Tag Archives: bell curve

Jan 13 2010

I Think I Figured It Out

So while I was laying in bed last night unable to sleep even though I had taken a klonopin (which I promise myself is a one time thing, I am not going back to the days of klonopin = sleeping pills since it took me 4 months to break that habit) I thought about what I was feeling yesterday. I think it goes like this:

Build up a little trust – take a risk – see what happens

If what happens is positive I get to take one baby step forward, like in mother may I.

If what happens is negative I get to take 10 giant steps backwards, plus even losing a turn.

Yes, the positive reinforcement has much less of an impact than the negative reinforcement. Maybe that’s why in a marriage 5 positives = 1 negative. (Look up Dr. John Gottman if you want to know more about that.)

Maybe in therapy 5 positives = 1 negative also.

I have difficulty with trust, and with making myself vulnerable. But I force myself to make disclosures every once in a while, and sometimes it ends up well and sometimes I’m left wondering what the hell I just did.

When I sent J the email about the recap of 2009, I took a big risk. I tried to make that letter as honest as possible. I know it was intense and it was long, and maybe I should have broken it down into smaller pieces over a longer period of time, but it was what I was thinking and feeling and I just wrote it all down. And J said it was great and perfect, but you know sometimes what people say and how they behave are different things.

We talked about the email last week, covering the section about having negative feelings about myself, and about the section in which I wrote that he doesn’t validate feelings. He said that didn’t bother him, but he mentioned that paragraph a couple of times, and of all the things to talk about from the email that’s the one he chose. Which is fine.

I also wrote in the email about:

My problems with communication and feeling misunderstood
Not seeing friends because of food issues
Being on the bell curve and being in the middle vs either end
Feeling different, not really knowing why I feel different, why am I different
Forgetting things I’ve done or said
Medication issues
The problem of intrusive thoughts

Yesterday I just thought perhaps there was more to talk about from that list of concerns. We did talk about food and eating which ties into #2 on that list, but isn’t exactly the same thing. I think what I’m feeling is that everything else besides negative thinking and feelings validation isn’t worth talking about. I don’t want to say I feel minimized because that implies I have some degree of importance, and I don’t think I have any more or less importance than anyone else (I probably feel I have less importance, but I’m working on getting over that.) So now I’ve taken 10 giant steps backwards, and I guess I’ll be losing a turn. Or maybe more than one.

Why would I make myself vulnerable at this point after experiencing a negative response last time?

I think this must be another example of me being too sensitive and taking things too personally and holding on to negatives. I never know whether it’s me being those things, or if a situation really warrants those feelings. I need some kind of ruler to carry around with me so that I can make objective judgments about my reactions.

But that is how I feel, and feelings aren’t right or wrong, right? But feelings aren’t facts either.

And I emailed my friends to tell them I couldn’t make it for lunch on Friday. One of them emailed back and said she totally forgot about it and she can’t make it either, so then they decided to reschedule and make it dinner instead! I really couldn’t say no, so we agreed to have dinner next week. But it’s ok, I’ve been thinking about it and I haven’t seen them in two or three months. One of these friends I have know for 26 years, and the other for almost 20 years. I think I can handle one dinner, it will be good. I just have to put on my thick skin before I go.

Jan 2 2010

Things I Learned in Therapy in 2009

I spent the day yesterday reading through the 245 pages of my journal/blog, and what I read was so fascinating to me. I decided to tell J the discoveries I have made by reading a year’s worth of writing, and here is part of the email I sent him today.

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I originally started my journal by hand, but in December of 2008 I began writing it in Microsoft Word. It is now 245 pages long (don’t worry, I’m not sending it to you). When I saw that I thought, wow maybe I should stop writing and start living, but I spent the day yesterday reading over it (a good thing to do on January 1st) and so many things became clear to me, and I learned a few things as well. So I’m sending you this email because there is no way I will remember it all on Tuesday. Maybe you can make some sense of it and figure out what to talk about next week.

