listen to them. It’s somewhat difficult not being in the room with the person, I can’t tell their body language, or the unspoken words. It’s harder to read between the lines. And yet, the anonymity and space between us also can make things easier. Callers feel less vulnerable when they are not in the same room with us.

But writing this out I can see that I actually, perhaps, did do something. It was not conscious to me at the time, but I seem to have followed an outline with each caller. Listen, validate, develop rapport, move to problem solving if that is what the caller wants.

So that was my last night on the hotline. I’m not upset that I quit, but I’m glad my last night was a good one.

Oct 28 2010

Pdoc Update 10/28/10

I saw new/old pdoc today. She isn’t the kind of pdoc that does 15 minute med checks every three months. She gives a full session and wants to see me once a month. When I went today I thought I might talk to her about my therapy, and that is what I did. I told her that sometimes I have problems with therapy and my therapist, and I’m thinking of quitting. She asked me to tell her what type of problems I am having. I told her that I have to work so hard to get my t to understand me and sometimes we have issues. I told her the story about my session with J two weeks ago and how he told me about his race.

She didn’t take sides for or against him, or me, which I thought was very respectful. She asked me if I told him how I felt and I told her how I went in the next week and was very ashamed, but managed to tell him a few things and then he guessed what I was upset about. She said that was great that I was able to go back and tell him how I felt. I explained to her about how I got jealous, and how I felt set up. I told her that he did apologize and he said he felt badly after I left thinking he might have messed up. But when we talked about it again this week, he didn’t seem to understand why it is different that he runs faster than me from anyone else running faster than me. And that I can’t verbalize why. I told her that I am not good at verbalizing my feelings and I am not a good communicator. She told me that I seem to be a fine communicator.

She wanted to know if I plan to bring it up with him again, and I said that every session is its own little self-contained thing, that nothing carries over from week to week. I said it is a lose-lose situation for my t, because I hate when I walk in and he says, “What do you want to talk about today?” but if he suggested a topic and I didn’t really want to talk about that topic I wouldn’t change the subject. She asked me why I wouldn’t do that, and I told her that I always try to please my t, and be the good patient, and if he wants to talk about something then I won’t stop him.

She asked me if he and I have ever discussed this, that it seems like something we should talk about in therapy. I told her that most of my problems, in real life and in therapy, are from my low self-esteem and my feeling that I am never good enough. That I take the blame and responsibility for anything that goes wrong in a relationship. I told her that he and I have talked about this a lot. She said that real life relationships often get repeated in therapy. I asked her what am I doing to make J respond to me like the other people in my life do? She asked me if I feel invalidated by him sometimes, and I do, and she said that I shouldn’t necessarily take the blame for this. But it is something to be discussed in therapy.

Then I told her that after the session where J told me about the race, I quit my volunteer jobs. She wanted to know why and I told her that I was feeling badly about myself and that I didn’t do a good job and I was sure they could find someone better. I told her that J said I was punishing myself. She asked if I thought maybe I was punishing him too? That maybe this was passive aggressive. She said I was angry at him, so I quit the hotline. I told her that I wasn’t angry at him, that I was angry at myself, and I didn’t see how quitting would punish him. But she said that maybe it was subconscious. I told her how J thought maybe there was a competition between him and me, and that is why I quit.

She wanted to know if I always felt badly after I left therapy, and I told her that I didn’t always. That before the “running” session I thought things had been going pretty well. I gave her my theory that maybe J thought I was doing too well in therapy and tried to make me feel bad, for fear that he would lose a good patient if I got too much better. She asked me if I told him this, and I said that I didn’t think I could tell him, that he rarely talks about his motivations for things. She thought that it is also possible that I was the one afraid of getting well, and I got hurt and angry at him, because I am afraid of ending therapy too. That is possible. I said I have another theory, and that is I am afraid of getting too attached to my t, like I did with my son’s therapist, and so I am always finding fault with my t. She wanted to know why I felt so attached to my son’s t. I explained to her what he did for my son and for me, and how everything fell apart due to his loose boundaries. But she had a great insight, she said that maybe the reason I felt so attached to him was because he took an interest in my son, and helped him, and helped me to help him, which is what I always wanted my husband to do, but he never would. I had never thought about that, but it makes a lot of sense.

