I'm not here. Truly.

I know, I know, I said I was disappearing until the end of November... and yet here I am. Addicted? No way! Just enthusiastic. Yeah, that's it... enthusiastic.

I am, for those interested, nowhere near 50,000 words. I'm at about 17,000 now and with just over a week to go there's no way I'll reach the 50K goal. However, that's okay. I decided a while ago to forget the word goal and concentrate on the words themselves. That goes entirely against the spirit of NaNoWriMo but I don't care, because I've made some great discoveries. In the process of putting parts of my story together I am finding links I had never seen before. I'm developing an understanding of some things and starting to see the inherent sadness of other things. The entire process has been incredibly valuable, more than I ever anticipated, and that is worth a great deal more than the satisfaction of reaching a word goal.

The flipside of this, however, is that a whole lot of stuff is being churned up and I don't necessarily have the capacity to deal with it all at once. Of course I don't have to deal everything at the same time, but a lot of it is out there now and it's hard to unring a bell, you know? So I'm continuing to take things slowly... I'm still a hermit, I'm still minimising my online activity and I'm taking lots of breaks from writing when I think my body and mind need it. If I were listening to my counsellor I'd also be shunning junk food, eating more vegetables and doing plenty of exercise, but hey, one can't have everything. (Although... if I HAD listened to her advice about self-care then I might not have had those midnight anxiety attacks either so perhaps there's something in what she says...)

So this is where I'm at. And hey, who's sick to death of the interminable updates about Femina's mental health and counselling sessions? Yeah, me too... but like I said, this is where I'm at...
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Opinions - I has them.

During two years of counselling I've discovered many things about myself. Some things have been good and some have been... hmm... somewhat more challenging.  My most recent discovery has surprised me a little - I've discovered that I have opinions.  I know, that sounds nuts, doesn't it? Everyone has opinions. What I haven't known until recently, however,  are MY opinions.  This is not to say I've never had an opinion on anything - in fact I'm sure there are plenty of people who would call me very opinionated - but I've never been confident in my opinions and have always been easily swayed to other opinions, partly because I haven't trusted myself and partly from fear of rejection.  Those things are still there to a degree, but I'm slowly discovering what *I* like and what *I* think... and sometimes it surprises me.

So today I did some clothes shopping. It was a spur of the moment thing (most of the 'spurring' coming from one friend who recommended a fabulous shop and another friend who came with me and 'encouraged' me to buy the things I did) and I spent waaay too much money, but I don't care. I bought things I would never have bought a year ago or even six months ago because I didn't really know what I liked and I feared wearing anything that might draw attention to me. This, of course, led to some boring fashion choices.  Here are todays's choices... far less boring than previous choices and for the first time I really know that I like them and want to wear them:

This one is actually a birthday present from a friend (but I don't have to wait until my birthday, which is not until next month). The red is darker than in the photo.

This is from the same store, which has some truly fabulous stuff. (First photo is the front, second is the back.)

Also from the same store... it's actually striped, not grey, but it doesn't show up well in the picture. The second pic shows the detail.

Trust me when I say that this one looks a LOT better on!

On to another store... I saw these months ago but they were too expensive. Guess what? They were $40 cheaper today AND in my size!

And what are shoes without a handbag? (It's not leather and it's a darker red than the photo.)

I also bought this in black but it didn't photograph very well. It's a long, swingy coatish thing which I'll probably wear with jeans.

Another casual one...

See the lovely royal blue on this one? It's actually a dark purple but my silly camera didn't want to co-operate. The top itself is also black and not that weird, faded, greyish black that it appears here.

Last photo - this is also a darker black than in the photo.

In addition to all of this I bought a couple of plain tee shirts (one black, one white) and a couple of singlets to go under the more revealing items.

All up, a very nice day. Hooray for shopping and hooray for starting to find my voice. It's a great feeling.

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God made me crazy

Some months ago a friend of mine started seeing the same counsellor I see. As my friend doesn't drive I offered to take her there for appointments, and her sessions are generally in the evenings so we have dinner together at my house beforehand. We've also just completed the Anxiety Management course I mentioned a couple of weeks ago.... all up my friend and I have spent quite a bit of time together recently. Tonight I remarked that the great thing about this is that we've got to know each other a lot better, which I think we've both enjoyed.

