Thursday Therapy: I’m Not 50. . . Yet

Okay, so I’ve been away from the blogosphere for a while. Looking at my last post it’s been almost a month, and that wasn’t much of a post either. So is anything wrong? Have I succumbed to some physical/emotional/mental ailment? Have I fallen from the face of the Earth? Have I been incarcerated? Was I marooned on a desert island? Where the hell have I been? Or did nobody even miss me?

The truth is the explanation for my absence is twofold. First, and this is good news, my job is now occupying virtually all of my “at work” time. Instead of being bored by little work and little challenge I am now challenged on a daily basis with engaging assignments that leave little time for random internet tomfoolery. Second, and this is also good news, I am doing well in most aspects of my life right now. A calm and steady life does not make good blog fodder. However, I do need to still journal here occasionally. I find I learn a lot by rereading old posts of mine and sometimes get a well needed reminder of some lesson learned along the way but perhaps forgotten.

Being that it’s Thursday and that I just had my appointment with Freud on Tuesday it seems fitting to settle back into the routine with a Thursday Therapy post.

Freud pretty much summed up our last session this way: “When a client is bombarded with stress from multiple places I worry some when I hear from them that they are coping by drinking a bit more or indulging in some other self-destructive behavior, but when you say you’re coping by becoming more involved in church that seems like a pretty healthy option.” And yes, without even thinking about it as a healthy choice that’s what I’ve been doing lately – becoming more plugged into church and church activities, trying to develop a foundation, or a net if you will, to have something beneath me, supporting me, making it possible for me to feel that I have a support system upon which I can call when things are tough. (Wow! That was one long and convoluted sentence. No time nor energy to go back though and fix sentence structure. Live with it.) I suppose that’s not the worst coping strategy a person could choose. ;-)

I love my sessions with Freud. He has a way of reframing things so that I see things through different glasses. He points out to me all the good things I’m doing. He is the best boost to my self esteem that I believe I have ever had. I see him as an impartial party who calls ‘em as he sees ‘em. He doesn’t hesitate to point out things I’m doing that aren’t good for me so I do feel that he is honest in his assessments, doling out the good and the bad as needed.

He’s working on me to stop being so hard on myself all the time. I am way too good at beating myself up, quite the expert at the negative self talk. In some ways, it is a self defense mechanism. If I criticize myself harshly, the theory goes, then there’s hardly room for others to do so. However, I’ve been so good at it that I believed my own hype – I’m stupid, I’m lazy, I’m not a good _______ (insert noun of choice here), I’m an idiot, I’ll never be good enough. Beating yourself up can really beat you down.

But things are looking up. Nothing in my surroundings has changed so awfully much – all the same people doing all the same things – but my attitude is a thousand times better. I really believe that I, with help from therapy and pharmaceuticals, am kicking the depression to the curb. I am taking things on with a more positive attitude and looking at things with an eye for how the worst case scenario isn’t really all that bad while believing the worst case scenario isn’t all that likely either.

So my boss is still a jerk, but at least I have interesting work and have a job that I’m not likely to lose unless the company experiences mass layoffs in which case I would be eligible for unemployment. Not so bad, right? So W is still W, still struggling off and on with health issues that look like they could be fatal but never are, but at least I have changed my attitude to towards him and have found ways to make myself content, for the most part, to care for him for the remainder of his life. So W is still W and saying things that are wholly inappropriate to N and to others, but at least I have found the peace to allow those things to reflect badly on him rather than us. So M is probably moving a couple of hours away within a few months, but at least I’ve learned from my relationship with him that it is possible not to have to have a romantic attraction to someone in order to have a quite fulfilling physical relationship.

So I share my birthday with Earth Day, and I’ve been around longer than Earth Day which I think means I’m older than dirt. However, by looking on the bright side I am adopting as my slogan for the upcoming year:
“I’m still not 50. . . yet.”