September and Everything After

So as most of you know, I’ve been dealing with a lot of “stuff”. Stuff out of my control and stuff I could really do without. It’s tough because I don’t like drama or unknowns or things that make me feel uncomfortable emotionally. (Or uncomfortable financially but that’s another day.)

I’ve been seeing a therapist almost weekly since February. (A quick thanks to the health insurance company that covers this 100%!) There have been a few weeks that I sobbed through the whole session (but just a few) and others when I felt okay and just rambled on about the last week’s events but most weeks I began with “where the heck do I go from here?”

I want a map. I want a 12 step program. I want to predict the upcoming obstacles. I want to know how the heck I ended up here in the first place.

And yeah yeah, as you know, there is no manual or “Life GPS” or magic 8 ball. Trust me, I would have found it. Or bought it. Or done serious bodily damage to someone for it.

Not to brag but I’ve always felt I could handle about anything. Pack up a household of 7 and leave the house in sell-worthy condition in 3 weeks with 5 kids underfoot during the summer by myself? Not a problem, let me buy some boxes. Presentation on dinosaurs (with props & skit) to be presented by 8 first grade boys in 4 hours? Wikipedia and my craft room to the rescue.

This “stuff” going on right now? There is no way to write out a To Do list. Or patch it with a few stitches. Or clean it up and make it all shiny again.

And the thing that gets me the most is life has to go on as normal. There’s still laundry to be done, groceries to be bought, soccer practice to drive to. It’s like a hurricane went through and turned everything upside down and inside out. Except only inside me. If a real hurricane had gone through, there wouldn’t be laundry, the groceries stores would be closed, and I bet they’d cancel soccer for awhile. There have been moments (hours, days) when I just want the world to pause so I could try to sift through the emotional wreckage without needing to cook a meal, find a school book, or recite multiplication tables. If everything could just stop, I’m sure I could figure out the answers, the next step, the why’s.

(Yes, I do like my delusions with a side of crazy, thanks!)

And so my therapist has been a big help. The title of this post is based on a book that he has me reading in bits and pieces (At Amazon.com: Feeling Good by David Burns MD ) The bits and pieces is key and genius on his part because I’m impatient and would not be getting nearly enough insight out of the book if I tried to read the whole thing at once. Therefore this is “part 1″ because just like reading the book, it’s too much to shove into one blog post. Over the months, he’s helped me deal with bits and pieces of this emotional hurricane aftermath as I’m able (yet another important aspect). Some weeks it’s as small as making a list of phone numbers to call and not even making the phone calls yet. Other weeks I can sail right through huge juggernauts of thinking: “I control my own emotions, no one else does and likewise I cannot control how others react.” Okay so that one probably took a month to sink in. But I’m working on it.

And to use another Douglas Adams quote (thanks!): “You live and learn. At any rate, you live.”

Yep…

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 6th, 2009 at 11:35 am and is filed under Sometimes it's all about me. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.