I feel sure that God had a hand in pushing together two friends with similar insecurities into a situation where they can support each other and have fun too. Isn't that great? God made me crazy so I could make more friends! Hehe. (It's okay - you're allowed to laugh. God has a great sense of humour. Truly.)
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The age of compassion

In recent counselling sessions I've talked a bit about particular incidents that happened when I was growing up and still living at home. Mixed up with these memories are my thoughts and feelings about myself during that time. I've looked at photos of myself when I was small. There's one in particular where I'm about three years old - I'm sitting on the lounge talking on the phone and laughing and looking very cute. It's a happy photo and when I look at the little girl in that photo I feel so sad for her. My brother started treating me badly when I was quite young. I have no memory of it not happening and given that he's six years older than me it's likely that he was already picking on me to some degree even when I was that little. I look at the photo and I can see how awful it is that anyone could tell that happy little girl that she's worthless. Even more sad is that she would grow up to believe it.

The feelings I have when I look at those photos are entirely appropriate. The things that happened to me ARE sad. The problem comes when I look at photos of me at older ages, particularly when I'm about 14 and up. When I look at those photos I don't feel sad. At an intellectual level there's probably some sadness but mostly I am overwhelmed by the things I believed at the time - all the feelings of worthlessness and shame that were absolute truth to me then are truth to me now. I can't look at photos and think, "How sad that the happy little three year old grew up to become this fearful and unhappy teenager who believed she was worthless" because I'm too caught up in the belief that I was (and am) so worthless and ridiculous that I completely deserved everything my brother and others ever did or said to me. Not only can I not feel compassion, I don't want to believe that girl is me. I don't want anything to do with her; I don't even want to acknowledge her existence. I don't want that girl to be the building block of the woman I am today.

Whilst pondering all these things I came upon this poem...

Variation on the word sleep

Margaret Atwood

I would like to watch you sleeping,

which may not happen.

I would like to watch you,

sleeping. I would like to sleep

with you, to enter

your sleep as its smooth dark wave

slides over my head

and walk with you through that lucent

wavering forest of bluegreen leaves

with its watery sun & three moons

towards the cave where you must descend,

towards your worst fear.

I would like to give you the silver

branch, the small white flower, the one

word that will protect you

from the grief at the center

of your dream, from the grief

at the center. I would like to follow

you up the long stairway

again & become

the boat that would row you back

carefully, a flame

in two cupped hands

to where your body lies

beside me, and you enter

it as easily as breathing in.

I would like to be the air

that inhabits you for a moment

only. I would like to be that unnoticed

& that necessary.

This is essentially a love poem (and as a love poem I think it's wonderful) but I was also struck by the third stanza:

I would like to give you the silver

branch, the small white flower, the one

word that will protect you

from the grief at the center

of your dream, from the grief

at the center. I would like to follow

you up the long stairway

again & become

the boat that would row you back

carefully...

Part of me still doesn't want to know that young girl, but there's another part, a tiny part... if I could go back in time and meet that girl, I think I would want to protect her. Maybe that's not compassion, not yet, but it's something. It's a start.

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For those who pray...

...and for those who don't...

I'm travelling a hard path in counselling. The fact that I'm ready to go down this path at all is great (in two years of counselling I've only touched on these things briefly a few times) and I know that ultimately it will be very helpful, but honestly... the process is excruciating.

Accepting prayers, good wishes and positive vibes.

Thanks.
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"He's a faithful guy..." (an SMS exchange)

You know how sometimes people say really simple things but it's just what you need to hear?

Me: "I'm a bit over the counselling thing this week. When does it get easier? I've had 2 years non-stop of 'hard'..."

My friend: "It will get easier, it has to, but before you get to the good parts you have to go through the mire. Maybe. I'm no expert. But I know God and he's a faithful guy. He'll look after you."

Yep.
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Bliss

Is there anything better on a cold night than a shower so hot that after a while you idly wonder if that feeling in your shoulders is actually your skin starting to blister? Okay, there are probably many things better than that but right now I can't think of any. Ahhhhhh..... felt so good....

And conversely...