I told pdoc that I am hesitant to keep bringing up the same things in therapy, that I am always making such a big deal out of everything. She told me that is what therapy is, talking about these little things over and over. And it isn’t my job to entertain my t, to always be coming up with new things to tell him, and it’s ok to just say whatever is on my mind during therapy, to not worry about how my t will feel. I told her that he says feelings aren’t right or wrong, but currently I am feeling like my feelings are wrong, because he doesn’t understand why I am upset that he runs faster than me, which isn’t even the issue at all.

She said it sounds like there is a lot of work that needs to be done, that we haven’t finished processing the running issue. I said that he just doesn’t understand and I don’t know how to make him understand. She said I don’t need to make him understand, I just need to talk about my feelings. I told her that I have hard time with feelings, I often don’t know what I am feeling. I’m good with bad, sad, glad and mad, and that’s about it. She said that is ok, to just say what I feel and he and I should work on figuring out what the feelings are.

She told me that I seem to have changed a lot since I stopped seeing her three years ago. She said back then I was very closed off, there was a lot I didn’t want to talk about, and now I seem more open. That was interesting to me. I told her how I feel so much worse in my life since I started therapy and she said that is probably because I am feeling things, and delving into things. She, of course, wants me to take medication for my depression. I told her that I am not depressed and she smiled. I said, “All of you pdocs think I am depressed.” I told her that I have a great life and have nothing to be depressed about. She said that I have stress with my son and my marriage. I told her that I do have stress, but that isn’t depression. I also said I won’t take wellbutrin anymore because I think it caused a lot of intrusive thoughts. She asked me what kind of intrusive thoughts, and I wouldn’t say. She guessed at a few things and I wouldn’t really say and she said, “You don’t want to talk about this?” I told her that I didn’t. I already told J about my problems with intrusive thoughts, I don’t ever plan to tell anyone else about them.

I did tell her that I have some poor coping skills – isolating myself, eating and exercise issues, drinking. She asked about my drinking and I didn’t tell the complete truth. She said I should be careful with the drinking. I didn’t tell her about self-injury, another thing I will never tell anyone else about.

I felt like we had been talking for a long time. She doesn’t have a clock in the office, but when I got out to the waiting room I saw that I had been in there for a full 60 minutes. I felt like a weight had been lifted off of my shoulders. I felt like I had been truly heard, and that she really understood me. I didn’t have to spell everything out, I just talked and she got it. It was such a relief. I told her I was still taking the trazadone, so she gave me another prescription for it, and another prescription for the 1mg klonopin, even though I only take .25mg each night. Those were white lies. And I go back in a month.

I think I might be able to handle therapy with J if I can see new/old pdoc once a month to sort everything out with her. I’m so happy that I decided to look for a new pdoc and checked my insurance company’s list and saw her name. I always liked her before, but kind of dreaded seeing her, because I had to sit there for 50 minutes and tell her about my life, when all I wanted was my prescription for whatever anti-depressant I was on at the time. I was a walking zombie, so I had no feelings to speak of, there wasn’t much to talk about back then. But today I felt so good in her office. She is very gentle, and has a subtle accent and a soft voice, and she is so nice. She is older than me, and told me that at my age there are biological and hormonal changes that can affect me emotionally, and I’m in the stage of my life when my kids leave and it can cause emotional upheaval. J would never say those things! I even cried once and had to use one of her tissues.

She just validated everything I said and felt, without negating anything J is doing or saying. I’m not sure how she did that. She didn’t make me feel bad about anything he is doing or anything I am doing, but gave me support in how I can relate to him and what to do to make my therapy more effective.

It felt good.

Oct 27 2010

I’m So Competent

Yesterday I lied to J, my therapist, about what my supervisor said to me when I told her I was resigning. I felt bad about lying, but I didn’t want him to know that she said good things about me. I didn’t want him to have “evidence” that maybe I am good at the hotline. I’m sure she said nice things because that is what you do when an employee/volunteer leaves. What are you going to say, “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out?” So she said nice things.

But I felt badly about lying so I sent him an email apologizing and I copied her email so that he could see what she said about me. Then he sent me an email in response saying, “I imagine you being very competent at just about everything you take on. No worries about the “lie”.”

Yes, that is me! Competent at everything I take on. I am the supreme competent human being. I have been told by friends, “You are the most competent person I know!” Yay for me!