Many of my journal entries are self indulgent, self pitying, hard to read. I feel like I am reading about someone else, although I know I wrote this, I remember writing most of it. My first reaction in reading these is to delete them, but I didn’t do that. I think I might want to read them every once in a while to remind myself that I am striving to NOT be that person anymore. I kind of feel sorry for the person who wrote these entries, she doesn’t seem like a bad person.

After reading about myself over the period of 13 months I see that in that time I didn’t do anything bad. I may have caused people to become impatient with me, I may have confused people, but I didn’t actually do anything bad. (Thoughts don’t count here). Seeing this in black and white is really eye opening. I do a lot of good things, and I have some good qualities, and some good talents. Maybe I’m not really bad after all (not counting old parenting issues, etc.)

There is an entry in February when I was considering dropping out of my flying group. I wrote about how I’m not a perfect flyer (there are certain airports I won’t fly into, certain airlines I won’t fly, and certain types of planes I won’t get on), but I’m a good enough flyer. I thought you’d like that.

I really can see how I have way too high expectations of myself sometimes. There was an entry in May where I write about how I painted the whole bathroom, including the ceiling, over the weekend. And then at the end I write, “I’m so unmotivated lately.” I think I’m much more aware of doing that now.

I also am trying to be nicer to myself. I was cooking something a few weeks ago and I got a little messy and spilled something on the stove. My thought was immediately, “I am such an idiot.” But then I thought that if it was my husband or one of my kids who did that I would never say they are an idiot. So I did a take back and told myself that I’m not an idiot. Reading the journal makes it so clear about how hard I am on myself. If I was reading this and it was written by someone else I wouldn’t understand why she is so mean to herself.

In May I wrote that you said progress would be if I could move from shame (mentioned 65 times in the 245 pages) to low self-esteem (60 times) to acceptance. I think I might be in the low self-esteem category now, so I’ve made progress. This is where I would normally make a sarcastic comment like “at a snail’s pace” or apologize for taking so long and so much of your time, or say what a loser I am for making such a tiny step in a whole year. But I won’t do that. I don’t do that anymore.

And guilt was only mentioned 27 times, so maybe soon it will be shame mentioned only 27 times and guilt 65 times. That would be progress too.

I didn’t realize how much you liked the cutting collage, or you seemed to anyway. I wrote that you looked at it a lot, and brought it up a lot. I guess it must appeal to your sensing function. I made another collage this week, I’ll bring it in Tuesday.

We talked many times about me being a bother to you, being boring, not having anything interesting to say, how this only costs me $19.40 a week so I should probably only get 1/7 of the attention you would give to a full paying client. The word bother appears 30 times in the 245 pages. I wrote a lot about feeling bad that you are so nice to me.

I wrote quite a bit about how I wasn’t able to communicate things very well to you and it led to me feeling misunderstood. Email worked when it worked, but it didn’t work very well sometimes. I would like to be able to communicate better, not just with you. I’ve been noticing I have this problem with other people, and maybe that is why everything is just on the surface.

Reading the journal I realize that food and weight issues are part of the reason I stopped seeing friends (the other part being I was just isolating and avoiding stress). At this time last year I was going out with friends all of the time. But then I became fixated on food issues, and it was too hard to keep doing that. The words food/eat/eating/weight appear 201 times. And I don’t think we’ve ever even talked about this.

I wrote a few times (12) about having my feelings validated and how you don’t do that. I think that was the cause of having hurt feelings and anger at the beginning. You do say that feelings aren’t good or bad, they just are, so in general you are validating feelings. But in specific instances you don’t do that, and I’m used to it now. I guess I missed out on feelings validation when I was a child or something, but I’m trying to be the kind of person who doesn’t need her feelings validated by a third party.