Is there anything worse than dragging yourself out of bed on your day off - after a rather late night and when it's cold and rainy - to go to a counselling session only to find that your counsellor forgot to tell you that she needed to cancel today's session because she was out at a seminar? I drove up and thought, "No cars in the driveway. That's odd. Maybe her car is in for repairs... oh look, the blinds in the house are shut... and all the lights are off... hmmm..." I rang the doorbell in vain; there was no one home. A few text messages later and the mix-up was revealed - and my counsellor rang this afternoon to apologise 200 or so times and ask if I wanted to reschedule, so it's all good.

I wasn't upset and thought it was kind of funny but I still think I should be able to get some great mileage out of it with my counsellor. Mileage, and maybe chocolate. My appointment was changed to tomorrow night, so that gives me all day tomorrow to build a great story about how abandoned I felt and how much this has hindered the healing process. Ooh, and I'll mention trust; that's sure to be worth a Freddo or two.

Awesome. Off I go to Google "how to cry on cue"...

Edit: My lovely, generous counsellor - who, coincidentally, might just be reading this... because I might have promised I would clear her name after slandering her on my blog :-) - gave me a giant-sized Caramello Koala tonight. I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that I emailled her and just "happened" to mention that I like Caramellos.

So, to a certain sometimes forgetful but otherwise great counsellor - I don't use names on this blog but you know who you are :

THANK YOU!

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It's a conundrum, alright

One of the consequences of having someone spend 15 years trying their very hardest to make me feel worthless, ridiculous and pointless is that most of the time I feel worthless, ridiculous and pointless. Sadly, logic often doesn't come into it. For example, my academic transcript at uni has only Distinctions and High Distinctions, which means I didn't get below 80% for a single subject for three years. Logic would suggest, therefore, that I'm reasonably intelligent. Despite this, most of the time I believe I'm stupid and for my entire degree I made excuses for my successes - "It's just a first year subject and they mark them easier", "I agreed with the lecturer so of course I got a good mark" and so on.

Trying to change long-ingrained beliefs is very difficult and knowing that those beliefs aren't true doesn't stop me believing that they are absolutely true. I said to my counsellor today, "I know that it's totally wrong to believe I'm stupid and worthless. At the same time I am 100% convinced that I'm completely stupid and worthless." So... I know it's a lie and I also know it's true. Yeah, blows your mind a little bit, huh?

Right now I'm feeling very optimistic and hopeful about counselling. I feel more hopeful than I have in ages, actually, and that's a great thing. At the same time, though, there is a BIG part of me that is convinced there is no point trying to change because I really am worthless, and I will never feel any different. Feeling and believing both of these things simultaneously is a little bit weird and very hard to explain and understand. However, I figure that feeling worthless AND hopeful is a whole lot better than just feeling worthless with no hope at all, so I'm taking this conundrum as a win.
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Roller coaster

Do you ever have a day or two where so many different things happen, and they're so intensely emotional - but all different emotions - that you hardly know whether you're coming or going? Let me fill you in on the ups and downs of my personal little emotional roller coaster this week.

Friday - UP
I chatted with my counsellor and agreed that it was time to get back into some issues that had been put on hold for me whilst I was dealing with some stuff at work. This included some journal entries that I'd sent but we hadn't talked about yet. I was keen to dive into it all again and looked forward to my session on Tuesday.

Sunday - UP
I returned to church after a three month absence (long story but I wasn't in a good place and needed a break). It was great to be back.

Monday - DOWN
I have been reading a book called The Body Remembers by Babette Rothschild. Although written for therapists, and thus highly technical, it's been very helpful. On Monday I started reading the chapter on flashbacks... and almost instantly had a massive anxiety attack as I remembered some flashbacks I had had more than a year ago. It was like a flashback of a flashback, which I didn't even know was possible. It is, and it freaked me out.

Tuesday - DOWN
My counselling session was first thing in the morning and I talked about my reaction the day before. In order to explain why a 'flashback of a flashback' is indeed possible my counsellor started to tell me a story about someone becoming anxious about being anxious. The more she said the word 'anxious' the more MY anxiety level increased, until I had to ask her to stop because I thought I was going to pass out. Yeah, it was intense. After a break and some breathing exercises I felt a bit calmer and we agreed to put this aside for the moment and talk about something more innocuous and less stressful. That helped but I remained shaken by the experience for the whole day.

Tuesday - UP
After my session in the morning I met with my prayer triplet. It was both comforting and refreshing.

Tuesday - UP
I went for a two hour walk in an effort to reduce my adrenaline levels which were still high after my episode of anxiety in the morning. It was good and helped to stop some of my anxiety symptoms.