Being so competent means that people always ask me to do things (and they know I’ll never say no). It means people never ask me if I need help. It means that even though I look functional at all times, no one would ever suspect that something might be wrong. It means that I can’t ask for help, or ever seem incompetent, because that would destroy the appearance, the illusion.

When my son was in school I tried to get him an individualized education plan (special education). I started this process when he was in 4th grade and finally succeeded in the second half of his 11th grade (too late for it to be useful). The line I used that finally made an impression on the administration was that my son had “an illusion of competency”. His intelligence was able to compensate for his learning disabilities for that long. But he wasn’t competent, despite what every teacher believed.

It sucks to be thought of as competent in everything one does. Where does that leave room for mistakes, for imperfection, for the occasional bout of laziness? I know that people mean it as a compliment, no one intends to be hurtful when they say someone is competent. But I think it is an overstatement to say that I am competent in everything I take on. I obviously am not so competent at therapy. And what does competent mean anyway? It’s a subjective term. To some it might mean “good enough”, to others it might mean being an expert. J didn’t just say I was competent, he said I was “very” competent. At just about everything I take on. Yay me.

And why did he put the word “lie” in quotation marks? Perhaps he thinks my lie wasn’t a lie. I sometimes lie by omission, and that may not be considered lying. But this was a definite lie. He didn’t ask why I lied, I wonder if he is wondering about that. He doesn’t do therapy via email, and I appreciate that. Too easy to get everything screwed up. But I’m sure he won’t ever ask me about it. I will probably bring it up in the future though.

In the meantime, I am going to continue competently doing my work and then I will go home and competently make my son dinner, and then perhaps I will competently go for a walk (I am a very competent walker). Finally I plan to competently fold the laundry and competently put it away. Makes for a very competent day.

Oct 26 2010

Therapy Recap 10/26/10

This isn’t going to be good. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

To summarize: I went into therapy today feeling misunderstood, and I left feeling the same way.

J started out as always, “What do you want to talk about today?” I wasn’t aware that we were done with last week’s topic, but that is his usual MO, so I am used to it. I came up with a list:

writing class was harder than I thought it would be
I quit my volunteer jobs
I went to a reunion dinner with the Mississippi people
I ran in a race (I said, “But I obviously am not going to talk about that with you!”)

He said, “Let’s start with the first one.” So we talked about the writing class and I told him it was more difficult than I thought it would be to read my story, it was about my foster child. But it was the last class, so I don’t have to worry about that anymore.

He asked if I am relieved about quitting my volunteer jobs, if I did it as good self care. I said I am relieved in a way, but it has nothing to do with self care. Kind of the opposite, actually.

He asked why I quit my job as advocate for the foster child and I told him that I didn’t have a good reason, that everything I came up with sounded selfish. But I explained the story and he said it makes sense that this is a good time to leave. That I shouldn’t feel guilty for leaving, or feel like a failure, despite the commitment that I made to myself four and a half years ago to stay with the child until he aged out. That would have been a 10 year commitment, and the organization only requires a one year commitment. He agrees with my supervisor that it is good for my child to learn that endings can be good. He also feels that my lie (that I am going to advocate for another child) was a white lie, and despite the fact that I don’t intend to take on another case, it is still a good lesson for my child to know that there are other needy kids out there and not enough advocates. He said I should finish my story about the foster child (I only wrote about his life up until age 12, since there was a word/time limit on our stories for the class) because that might give me closure. I said I would do that. I have to do it before I officially finish, because at that time I’ll have to turn in all of my notes and paperwork.

Then we talked about quitting the hotline. I told him that was a more impulsive decision. I didn’t want to do it anymore because I was feeling bad about myself. That I quit the day after he and I had the conversation about his race. He asked me what my supervisor said when I quit, and I lied. I told him that she just asked me why I was leaving, and could I give her a week or two to find someone to fill the spot. That’s not exactly what she said. She praised me and my work on the hotline, but I didn’t want him to know that. I didn’t want to give him evidence that I might be good at the job. There was a lot of confusion in this conversation. I said I didn’t want to deal with people anymore, that I didn’t feel I was good at the job, and that I’m sure they could find someone better. He said it’s ok to not want to deal with people, some people just don’t want to, or feel better alone. Some people need to work in a cubicle all day by themselves without interacting with others. I had no idea what he was talking about, in regard to me. I said, “So it’s ok that I quit because I didn’t want to deal with people?” He said, “What’s negative about not wanting to deal with people?” I said, with a tone in my voice, “Well, I won’t have anyone to talk to, I won’t have anyone to do anything with, I won’t have anyone to support me, and I won’t have anyone to have a connection with. And that’s OK?”