About the bell curve (mentioned only 11 times, although maybe the find command didn’t catch the times I called it the bell f***ing curve), I understand that for all of the aspects of me that cause me to feel different, or weird, that I am somewhere on the bell curve. Not necessarily in the middle, usually not in the middle. But isn’t everyone on the bell curve, even those with extreme differences? They are on there, just over at the ends.

It seems as though you had to walk a fine line between my desire to be like everyone else, and the fact that in some regards I am not like everybody else. There were times you called me or something I do strange, and times when you said something about all of your other clients doing or feeling something totally opposite of me. I would usually get offended by those things. But reading the journal has made some things clearer to me in this regard; although I still have some confusion as well.

I’m actually not sure what it is about me that makes me feel different. You’ve pointed out some things, for example how all of your other clients feel safe in your office and I don’t, how your other clients are impressed with the way you remember things they’ve said and I find fault when you don’t remember things I’ve said, how your other clients’ therapy is more linear because they have a specific problem and I don’t, how a lot of clients come to see you to learn how to have stronger boundaries but I’m in the minority, that I’m the only client who has ever told you that you are intimidating, that you frequently explain why you are doing something or your motivations for doing something to me and you don’t do that with most clients. I wrote that maybe you are trying to get me to accept all of my weirdnesses (differences would be a better way of saying it) instead of trying to change to become normal.

Which brings me to the cyclical nature of my feelings towards you. At first it went like this: I liked you one week, you made me mad or hurt my feelings the next week, I liked you the next week, etc….. Now it is more like: I like you one week, the next week you make me mad or hurt my feelings, the next week I realize it’s not you who did that but it’s me projecting, I like you the next week, etc…..

Some troubling things –

Naturally, I have forgotten some things we talked about, but when I read what I wrote about them it comes back. There are a couple of exceptions though. In December 2008 I wrote that I gave you a letter I had written. I have the letter in my journal as well as in the document folder on my computer. But I have no recollection of writing it, giving it to you, or you reading it. The same with an email I wrote in May that I have no recollection of writing, but it’s in my sent mail folder, so I guess I really did send it. Forgetting about things we talked about is no big deal, but forgetting about things I actually did is unsettling.

It appears that there are times when I am in total denial. For example in January I got angry at you because you asked me the same question two weeks in a row. A few weeks later you brought up the fact that it made me angry, and I said I didn’t know what you were talking about, I was never angry.

In December 2008 we were talking about the same issue as we talked about in December 2009 – intrusive thoughts. And the same things about the intrusive thoughts, like what’s the payoff. We never resolved anything and I guess that topic just got put on the back burner. It’s kind of discouraging that we are having the same conversation a year later.

And it seems I started to feel not so well in January, maybe because I went off the wellbutrin in middle of December 2008? I started it again at the very end of October. It dismays me to realize that I might really need the wellbutrin; I went off of it because of the side effects. I have a lot of trouble sleeping, and it makes my head buzz. And with everything that is already going in my head, the buzzing is not welcome. Now that I’m taking it again I’m getting the same side effects. So this is somewhat of a challenge.

So that is it for 2009. Thank you for everything you do for me, I really appreciate it even if it doesn’t seem so and even if you don’t have any toys in your office. See you Tuesday,

Mar 31 2009

Therapy Recap 3/31/09

This morning I met with my life coach, then had a half hour to kill, then went to therapy. I don’t usually like to have things like that back to back, but I’m getting used to the life coach and I’m enjoying my time with her, so it was a good thing today.

I was particularly anxious about therapy today, after last week’s email exchange with J, my therapist. So I arrived, and sat on the couch, shaking and teeth chattering more than usual and told J I wouldn’t be coming in next week because we are going away for the week. Then J said, “Who’s talking first?” I let him talk first, and he actually talked about 95% of the time. I wonder if he likes me as a patient, because he gets to talk. I’m sure there are a lot of patients who talk and talk and talk, and he doesn’t get to say much. But not me! I let him talk as much as his heart desires.