Tuesday night - DOWN
I received the news that my friend's wife had died that morning, after being diagnosed with breast cancer ten months ago. She was 40; and leaves behind her husband and two young boys.

Tuesday night - UP
After a day of suffering the effects of the morning's anxiety and feeling increasingly afraid of going back to counselling next week and having the same thing happen, I finally reached the point where I decided enough is enough. I reached for my journal and wrote the following:

After writing that I felt a lot better and far more in control. I think something vital has just clicked in my brain...

Wednesday - UP
Givinya's baby was born!

So it's been an interesting few days. Up and down and round in circles.... I'm feeling a little tired now, to be honest! Here's hoping the rest of the week is boring and dull...
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Cloudy, but clearing

Firstly, thank you to those who commented on my last post or contacted me via email. Your care, support and prayers mean so much to me and you help more than you know.

I'm still not feeling quite up to my usual self. I think this has been building up for a little while now and this week it all rose up like a wave and dumped me on the sand. Apparently, this is called a STUG - a Sudden, Temporary Upsurge of Grief. (Where would we be without handy acronyms?) Good name, since that's exactly how it felt... and I'm always strangely comforted to hear that what I'm experiencing is normal and textbook. This is the kind of situation where I want to be boring and run of the mill.

It's been a strange week. If I'd had my way I think I would have stayed in bed all week and licked my wounds but of course I had to go to work. My emotions have been all over the place - one night I came home and cried because my letter box only had junk mail in it, another night I was almost beside myself with rage because a salesperson rang trying to get me to change electricity providers, and another night I happily did some painting and watched TV and felt pretty good for a few hours. Underneath it all, though, I've been feeling sad and overwhelmed. Not in despair but definitely struggling and unable to see a way out. My long-suffering counsellor, who deserves far more money than I can afford to pay her, has been patiently answering my emails all week, which have all been a variation on the same theme - "Tell me that this won't last forever. Tell me that healing is possible. Tell me this is okay. Tell me that I can do it. And now tell me again, please." So she told me and told me and told me again, every time I asked the exact same thing. The answer didn't change - "yes, healing will come" - but sometimes I just need to keep hearing it, and I'm trying so hard to believe it.

And now... I'm beginning to emerge from the wave. I'm struggling and I'm not free of it yet but it will come. And so will healing.
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Obscured horizon

I had a subdued counselling session yesterday. It mostly consisted of me saying, "I've been doing this for nearly two years, I don't think I'm getting anywhere, I can't see any progress and by the way this whole thing really sucks." My counsellor pointed out that I spent nearly a year with another counsellor who wasn't helpful to me, reminded me of progress I have made and agreed, "Yes, this does indeed totally suck."

I'm feeling tired and discouraged right now, to the point where I really can't see any progress even though I know it's there. All I can see are the negatives and the fears and the steps backward and the falls. I know they are not the whole picture but they loom so large on my horizon sometimes that they obscure everything else.

Yesterday I talked about how long this seems to be taking. I have had friends who were in bad places and had counselling for a while, but never for this long. My counsellor said something like, "The kind of thing you're dealing with isn't something that takes weeks or months; it can take years. You have had a lifetime of programming and it goes very deep; it will take a long time to work through it." Well. Okay. Of course I knew this - I've said it myself plenty of times - but I didn't want to hear it yesterday. Not years. I don't know why it should have made a difference... come the end of August I will have been in counselling for two years anyway and frankly I can't see myself feeling 100% fine in the next 12 months so I already know this is a slow process and will take (has taken) years. But still, there's something about hearing it that makes it real. Years. One year... two years... three years... and then??

I know there's not a quick fix. I'm not sure I'd want one, really, because I feel sure it wouldn't be a fix at all but merely a bandaid that will fall off later and leave me in a worse place than I'm in now. I'm not looking for the magic solution. I guess I'm just writing this to have a little moan. This is hard. It's slow. I can think of 500 other things I would rather do. I'm a bit overwhelmed by it all and I can't see any progress... my little flame of hope is more like a smouldering ember that's filling the room with smoke and choking me.