Part of our miscommunication is that he thought I was alone on the hotline, just talking to callers, and he thought I didn’t want to deal with the callers anymore. I told him I wasn’t talking about the callers, I was talking about my co-workers. That I have had partners on the hotline, and I got somewhat close to them. But this is what I do, I get close to people and then I pull away. Sure I’ll miss the callers somewhat too.

He said that he feels that I was punishing myself after our conversation about his race. I left his office, I felt bad about myself, and I quit to punish myself because I didn’t feel good enough.

He said, “Can I ask you about your race?” I said, “No, not if you are going to tell me that ran a marathon this weekend in a hour and a half.” He asked if his remarks two weeks ago about his race affected my race, and I said that I was really hesitant to do the race, but I wanted the shirt. (I won’t wear the shirt unless I do the race, that’s bad etiquette.) He asked why I wanted the shirt and I said because it’s a nice shirt. He asked if I had seen the shirt before the race weekend and I said I hadn’t, but I had seen previous year’s shirts and I knew they were nice. He asked what was important about having the shirt and I said it meant that I did the race. I said, “You better quit here before you ruin this for me.” He said he wanted to say one more thing, and I said, “Don’t you ruin this for me.”

He told me that last month when he ran his race he saw one of the high schoolers after the race wearing the race shirt. He had cut off the sleeves and written his time on the front, and it was 18 minutes. J thought, “Oh man, 18 minutes.” But then he thought to himself, “Well, that’s ok, some people run faster than others.” I was started to get extremely frustrated right about now. I looked right at him (I had been avoided his eyes all along) and I said, with emphasis, “He is not your therapist!” J said, “Why does that matter?” I said, “Because he did not set you up by asking about your racing and you didn’t tell him about a bad race you had and how slow you are prior to him telling you that he ran the 5K in 18 minutes. There were 17,000 people who ran faster than me in the race on Sunday and I don’t care about any of them. None of them are my therapist!” I think he was biting his tongue right then, about to say that he didn’t set me up, etc. But he didn’t say anything. He just doesn’t get it though.

Again he said, “Why does it matter?” I said, “I don’t know why it matters. And now I feel bad about myself because I am letting it matter. I guess it shouldn’t matter.”

Then he asked if there was competition with the hotline. I said, “No, of course not, why would there be competition?” He said, “Because I do therapy, and you were doing a form of therapy with the callers, so maybe there was competition?” I had no idea he was talking about me being in competition with him, I thought he meant competition with the other hotline volunteers. I thought that was an interesting idea, once I figured out what he was talking about. I said it may be true. He said, “Why does there have to be competition?” I said, “There never was competition, until you started the competition!”

Then he gave me a whole lecture about the therapeutic relationship and the power struggle. And lions wrestling over power, and how they don’t mean to destroy each other, they just need to see who has superiority, and the others accept that and just move on with their lives, but then there may be more battles for power in the future. And if one dies in the battle for power it is usually an accident. And how the therapist shares very little of his life, feelings, thoughts compared to the patient, and that could make the patient feel vulnerable, but the patient also has power because they decide the direction of the sessions and what is to be talked about. Blah blah blah. Is he saying if I die it will be an accident?

At the end he said he wanted to read my story about my foster child and he thinks I should finish it. I’m hesitant to let him read any more of my writing because of his lack of emotional response to any of it. It’s like reading a psychological journal I guess. The New England Journal of Medicine maybe.

Yesterday my son had asked me if we could out to lunch after my “meeting” (my euphamism for therapy, used with people who don’t know about my therapy, which is everyone). So I picked him up and we went out to lunch and I had a glass of wine. Then I dropped him off, picked up my boss’s girlfriend’s birthday present and went to a bar to continue drinking. I had to be at the hotline at 4PM, so I went to Panera to have some coffee. Then I went to pick up my boss’s girlfriend’s birthday card and I came to the hotline. My hotline partner isn’t here, which is too bad, I’ve enjoyed working with her. She is going through a divorce, so I’ve learned a lot from her experiences that she has shared with me. I doubt we’ll stay in touch though. I don’t do that.