J asked me if I knew about transference and counter transference and he talked about those phenomena for awhile. Yeah, I know about them. I said I wasn’t sure I believed in them, but I understand the concepts. He used examples from our interactions in his explanations.

He talked about being real, and that he has to be real when he is relating to me, which I appreciate. We talked about the email and how he forgot some things that I thought were really important. He said that other patients will sometimes say “How did you remember that?” when he is talking to them about a minor detail. I said, “Oh, everyone else except me?”

I asked him if he thought I was too sensitive. He went into a whole explanation of sensitive and the bell curve and feelings vs. thoughts vs. actions, and feelings aren’t wrong. I think he was saying that he didn’t think I am too sensitive, but I’m not sure.

J talked about my discomfort with being in therapy and how email can be helpful. I brought up the fact that I feel bad about taking more of his time, and he assured me that is not an issue. He said that it’s helpful for us to talk about, I can’t remember his exact wording, but I think he meant our relationship. He said my situation is somewhat different than others because there is not a specific “symptom” like alcoholism or overeating. I asked, but aren’t those just symptoms of larger issues? And he said yes, but they are something that he can latch onto and work with.

He said my problems fall into the areas of self value, feeling like I am boring, uninteresting and not worthy of therapy, and being “typecast”. Like – oh here comes Harriet the one who cuts herself and obsesses about dogs in ovens.

So anyway, he felt my email was “real” and thinks if I can communicate more, and more authentically, via email then I should do that. He feels that if his and my relationship could be better it would help me have better relationships with others. He talked about the fact that there are surface things and deeper things, and if we can work out both it would be great, but even if we just work out the surface things it would be a good thing.

He said he knows how difficult it was for me to tell him about the SI and he really appreciates me telling him things and it might seem like he has “latched on” to this because it’s something that I’ve finally told him that he could work with. He said most people’s therapy is more linear because there is a specific problem, whereas mine is broader.

So I feel like it was good session and I’m somewhat nervous about dealing with our “relationship” (I don’t really believe that whatever it is between a therapist and a patient is a relationship) because I don’t want to develop any kind of unhealthy attachment to J. I guess I should mention that to him.

I think with our conversation today about transference it might be a good time to tell him about D. D is the reason I originally went to see J about a year ago. I told J that I was obsessing about a man (D) who I had a “business relationship” with. I daydreamed about him all the time, and I finally ended our relationship because I thought that would help me get over him. What I didn’t tell J is that D was my son’s therapist. I didn’t tell him because first of all I thought he might know him since they both work with adolescents and young adults and their paths may cross. I also didn’t tell him because I was afraid he would just say “Oh, that’s transference, it’s normal, there’s nothing you can do about that.”

I might write J an email and tell him all about D – everything I left out of the story. Thinking about doing that makes me really anxious. But I can write the email and not send it. Maybe I’ll just write it and see how I feel.

Mar 24 2009

Therapy Recap 3/24/09

Warning – this post could be triggering. Beware…..

I really need to process this. I feel so not understood, kind of like betrayed. Last week when I went to see J, my therapist, I brought the collage/slide show thing with the photos that depict the cycle of SI. He seemed to really get it. He understood the cyclical nature that the photos represented. Feel bad – harm – feel better – feel bad, lather rinse repeat…..

But today when I went in there he was asking me how I’m doing with us talking about the SI, and I said I’m doing ok. (Which isn’t really true, sigh.) He asked, how ok? And I said some days are better than others. I explained that I’m thinking about it a lot more, that before we started talking about it I would go weeks or months without thinking about it, but now I think about it all the time. And that I feel angry with myself for telling him, that I can’t handle it myself. He asked if I was feeling vulnerable too, like now that my secret is out. I was getting to that, he beat me to it, but yes I do feel that.