I'm trying to think of a hopeful note on which to end this post... something like, "I'm down but not out" or "I am discouraged but I know it will all be worth it". Even if those things are true, I don't feel them today. I'm discouraged. I am overwhelmed. I can't see the positives. And today, that is all.
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Seven days inside my head

Seven days ago:

I sent my counsellor some excerpts from my journal. As soon as I hit 'send' I thought, "Sh*t. What have I done?"

I knew it was a mistake.

Six days ago:

I re-read what I sent my counsellor. I then emailed her and said I thought I might be coming down with something and probably wouldn't be able to make it to my session next week. (She knows me well enough now to ignore this...)

I thought it was a mistake.

Five days ago:
I re-read what I sent to my counsellor. I opened my journal and read some entries I didn't send her. I flicked back through the journal and noted how many entries were really quite similar to what I'd sent. They go back a long way.

I was willing to entertain the idea that maybe it wasn't a mistake.

Four days ago:
I re-read what I sent to my counsellor. I remembered previous counselling sessions where I'd left feeling annoyed with myself because I'd tried to talk about what was going on inside me but just couldn't get the words out.

I began to think it wasn't a mistake.

Three days ago:
I re-read what I sent to my counsellor. I remembered previous counselling sessions where I took my journal with me but left it in my bag because I didn't have the courage to read it aloud.

I thought it wasn't a mistake.

Two days ago:
I re-read what I sent to my counsellor. I tried to imagine what my next counselling session would be like. I wrote in my journal, "I still expect it to be hard to talk about these things, but I'm glad [counsellor] has those journal entries."

I knew it wasn't a mistake.

Yesterday:
I re-read what I sent to my counsellor. I thought again about the sessions where the words were stuck inside me. I felt like a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders.

I knew that a bigger mistake would have been to keep those journal entries to myself.

Today:
I re-read what I sent my counsellor. My counsellor read some of it back to me. We talked. I was right... it was hard. These things go deep and talking about them will be hard for a long time. But... that's okay.

It was not a mistake. I did the right thing. I'm glad I did.
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It's a great relationship that we don't have

The counsellor/client relationship is a strange beast. I've been seeing my current counsellor for about 10 months and I'd say we have a great relationship... except technically we don't really have a relationship at all. Well, we do, but how do you define it? We're certainly friendly, but we're not friends - we don't have coffee or go shoe shopping together. (And if we were friends she really shouldn't be my counsellor.) It's a professional relationship... and yet this woman knows far more about me than any of my friends. She probably has a better insight than anyone I know into my fears, my hopes, my insecurities, my anxieties. Sometimes we talk about things that make me horribly uncomfortable or highly anxious - conversations I wouldn't dream of having with my friends - and although it's often difficult to talk about these things I always feel safe to do so. I trust my counsellor with the fragile and raw things within me; and she has seen me at my most vulnerable.

I'm pondering this tonight because today I emailled my counsellor some entries from my journal. Now, I've seen plenty of chick-flicks and I know that you should never let anyone see your diary. It always ends in tears (or in wacky hijinks, if it's that kind of film). And yet here I was, happily sending off portions of my diary - my DIARY! - to a woman I didn't even know a year ago; a woman who is paid to chat with me; a woman who seems to care about me but who is not a friend. It's really rather strange, when you think about it.

Still, my counsellor is great... and I'm happy to say that we have a wonderful non-relationship. :-)

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Truth

It's been one year and nine months since I first started counselling, and almost exactly one year since I started to understand the extent and impact of my brother's abuse. I have had weekly sessions during that entire period, apart from a period of about three months when I was having fortnightly appointments. That's a lot of counselling. It's such a part of my life now that I have trouble sometimes remembering what life was like before I started. In the last few months, as I've been digging deeper into trauma that's been buried for a long time, counselling has started to feel like a bad dream. I keep thinking that I went into this feeling a little bit down and depressed and now, without quite knowing how it happened, I'm living in a whole new world. It's a world where I talk about trauma and abuse in familiar terms, where anxiety is measured on a scale of severity but is never entirely absent, where often I can't sleep because talking about things has made me unsettled and upset, where sometimes I need to curl up in bed like a wounded animal and hide from the world, where I feel intense shame for things that shouldn't have shame attached to them at all - it's a world where I live with a pain that goes so deep I don't even have the words to describe it. I never intended to enter this world. I didn't even know it was there and sometimes I just can't believe this is where I live now. It feels like a bad dream and I want to wake up.