I’ve already decided what I am going to say next week when J asks me what I want to talk about today. “I want to talk about why I feel it is so hard for you to understand me.”

Yes, some people run faster than others. Why does it matter that it was my therapist telling me how much faster he runs than me? Why can’t I articulate it? I suck at communication, and he sucks at reading between the lines. So that leaves us in a mire of misunderstanding.

Oct 25 2010

Army 10 Miler

Saturday night I got all of my stuff together. It took me a while to decide what to wear. I’m not generally superstitious, but I got into the habit of always wearing pink when I run in a race. I checked the weather report and it was not going to be very cool, only about 55 degrees at 7am and going up to 74. I decided on my pink shorts and a white Under Armour short sleeved shirt. Pink socks. The shorts only have a small pocket, so I used my Spibelt which I filled with lip balm, Gu, Sport Beans, and tissues (I always have a runny nose when I run). I pinned my bib to my shirt, and attached my computer chip to my shoe. I packed water, a towel, my metrocard and a few bucks.

I didn’t drink (liquor) all day, and tried to eat healthy and stay hydrated. I went to bed early. Even though I set two alarms, I got up multiple times in the night. The alarms went off at 5:00am and I hit snooze until 5:15am. I got up, made a cup of coffee, slathered a bagel thin with peanut butter and wrapped it in foil, got dressed, threw on a sweatshirt and was out the door before 6. Drove to the metro, and got there just as it opened. I still had to wait 10 minutes for the first train; it was dark out, but there were a bunch of runners there. Everyone getting on the metro for the most part was a runner. I had to change trains in DC, and wait another 10 minutes for the next train, but still managed to get a seat and stay cozy for the ride to the Pentagon.

When I got off the train it was light out, the sun was just coming up. It was almost a full moon, and the moon was still out, low in the sky. The crowds were amazing. 30,000 runners were registered. I knew I had to be efficient if I was going to have time to use the porta potty before the race. I ate my bagel and headed towards the bag check. I had a big number (22359) so my section was quite far down the row. After I checked my bag I headed for the potty. There were so many potties it was unbelievable. The wait wasn’t very long at all. Then I started to make my way to my corral. Everyone was walking to and fro, and the noise level was quite high.

But without warning the sound of the National Anthem came through the loudspeakers. Everyone stopped in their tracks, removed their hats, and there was silence. When the song ended there was a round of cheers and applause; hats back on, conversations started, milling about began again in earnest.

I got to my corral, or as close as I could get due to the crowds, and began the wait. There was a loud explosion which signaled the start of the first wave. More cheers and applause. More waiting. I looked around and saw groups of people wearing shirts with pictures of loved ones on the back. Some were killed in action, some were husbands who are deployed overseas. I’m sure there must have been men running with their overseas wives on their shirts, but I didn’t see any. There were veterans missing limbs who were running with prosthetics or in wheelchairs. Helicopters passed overhead.

Finally the crowd started to inch forward. And I mean inch. I couldn’t even pick my feet up off the ground, it was a teeny shuffle. My corral was quite far back from the starting line. Eventually it picked up, and we began to run. I crossed the starting line at 8:20am. Immediately my calves were cramping and I thought “Uh oh!” I have run a race with a bad cramp before and it was awful, but I was not expecting this at the very start. But it must have been due to the cool temps and standing around for 25 minutes. When I got warmed up I felt fine.

The first six miles were pretty good. It was crowded and there were bottlenecks. Lots of weaving in and out. There was a band playing every two miles, and water stations every two miles as well. I run/walk, which means I run for four minutes and then walk for one minute. It got warm, it was sunny, and I was enjoying my pace. We passed over the Memorial Bridge, around the Watergate, past the Washington Monument and headed towards the Capitol.

The last four miles were hard, and the last two were really tough. I was wondering if I was dying. I would close my eyes for a few seconds, I was feeling a bit lightheaded. We passed the Jefferson Memorial and finally were headed towards the 14th Street Bridge – almost the end. There was a hill at the end. Cruel. But the last two blocks were downhill, around two turns and finally over the finish line. We had to keep running for a bit to get out of the way, then through a chute which was actually the longest chute I have ever been through. Crammed in with other hot sweaty happy runners, there was nowhere to go but through. But they were giving out water, and I downed a bottle.