He wanted to know what was triggering my feelings about harming myself. I said that it was just us talking about it, and that I had told him about it that is making me think about it a lot. He didn’t seem to understand that. He said that it’s “strange.” I didn’t appreciate that word at all and let him know it. He said that he could understand if I was stressed about something like the economy, or my son’s grades, but the SI itself is triggering the SI. He redescribed it as “unique”. I said I didn’t think that was so unusual.

Didn’t we go over this all last week – how it’s a cycle. How SI can cause one to feel shame and guilt and fear, etc. How just the act of SI can cause all of these emotions, even though it might feel good at the time? But now, it’s “strange” or “unique” that what’s causing my emotional grief isn’t the economy?

I don’t understand how he could be so understanding of this last week, and now be totally clueless. It was like being with a different person. But I guess I didn’t see what was going on. I mean, I know I was confused, but I didn’t see why until after the session. I thought I had done something wrong, maybe I described my feelings wrong, maybe what I thought what I was feeling isn’t what I was feeling. I didn’t want to talk about it anymore so we decided not to talk about it anymore.

Then we had to talk about something else. I told J about how I told my friend that I didn’t want to be a model in her fashion show in August. I told him that I did it by email, a cowardly way to communicate and he said that I never miss an opportunity to beat myself up about something. I really do think it wasn’t very nice of me to talk to her by email, but it was hard enough to tell her, and I took the easy way out. I told him that I saw photos of myself from the last fashion show and thought I looked terrible, and that when he told me that I’m not special it made me feel like I could tell her and she wouldn’t be angry. I told him that I appreciated that he said “You’re not George Clooney” rather than saying “You’re not Jennifer Aniston” or “You’re not Cameron Diaz.” I can handle being compared to George Clooney a lot easier. But it’s true, and everything he said was very logical and objective and it made me comfortable enough to tell her. So I guess that is one success I’ve had in therapy!

But then we continued on talking about physical appearance, another topic I am not comfortable talking about. We talked about how subjective I am, and other people are more objective. When I looked at the photos of myself from the fashion show I was very critical, but everyone else said I looked great. I just don’t believe they are telling the truth, but J says I’m just not objective. Then we talked more about the bell curve, of course it wouldn’t be therapy without mention of the bell curve, and striving for the 51st percentile. I asked him if he strives to be a 51st% psychologist. He talked about his strengths and weaknesses as a psychologist and knows he could never be a psychologist who does research or gets up and presents papers at conferences, but his strengths are more in the areas of relating to people and helping them directly. So it evens out in his opinion. I find it hard to believe that anyone would strive for 51%, but it’s something I guess I should consider. When I am working for someone I get very upset if I make a mistake. I’m not 100% perfect and that bothers me and I also believe that it will make my boss angry and perhaps tell me to get lost. But objectively that is ridiculous, everyone makes mistakes. But I don’t know, is 51% enough?

Somehow we got to talking about gastroenterologists and urologists and how they decide to go into those fields. And how if you are a patient waiting for your colonoscopy, laying on a gurney in a little thin gown that barely makes it around, you feel so exposed and vulnerable and anxious. But everyone else working in the room is just doing their job, not concerned with how you look, how they are about to shove a tube up your ass and look at your interior private parts on a big screen. So J wants me to imagine the colonoscopy patient and doctors the next time I find myself being subjective. He wants me to find more objectivity in my judgments.

That’s another thing. At the end of every session he tells me to think about something, or do something. But he never mentions it again. Does that mean he forgets what he’s told me to do, or it doesn’t really matter to him – it’s just for my benefit, or what? I used to do the “homework” obsessively but since he never mentions it I don’t really do it. Last week I did read my diary and I came up with some things, but when I went in today he started talking immediately about SI, and last week’s homework never came up. I want to talk to him about this next week.