At times I think that if I'd never gone to see a counsellor I wouldn't be in this place. I wouldn't be someone who has survived abuse. I wouldn't be anxious. I wouldn't have insomnia. I would float along happily and not be in this strange and difficult world. Sometimes I feel like I made a mistake seeing a counsellor, and that taking that step caused all these things to happen... like it's my own fault that I'm now struggling, and living in a place that's frightening and hard. These are the times when I need to remind myself of what is true.

Truth: whatever his motives, the way my brother treated me was abuse. Calling it abuse or calling it something else or even ignoring it won't change the truth. Abuse is abuse.

Truth: whatever her motives or her understanding of the situation, and even though she loves me, my mother allowed my brother to continue to abuse me. The fact that she loves me and didn't see it as abuse doesn't change the effect it had on me.

Truth: just because I didn't feel traumatised doesn't mean I wasn't. If that's my 'normal', how could I possibly know?

Truth: anxiety is not new. I've always had anxiety attacks, especially at night; I just didn't know what they were. Counselling helped me name them. It didn't cause them.

Truth: before I started counselling, I wasn't happy. I didn't feel safe. I didn't know how to trust people. I didn't like myself. I wanted a 'reset' button. I longed to escape, to be a different person, to start again where no one knows me. Counselling didn't make this happen; it just made me recognise it.

Truth: sometimes I don't know what's true, or I know it but I have no idea how to get there. I need help to see the truth and live in the truth. That's the point of counselling. It's not to make me feel terrible or to condemn me to a new and painful world; it's to help me see where I'm living and then help me move on and start to live in a better place.

And that's the truth.

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Rhody Garden Take Two - same place, different season

On Tuesdays I see my counsellor in the mornings. Tuesday is also my day off, which means if I'm feeling a little fragile after counselling I have the rest of the day to be nice to myself and have some recovery time. It's a good system and works well for me.

Today was a fragile day. At one point my counsellor suggested a word to describe how I feel about the thing I was discussing and it was so exactly on the money it was like she jumped into my head, had a little look around and said, "Oh, right, I see... you feel like this." (Kind of spooky, actually, but probably more so for her than me... inside my head is a strange and scary place!) Anyway, I needed some time and space afterwards, so I headed up to the National Rhododendron Garden. I was the only person in the whole place - even the lady who takes the entrance fee wasn't there; there was just an optimistic note suggesting that people place a donation in the box provided. The gardens were quiet and peaceful and lonely and just what I needed. My soul was soothed and I left there reminded that God is good.

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Of this and that, and a bit of the other too

I decided it was time to do a bit of a catch-up post since I haven't blogged in a while, but I'm having trouble remembering exactly what I've been doing that has got in the way of blogging. I know there's been stuff. Important stuff. It kept me busy. Really. I just can't seem to remember any of it.

Work has been a bit better. Things are still hard but the staff team is starting to regroup and life goes on. On Monday a lovely parishioner came in with cupcakes for the staff team and on Friday another parishioner arrived with flowers for me and for the woman who volunteers in the office on Friday. In both cases it was because they thought we might be feeling a bit stressed and sad. I've tried to institute a new rule that anyone who comes into the church office must bring flowers or food but that idea doesn't seem to be taking off.

On Saturday I went to my church's musicians' camp (ie, the church I attend, not the one where I work). The fact that I went to the camp is more hilarious than it sounds given that I couldn't hit a recognisable note with a gun to my head (although really, who could?) and I can't seem to manage the multi-tasking required to sing and clap at the same time. However, I support the music pastor and music team by doing their admin stuff so they kindly invited me to the camp. I only went for a few hours but heard two sensational talks about praise - why God is worthy of praise and how we can praise him. The speaker pointed out that we don't actually need to use the word 'praise' in order to praise God. Good point ... there are many, many songs that enthusiastically declare (over and over and over) "we want to praise you, God" but never get around to the actual... praising God part. Reminds me of a friend who used to say to people, "I want to encourage you." And that was it; his entire method of 'encouragement' was that sentence. Whenever he said it to me I'd say, "Okay... fire away then. Encourage me." Unfortunately my sarcasm was lost on him.

Counselling has been mostly focussed on what's happening at work which is annoying in some ways but a good break in others. It was getting a bit intense for a while so diverting my attention to something else might not have been a bad thing. On the other hand, though, there have been a few moments of thinking, "Honestly, could I just deal with one thing at a time??"