I was supposed to meet my husband, but there was no way I was going to find him in this crowd. Huge tents of food, media, hospitality, and the military had an incredibly large set up of tents and activities. I was limping, aching, shivering. My hands were tingling. I felt nauseous. I got back to bag check so I could get my phone. I called my husband and found out he was back at the finish line, so I limped back there and finally met up with him. I got a banana, a bagel (which was dry and tough) and a muffin (which tasted like fake banana and chemicals).

I couldn’t enjoy the activities. The crowds were overwhelming me. I couldn’t walk without being jostled and smashed into by other people. I would be walking behind someone and they would just stop without warning – BAM! I had to go. My husband had driven down, so we got into his car and went home. He dropped me off at my car at the metro, and picked me up a bag of ice. When he got home I took an ice bath, then a hot shower. Ah.

I slept most of the afternoon. I got a medal. I did it without dying. 21,000 people finished the race. I did it all alone.

medal

Oct 23 2010

Sensing vs Intuition

I’m thinking about these personality preferences of sensing and intuition. I so often feel like J doesn’t get me. I can’t say I don’t feel understood by him, just that it takes longer and with more explanation from me, and frequently with misunderstandings along the way. I can’t just say something and a light bulb goes off in his head. That never happens. And sometimes I think he understands, but then later on he’ll say something and I realize he never understood at all. So then I have to explain and then he’ll get it. He doesn’t read between the lines, he doesn’t seem to pick up on the unsaid things, and he focuses so much on details that he misses the big picture. He is very much in the here and now, very concrete, very literal. So when I say “I wanted to cancel my appointment today because I didn’t want you to see me” he’ll reply, “I can turn around.” It makes so much sense that he would respond that way when you think about his preference for sensing rather than intuition. And it makes total sense that I would want him to say “Why don’t you want me to see you?” when you take into account my preference for intuition. If I was person who could speak up and be in the here and now, instead of having to process things hours and days later, I think we could work out misunderstandings more quickly. But I’m not.

A couple of things that show his lack of understanding lately have to do with the writing class. He thought I dropped out of the class because I was worried that my classmates would find me weird and crazy. I had never said that, I had told him that the class was too emotional for me, and I don’t like to show emotion and we even talked about how growing up I was taught not to show emotion. I don’t really know what went wrong there, that he didn’t understand why I dropped out of the class.

And then when I gave him my stories to read he didn’t understand why I found them emotional. He said they were historic and factual and where did I think they veered into emotional. So I went back and read some of them and found the sections that made me cry when I read them. But maybe they aren’t emotional? Here are some of those sections:

And then there was healthy, mature-for-my-age, me. Apparently I was toilet trained in five minutes, no one’s house ever had to be child proofed for me, and I could sit at the Howard Johnson’s restaurant with the grownups and be perfectly behaved. I tried not to bother my parents because they had so much to deal with already, between my father and my sister. No one ever told me to leave them alone, go take care of myself, or anything of that sort. I just took it upon myself to not be a burden. I kept everything inside, all of my worries, my accomplishments, my feelings. I somehow felt I would bother my parents if I had anything to say.

But ultimately he did die. He went into a coma. I drove to New Jersey with the kids, and my sister was there with her son. Her son was 1 year old, my children were 5 and 7. We were all with my dad in his room. And then we got hungry. I volunteered to go across the street to the grocery store to get some food for everyone, because that is what I did. I stepped up to the plate and took care of things. But when I got back my dad was dead. He just stopped breathing. He didn’t look any different when he was dead than when he was alive. It’s just that no breath was coming in and out. After 8 years of illness, it was finally over. And I was buying turkey and rye bread.

Harriet spent her days trying to prove to herself that she was good enough and her nights fantasizing about her death. She ran, expressed her ideas through creative activities, and watched Jason Bourne movies. She was always seeking something elusive and never quite within reach, but she was continually unable to figure out what that elusive thing was or where to go to find it.

He is right – there is no emotion in those words. There are no “feeling” words, it is written like a newspaper article. I never say “I was sad that my father died” or anything along those lines.

But sometimes when I read a newspaper article I get teary eyed, or even cry outright. If I read an article about a child who dies, or a mother who has gone missing, it stirs emotion in me despite the journalistic quality of the writing. Does writing have to be emotional to stir emotion?