So when I came home I was busy for a while, then I started thinking about what transpired during our session and his apparent lack of understanding of something I thought he understood. I started spiraling down pretty badly. I felt physically sick, I couldn’t tell if I was having a low blood sugar attack or a panic attack, or something. The thought of cutting was intense. Then my daughter was having problems with the computer printer and it said paper was jamming, but it wasn’t jamming and she was telling me in an irritated tone of voice to fix it because she doesn’t know how. I was getting very angry, with her and with myself and about everything. I took the back off the printer and threw it on the floor, and the paper wasn’t jammed and I told her in an irritated tone of voice that I couldn’t fix it, there was nothing wrong with it. I got totally emotionally overwhelmed, feeling like I was going to burst into tears.

Then I made my decision. I got calmed down. I cleaned up the whole kitchen, emptied the dishwasher, filled it up with all the dishes I had used to make dinner, scrubbed the counters, put everything away, and decided what I would do. I finished the kitchen, went upstairs and cut my hand. We’re going to Florida in a week and a half, and I’m assuming it will be hot there. I didn’t want to have to wear long sleeved shirts and long pants and socks the whole time if it’s 80 degrees. So I cut my hand. I figured if anyone asked I could say I accidentally cut it on a knife when I was emptying the dishwasher. Normally I don’t make just one cut, but I couldn’t lie my way out of three or four cuts on my hand could I? So I just kept cutting the same place a few times. I laid on my bed, applying pressure to my hand, and I felt better. J, my therapist, said it’s ok for me to do this. I specifically asked, “What are the rules?” And he said there are no rules, but based on my past experience it’s ok. He would never recommend that I go home and cut myself if I’m feeling emotionally overwhelmed, but if I need to do it, it’s ok. And now my hand hurts like crazy. Which is a good thing – it means I’m human.

And I guess I have a lot to talk to him about next week. After next week’s session I get a week off since I’ll be away. I think taking that break from therapy will be a great thing.

Feb 15 2009

Obsessing

I had a five hour drive this afternoon and spent most of it obsessing about whether or not to “graduate” (nicer way of saying “drop out”) of the fear of flying therapy group.  I am a perfectionist, and I am trying to overcome this.  I am not a perfect flyer – I have “rules” about flying.  Certain types of planes, certain airports, certain airlines are off limits.  But so far I’ve been able to get everywhere I’ve wanted to go.  I’m not a perfect flyer, but I’m a good enough flyer.  It’s hard for me not to be perfect at something, but I have to realize that in certain circumstances being good enough is just right.

I also was obsessing about what my flying therapist said to me in her email.  She makes me sound so extreme:

“No one came into the group hating flying more than you — really resenting the idea that you should need to fly– and no one in the group made more progress.”

These statements are not true.  There were people in the group who hated flying more than me – they actually had panic attacks on planes, or wouldn’t get on at all.  Many people in the group started because they had a dying parent somewhere too far to drive, or they had a child getting married far away.  As for making more progress, many many people in the group ended up being fearless flyers with no “rules” like I have.

I really don’t like these extreme statements.  My son’s therapist used to use them also.  He would say things to me like, “No parent I’ve ever worked with has worked harder to get their child the services he needs.”  Or, when I asked him not to call me “mom” anymore he said, “It’s never bothered anyone else in the 20 years I’ve been doing therapy.”  My current therapist is always trying to convince me that I think of myself in extreme ways – I’m the most ugly, the fattest, the least productive, etc etc.  That is why he always talks about the bell curve and how the chance that I am at either end in any situation is pretty slim.

But then I’ve got these other people telling me how extreme I am.  I hate flying more than anyone, I’ve made more progress than anyone, I work harder for my son than anyone, I’m more sensitive than anyone.  Maybe they are just trying to make a point, but when it comes to a therapist I don’t think that is a good strategy.  I need to be able to trust a therapist, I don’t want to hear rash generalizations, I want truth.

