Therapy

The therapist was much better than the last one (and those others I mentioned from my long therapy past). Keep in mind I never mentioned all the very very good ones I had so if you're thinking about trying out therapy, you should know that I'm running on 3 bad ones to 5 (or is it 6)(yes, 6) very helpful if not excellent therapists.

All of the ones I consider 'excellent' were excellent at helping me, but there was this one who had a little case of giving her clients too much information.

Like how she told me about the time she marched into the restaurant where her husband was seeing the woman who threatened to break up their marriage and told her what exactly she thought of that situation. Which was in the first place, totally unprofessional and completely unrelated to the reason I was in therapy at all as a 19 year old. She had an uncanny way of doing that: making my therapy about her and her relationship with her husband and her son who seemed, according to her stories, desperate to draw appropriate boundaries with her.

Which, hey! Was exactly what I wanted to do with her.

Okay so let's say I've had 4 bad ones and 5 good ones. Not great odds, but when you think about who I would be if I hadn't had those 5 good therapists, let's just say, they're awesome odds.

With the new therapist we spoke briefly about Logan's marathon running and how sometimes I've been known to resent his training. A lot. The doctor then said, "Sometimes I question the health of running marathons repeatedly."

I said, "You're so right. Logan's the crazy one right? I don't even need to be here."

Which was a stretch obviously.

I have a very bad feeling this round of therapy is going to be very difficult and I'm not feeling particularly good about it. In fact I think thinking about it has given me a massive head cold.

I am afraid to say Dr. Phil may have taken up a spot in my brain. A spot I may have used for other things, like more Oprah. Or something.

I do this thing, and I've been doing this thing for so long I barely even noticed I was doing it until recently. I decided I wanted to stop doing this thing but it's so deeply a part of who I am I can't seem to stop.

And so, Dr. Phil would say, "What are you getting out of this behavior?"

And I keep asking myself the same thing and the answer is nothing and it's driving me absolutely insane because even though I'm getting nothing out of it, I can't stop.

I tend to believe certain things about myself and I can't seem to make myself believe otherwise. No matter what I do or what happens to me I struggle with a deep and crippling self-doubt which runs over to self-loathing.

I wrote about it after I went to California and it's taken me until now to start looking at it because I'm afraid I'll never be able to fix it.

"I walked away from my trip wishing that how I saw myself matched how other people saw me. This massive insecurity and self loathing is really limiting me. But I don't know what to do about it. Last night Logan said, in response to this latest emotional come-apart: "<big sigh> Okay, well I see what the problem is. You just have to stop thinking about yourself like that." Hey! Great!"

The therapist asked me when I first remember thinking about myself this way (in unkind and unpleasant terms) and I can't remember. It's always been this way. Lately I've noticed it in glaring focus because while I think being modest is a nice thing to be to a certain degree, I can't stand concieted people at all, after a while it's not just a way of being, it's a way of feeling all the time.

After a while your self-effacing ways make business people in your life treat you like you're the unibomber or Howard Hughes or even worse Irish-Catholic and you realize at that point your self-effacement has ventured into 'psychotic' territory and maybe, as that annoying Dr Phil in my head would say, that's not working out so well anymore.

Only you don't know how else to be because this is just who you are. You don't want to be. You want to be the type of person who puts other people at ease and who is at ease herself.

As you're talking to the therapist he notes you're looking incredibly uncomfortable sitting there and you flash to all the times you feel self concious and uptight (all the time) and the therapist also notes that in the first 10 minutes of your visit you've apologized or prefaced what you're about to say with, "I know how stupid this is..." or "I feel ridiculous saying this..." or a million other (I'm about to do it again) stupid ways (<-----I just called myself stupid) you say things with a shield up around you.

You don't know why you do it but you really don't want to anymore.

You leave the therapist's office with Dr Phil ringing in your ears, "How is that working for you?" and you curse yourself for ever watching that show and also you fight back waves of anxiety because you think you know why you harbor all this self-doubt and loathing but you're not sure you will ever be able to fix it.

You fight the anxiety until Sunday when you catch a cold and sleep for 14 hours and still feel like crap because the rain won't let up and preschool ends next week and wow, therapy can only get better right?