My story about my foster child had people in the class crying, and it is written in the same style. I even tried to keep my writing understated in that story to avoid overdramatizing traumatic events. How about this paragraph, there is no emotion in here, but people were crying:

Jack lived with his newly adopted mother for three years. Again, something went terribly wrong. Jack and his adopted brother would show up at school with bruises and cuts on their bodies. Neither boy told anyone what was going on, but ultimately Jack broke down and revealed to his third grade teacher the atrocities that were occurring at home. The bruises on his body were from the electrical cords that she would lash him with. The cuts on his brother’s head were from the hair clippers that his mother would use to cut his hair – so roughly and close cut that she would cut through the skin. Jack told his teacher that when his brother misbehaved he would have to stand facing the corner for hours.

Maybe my writing isn’t emotional, and I am blowing things way out of proportion. I know the stories were emotional for me to read, but I can’t explain why. Maybe because I know the emotion that I was feeling at the time the events happened? But perhaps I haven’t conveyed those feelings in my writing, so there is a disconnect between the words and my display of emotion. So now I am doubting my writing ability as well as my level of mental functioning. J doesn’t think the stories are emotional, another piece of evidence that we see things differently I suppose.

Oct 22 2010

Mississippi Reunion Dinner

Tonight I am going to a reunion dinner with the people I worked with in Mississippi for Habitat for Humanity. You’ll all be proud of me – I actually initiated this. It started by my facebook message to the others that since I’m not working on the hotline on Sundays anymore I can go visit them at church. Somehow it turned into dinner at someone’s house. I think because the pastor left and is at a different church now, and one of the women broke up with her boyfriend so she doesn’t go to that church anymore so she can avoid him. Whatever!

I’m looking forward to this, I haven’t seen them since whenever that last reunion was – May? June? I’m trying to change my distorted thinking, that they are just having this dinner to be nice to me, they feel sorry for me, etc. They wouldn’t go to all the trouble of gathering everyone together, planning a menu and getting people to make and bring food, etc, just to be nice to me. So I’m going to believe that they like me and are looking forward to seeing me, as well as everyone else. Just having a nice time being together.

Oct 21 2010

Writing Class and My Foster Child

Writing class was a lot harder than I thought it would be. Last night was the last session. I wrote about my foster child, which is why I can’t post my story on my blog, it is confidential. For some reason I read my story first, I think the teacher thinks it will reduce my anxiety if I get it over with. My story was technically longer than I it was supposed to be, we have a 5 minute limit. But they said it was ok. I cried while I was reading it, which surprised me, I didn’t think I would get emotional. But I continued on…until the last paragraph. I couldn’t finish, so I gave it to the woman next to me to read.

Other people were crying while I read the story. And we had quite a long discussion afterwards, which doesn’t usually happen because we are on a tight time schedule so that everyone has time to read. They wanted to know more about my foster child and the CASA program, and my teacher said that my story could probably be published in the Sunday magazine section of our newspaper – and this is a major newspaper, it’s circulation is 800,000 on Sundays according to Wikipedia. Unfortunately I can’t publish anything about my foster child.

One woman in the class, who is a human rights activist, told me of a phenomenon whereby people working with trauma survivors take on some of the trauma themselves. She told me this is particularly true of sensitive people. Another person told me that she is surprised I would take on this role because I am so sensitive. I think she said I have a tender heart. That’s a nice phrase. I’m not sure about the trauma passing along to another person, not sure if that is possible, but it is interesting.

I told the class that I am especially emotional about my foster child right now because of the fact that I am stepping down as his advocate. I told them that he said that he wants to consider me a lifelong friend and what he said in a text to me the other day when I asked him if he thinks he still needs an advocate:

It ok if i dnt have 1 u did all i wanted be a blessing to some1 else so u can change thier life like u did minr

I’ve actually been wanting to get another tattoo, but I wasn’t sure what I wanted. I was waiting to see if something would come to me. Now I know, I think I would like those words on my tattoo “be a blessing to some1 else so u can change thier life like u did minr”. Just like that. He certainly changed my life.