So maybe I should stay in the group and become a perfect flyer with no rules.  Or maybe I’m good enough.  Now I just don’t know, and I’m obsessing about what to do.  Maybe I’ll talk it over with my current therapist and he’ll put me on the bell curve somewhere in the middle.  It’s hard for me to accept this bell curve idea when I feel extreme about myself, but as usual that is because of the vast gulf between what I feel and what I think.  That’s what everything always comes back to.  Sigh.

Jan 13 2009

Therapy Recap 1/13/09

I was driving before my session and all of a sudden I realized I had gone too far and better turn around or I’d be late.  I missed the last exit before XXX (name of major town deleted), so I had to go to XXX and turn back.  My nav system was telling me I’d be about 4 minutes late, but I made up most of the time and walked in at 11:01am.  I said I was sorry I was late and J said I wasn’t late.  I told him I forgot to turn around and then explained about how I drive before sessions.  We talked about why I drive before sessions and I said just to take my mind off of being so anxious about therapy.  But being late made me more anxious.

He asked what we should talk about, I said I don’t know, what should we talk about?  I said that there a gazillion things I could talk about and will I ever feel comfortable talking to him?  I asked him about when the therapy part would start, I’m not sure this is working.  How will I know it’s working?  What if it’s not working?  How will I know if it’s not working?  He said he didn’t know, I said of course you know.  He brought up the dog in the oven situation again.  He is really proud of “curing” me of that obesession I guess.  He wanted to know if just talking about my problems was helping me to feel better, and I said, no, not at all.  I’m feeling worse.  I feel really like a failure that just talking about my problems isn’t helping me to feel better, when apparently that is what is supposed to happen.  As for the dog in the oven, he said that talking about it over and over and realizing that logically and rationally I’m not going to put the dog in the oven made me get over the bad thoughts.

That may be true, but one little obsessional thought can’t compare to major behavioral and emotional ways of acting and thinking that have been present in my life for over 40 years.  I said I understand that my thoughts and feelings can be irrational, illogical and based on warped perceptions, but just knowing that isn’t enough to stop the thoughts and feelings.  What is supposed to happen between the “knowing” and the “changing”?  Something is missing there, and I don’t know what it is.

Then we talked about one of my least comfortable topics – my body image and appearance.  We got on this subject when J was telling me about how if an irrational thought enters my head I can talk my way out of it.  I said it gets really hard and tiring to be doing that all day long.  He said, “You have to do that all day long?”  Well, a lot of the day anyway.  He asked what kinds of things go through my head that cause me to work hard.  I mentioned a few, some serious, some superficial, for example, my kids or husband getting hurt or in an accident, my husband losing his job, the economy, whether my pants make me look fat, whether I should have lunch with a friend because I’m afraid of eating too much, larger global issues such as war, etc.  We talked about talking myself out of thinking about my husband and kids in accidents, and then he turned the conversation to appearance, body image issues.

He started by saying “Your hair, don’t you think sometimes your hair looks good and sometimes you have bad hair days?”  Now my hair is something that I have always felt is my best quality.  As I’m getting older it’s becoming more average, but in general it’s always been great hair.  For him to choose my hair for his example cut me to the quick.  I said, “My hair?  Is my hair not looking ok today?  Why are you asking about my hair?”  He seemed surprised about the sensitivity I displayed about my hair.  He said he was just using it as an example of something that everyone has and sometimes looks good and sometimes not so good.  He talked about his hair and sometimes he looks in the mirror in the morning and thinks his hair might not look so great, but he just ignores it and throws some product in it and figures no one is going to look at it.  I said, well, you don’t have to worry about your hair, it’s nice hair.  It’s actually amazing hair, he does have great hair.  Did I mention how hot this guy is?  He’s like a cross between Brad Pitt and Matt Damon.  I was getting very uncomfortable with this conversation.  It’s like Beauty and the Beast, reverse gender.