And finally, in kitten news... Sophie is bringing me great joy and lots of laughs. The first pic below was taken just after I discovered she'd not only snuck into my room when I accidentally left the door open but she'd also realised that the bed is the place to be. I just love her "oh crap - I've been busted!" look. The other pics are just because I like them.

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Hard work

Counselling has been hard lately. Really hard. I'm not going to talk about the details here (and really the details aren't important to share) but let's just say that dredging up feelings that have been buried for more than a couple of decades is hard work. It's necessary work and it's a great step towards healing, but it sure hurts.

I'm feeling sore and fragile and as a result blogging is likely to fall by the wayside for a bit. (At least, intelligent blogging is likely to fall by the wayside - I expect that blogging about trivial stuff like my bubble bath will still happen!) Anyway, please bear with me...

Bravery

I've been meeting up with a couple of friends every fortnight to pray and chat about how we're going. It's been such a blessing to us as we've all been dealing with some major things recently and have appreciated the mutual support and love.

Yesterday when we met I talked about how I've been going with counselling. One of my friends said, "I think you're very patient and very brave." That was a lovely thing to say and I was touched to hear it (even though it doesn't feel like that from my side)... but I couldn't help thinking that I'm just a little bit over the whole bravery thing now. What I'd actually like is for someone to say, "Look, you've been very brave and you've done really well... but we'll take over from here. You go have a lie down and eat some chocolate and relax."

I don't think that's going to happen, but hey - a girl can dream!.

Perspectives

I met a new friend recently. NOT just a new friend; a fellow West Wing fan - these things are important! As it turns out we have some other things in common too, including the fact that we're both dealing with the effects of some ugly stuff in childhood. Our stories are not the same by any means but there are some common threads.

I was around at her house on the weekend to watch some West Wing... we got through half an episode (I know - and we call ourselves fans!) and spend most of the evening chatting instead. At one point my friend asked how long I'd been seeing a counsellor. I said it's been about 18 months: 10 months with Bad Counsellor and 8 months with Good Counsellor (yes, that's how they're designated in my head). My friend said, "You're amazing. You've come so far in such a short time!"

This threw me entirely for a minute. Let me give this some context... I would estimate that there are about 1 in 5 counselling sessions where I say things like I never expected to be in counselling for this long; I feel like I'm doing something wrong because my progress is so slow and half the time I feel like I'm going backwards; I feel stupid that I talk about the same things week after week and don't seem to be getting anywhere; and I feel like I'm never going to feel any different from the way I feel now. So to hear someone say I've come "so far" was surprising. It reminded me that most of the time I have very little perspective about any of this. Often I feel like I'm approaching counselling from a reactionary stance. Things come up and I talk about them; and while I'm dealing with the Crisis Of The Week I forget to look and see how the thing I'm dealing with RIGHT NOW, that seems like the only thing in the world, fits into the bigger picture.

You all know I hate using the word 'journey' in relation to counselling and healing, but (yes, I'm going to do it) I'm afraid I can't escape the fact that it IS a journey. If I don't look back occasionally at where I've been then I get caught up in the urgent and start thinking I haven't taken any forward steps at all. Similarly, if I don't have at least some idea of what 'better' looks like it makes it very hard to work towards getting there.

I don't know that I want to use the word 'amazing' just yet, but it was good to get someone else's perspective. I have a long way to go and most times I have only the vaguest idea of where I'm going anyway, but in all that I shouldn't lose sight of how far I've come.
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Gold star!

For some time now I've been telling my counsellor that I should be awarded a gold star when I have a good week or do my homework or get things right (even though "there are no right or wrong answers here"...heh). Her response was that she had mysteriously 'lost' her gold stars (uh huh); and later she said it was time to start visualisation therapy - "I want you to picture a great big gold star"!

I tried to keep faith, but eventually I had to admit it. There was no gold star. Well, I guess that's okay. I knew I could learn to get by in a world without gold stars. Sure, a little sadder, a little wiser, but life goes on. I learned to live with it.

At the back of my mind, though, there was still a tiny little whisper. "Maybe there is a gold star..." And today, that tiny whisper became a shout...

GOLD STAR!!

(Of course, if my counsellor thinks I'm going to shut up about the gold stars now she's going to be terribly disappointed....)
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