At the end of the class we exchanged hugs and said goodbyes. I got emotional again, particularly with two of the women who I feel a kinship with, and the 81 year old guy with the dazzling blue eyes. One of the women, the one who encouraged me to come back to the class by telling me she was writing less emotional pieces to share with the class, told me that she has never met anyone like me. She meant it in a good way. That was really nice of her to say. She is 15 years younger than me, but I feel like she could be my friend. I hope we all keep in touch or have meet ups.

Meanwhile, all of this emotion is taking its toll on me. Yesterday I had an attack of low blood sugar at the grocery store, which was combined with a bit of a panic attack. I bought a sweetened iced tea and sat on a bench outside the store. I wasn’t sure how I would get back to work, it’s only a half mile walk, but I was feeling so faint and shaky. I don’t know, I guess it passed and I made it back. Shivering and sweating and shaking.

My eyes are so puffy and red it looks like I’ve been in a fight. I’m either crying or on the verge of tears at every moment. I’m reading articles about suicide. Don’t worry, I’m not going to do it. I’m a planner, not impulsive. I just like to have a plan.

I am angry at myself for letting J’s words get to me so badly. I thought I was doing pretty well for the last month and a half, I was even looking at my calendar trying to figure out when my next fall down the rabbit hole would be, since they occur about every three months. But that god damn stupid running conversation sent me into a spiral. And our session this week didn’t really help me. He apologized and said he might have been a jerk, but I keep thinking if I was a better person, or if he cared about me, he wouldn’t have been a jerk. That I somehow caused all of this and it’s my fault that I am now suffering because of it.

I just don’t know what to do to feel better.

Oct 20 2010

More About Yesterday

Something else I noticed yesterday. At one point when I glanced at J he was sitting with his arms crossed and his legs crossed. He never sits that way – he has a very open way about him when he is sitting across from me. He either has his hands behind his head and one ankle crossed over the other knee, or his hands on the sides of the chair and his legs apart, or he is leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. I’ve always noticed that he either is or tries to be very approachable in his posture. But not yesterday. I wonder if he even noticed. It was such a change that it was hard not for me to notice.

I found an article about counter transference and the relational needs of therapists. Everyone has relational needs – there are eight of them:

1. Need for security in relationship.
2. Need to be validated and affirmed as significant.
3. Need for acceptance by a stable, dependable and protective other.
4. Need for mutuality or confirmation of personal experience.
5. Need for self definition.
6. Need to make an impact on the other.
7. Need to have the other person initiate.
8. Need to express love.

Sometimes therapists use clients to meet their relational needs. This is not a good thing for clients, and it can re-traumatize clients. It can be detrimental for the therapist as well, leading to feelings of guilt and shame. In looking at this list, I can see that J might use for me numbers 2, 4, and 6.

In #2, according to this article, therapists spend all day validating their clients’ feelings and behaviors, and don’t really get that in return. I can understand that. I do try to thank my t after every session and sometimes I send him an email telling him when a session, or something he has said, was particularly helpful. But J seems like the kind of person who would thrive on constant validation and knowledge that he is significant. I guess we all would.

In #4, a therapist is looking for a client who has a similar experience so that he can share and feel understood by someone who knows what it’s like. We all like that, it’s nice that we don’t have to explain, just that the other person “gets it” because they have been there. But if a t talks too much about their own experience it can be detrimental to the client.

For #6, this need can lead to a therapist trying to elicit an emotional reaction from the client. It also feels good to a t to know they have had an impact on a client, even if it is a negative impact. I’m sure it is common for t’s to not be aware of any impact they have had on their clients, since change is so slow, or clients may not ever verbalize their feelings about this.

I was also thinking of something else. I thought things have been going pretty well for J and I lately. I’ve been opening up more, talking about more things, we have the box of ideas, I’ve been sending him my writing. Maybe he thought things are going too well and he needed me to have a set back of some sort so that I don’t decide that I am so fine that I don’t need therapy anymore. I know he wouldn’t do that on purpose, but maybe subconsciously? He likes the fact that I am a very reliable patient, I show up every week, I pay on time, I never bounce checks, I don’t bother him (not too much anyway) between sessions, I’m private pay. What’s not to like about a patient like me? It could be worth all of my little idiosyncracies to have someone like me paying him faithfully every week. Yeah, maybe he was nervous that things were going too well?

All of this is just speculation. Maybe he just is a jerk every now and then. But he once told me that everyone does everything for a reason.