We talked about how I look at women all the time and compare myself to them.  Not to judge them, but to judge myself.  He said that’s a very normal thing to do.  However, for me, I’m always on the low end of the appearance scale.  He said people fall along a bell curve (he mentions this damn bell curve every week) and most people are in the middle.  I said I’m on the low end.  He said, well only a very small number of people are on the low end, as well as the high end.  I said, so, why can’t I be one of those people?  Someone has to be on the ends, why are you doubting that I am one of them?

We talked about the new reality show “True Beauty”, which frankly I can’t believe he is watching.  But last week a plastic surgeon analyzed each contestant’s face and ranked them on a scale from 0 to 100.  Most were in the 90 to 95 range, because they are quite attractive people.  He said this was supposed to be a very objective way of determining beauty, and maybe I should have that done to me.  I said, there is no way I would do that.  I know what I look like and I don’t need my face analyzed to know that it would rate about a 20.  He said, “What if you did have it done and your rating was an 85?”  I said, “That would be utter BS, there is no way that could be accurate.”  He said, “What would be better, to take a test like that or to ask 20 people to rate your appearance?”  I said, “They would be equally bad.  What difference does it make what other people think, I know what I think and what I look like.”

At some point I said I was very uncomfortable with this conversation.  He wanted to know why, was it because I’m concerned with something that is considered superficial?  I told him that it’s not something people talk about in everyday conversation, and I’m specifically uncomfortable talking about it with him.  He mentioned his hair again sometime in the conversation, and I got frustrated.  I said “You don’t worry about your hair because you….”  He said, “What, finish your thought.”  I said, “You are a good looking person, you don’t have to worry about your hair!”  He said that don’t I think that when anyone looks in the mirror they can find something wrong?  I think that is true.  I guess what he was saying was even hot guys like him see something wrong when they look in the mirror.  I can’t imagine what it must be like to look in the mirror and see someone like Angelina Jolie looking back at me.  I can’t even imagine.  I would love to know how it feels to be pretty.

He wants me to think about people, looking at them, thinking about what types of people they are outside and inside.  I just felt so awful after this discussion, I don’t even think I said goodbye, I just grabbed my coat and left.  I felt lower than low.  How can someone as good-looking as J understand one iota of what I feel?  I told him that everyone thinks my daughter looks just like me, so much so that strangers go up to her and say “You must be Harriet’s daughter.”  It makes me feel so bad for her that she could possibly look like me.  He asked me how she feels about her looks, and frankly she doesn’t seem to have a problem with her appearance at all.  I think she is beautiful of course, and that she doesn’t look anything like me.

I just hate my appearance and it’s been this way since I was in about 4th grade or so.  When I was 13 I had a Bat Mitzvah and my mother hung the pictures from the ceremony all over the house.  I would go around all the time and take them off the walls.  Then she would put them back up.  Then I would take them back down.  I was so ugly when I was 13 and I thought the pictures were so offensive.  Who would want to see photos of me all over the place?

I’m also wondering about “logicalizing” everything.  I think something, I realize it’s illogical, I try to think logically, and the thought should go away.  Is that what all this therapy is about?  Is that what I have to do with everything?  Put everything on a bell curve, make everything average, realize I’m thinking illogically about myself and change my thinking.  I don’t know, I somehow didn’t think that’s what therapy would entail.  I just think I’ll be exhausted by the end of every day if I have to logicalize every thought.  Isn’t there a way to change myself so I don’t have the thoughts to begin with?  Isn’t it better to not think “I’m ugly”, than to think “I’m ugly.  Oops, that’s illogical.  Let me think about the bell curve and where I fall on the bell curve.  Let me look at 100 people on the street and try to perceive them and me as we really are.  Oh, ok, maybe I’m not really ugly.”  I can’t imagine doing that all of the time!

That’s about all I can remember from the session today.  There’s probably more and if I think of more I’ll write it out tomorrow.  For now I’m going to make a list of everything I could possibly talk about in therapy and bring it with me next week.  Maybe if I have something in hand I’ll be able to talk about a particular topic more comfortably.