1/18/13: How therapy has affected me thus far...

"Think of your head as an unsafe neighborhood; don't go there alone."--Augusten Burroughs

This is exactly what comes to mind when I think of my experience of offering therapy so far.  I've completed about 35 clinical hours now of my own--almost 60 if you include my observations of others' cases--and it's been a little rough, to say the least.  

I never thought I was all that sheltered or caught up in my own little happy bubble--but man, was I sheltered and caught up in my own little happy bubble.  As soon as my clients started opening up about their past traumas, severe struggles with self-esteem, unbearable pressure on themselves to perform, and basically all that is wrong with the world we live in today, I went home and told Dave, "I think anyone who goes into this field with even an inkling of what they're getting themselves into must be a masochist."  And I meant it.  As much as we're supposed to be able to compartmentalize work and home to keep them separate, some stories are just going to stay with you.  How can they not?  And sometimes it's not even the stories that get to me.  It's the pain, the hurt, the sadness, the grief, and sometimes even worse--the apathy.  I just hurt for these poor people who's lives have been so traumatizing that they've had to resort to turning off their emotions to be able to function.  

Don't get me wrong.  I am absolutely loving it.  There's something incredibly rewarding about shutting out my own life for about 10 hours a week to solely focus on someone else's pain and really empathize with them and help them heal.  (Except, I have yet to feel like I'm actually helping anyone heal..)  I find it easier than I thought I would to empathize with my clients and enjoy listening to them and talking with them.  My favorite is when one of them says, "I don't know if I've ever thought about it like this before, but..." or "I never realized how much..." or something else that helps me know that at the very least I'm helping them explore parts of themselves that have been ignored their whole lives.  

But with the good also comes the bad.  Some nights I come home and I just want to curl up in bed under the covers and have Dave hold me because I'm afraid to bring children into a world like this.  Some days I can't think of anything else except how desperately I want my clients to realize how strong, competent, and innately good they are.  Sometimes when I'm driving home I just have to cry, because I don't know what else to do with the powerful emotions I feel after a particularly painful session.  And sometimes I question whether or not I can handle this roller coaster ride for the rest of my life.  

I think it's good that right now as I'm just starting out I'm so strongly affected by my clients' struggles.  I think if I wasn't there might be something wrong with me.  But I'm really hoping that sometime soon I figure out how to take care of myself in a way that will help me stay emotionally healthy and positive about life in spite of all the bad I see.  

My supervisor was watching one of my sessions the other day and she told me that I needed to stop skirting around my client's pain.  I needed to get them to feel it, be there with them, and just let them stay in it, feeling whatever emotions came.  I told her I didn't really want to, because it was just too hard for me to go there.  It was too painful.  So she gave me this analogy.  She asked what the main character did in What Dreams May Come when he found out that the love of his life had been sentenced to Hell while he was in Heaven.  He journeyed all the way to Hell to save her and while he was there he experienced the grief and loss she herself experienced before they could be reunited and travel back to Heaven together.

So basically, that's my job.  I see people stuck in the torment of their own hell, go down and be there with them there for a while, and then try and pull them out of it.    

Now, that makes it sound like I'm super important and without me these people would be stuck forever.  That's not my point at all, and that's definitely not true.  I just mean to illustrate that I'm beginning to understand what it means to truly empathize with people in their darkest moments and still maintain the positivity that comes with knowing that there's something better out there for them to experience.

As hard as it is on me right now just starting out, I know that this whole process is making me a better person and has the potential to make a difference in the lives of so many people who didn't deserve the bad that life has thrown at them.  And I know I'm in the right place because I can just feel it, but I needed to process some of my emotions about my experiences so far through writing today.  Thanks for reading!

11/22/13: Gone Fishin'...

I wish I was gone fishing, that's Dave right now.  I'm actually sitting here in isolation in an office on campus attempting to write my first draft of my lit review for my thesis.  It's due tonight and I haven't started writing yet...so your regular Friday blogging program will return when said paper is finished.  Wish me luck!

Until then, please enjoy this little gem of a philosophy I'm choosing to live by right now in spite of being taught to rise above this temptation during my English undergrad years :)  What can I say?  Grad school is just a different ball game.  Sometimes mediocrity is all we can afford to achieve if we want our sanity to remain in tact!

To Write, Or Not To Write...

Isn't writing tough?  I don't mean the post-about-your-every-day-life writing.  Writing about deeper, meaningful, real things.  I've been told time and time again that I surprise people with my writing when I have something to be passionate about.  (I guess the caveat here is that when I'm not passionate I'm just not that great of a writer...haha) I just read through a few old blog posts and I can definitely see it.  My best writing is when I'm writing because I desperately need an outlet for my emotions.

At the camping trip this weekend, we talked about how the blogosphere has turned into a big, fake, competitive place to make lots of fake, competitive friends and pretend your life is more exciting or instagrammable than the next girl (or guy).  Such a shame, really, when I think about why I started my blog.  I was in a serious rut a few years ago.  I needed help.  I was depressed (not clinically, but mildly) and missing my best friends on missions and needed a place to express my thoughts and emotions.

This blog did so much for me.  It completely transformed the way I looked at the world.  All of a sudden, I was looking for things to be happy about so I could write something positive.  I wanted to put my best self forward for the world to see, and I'll admit it was not one bit about becoming a better writer.  It was all about seeing the little things everyday and realizing why life was beautiful.

As that part of my life passed, though, I started to care a lot more about my writing.  I don't like posting about mundane things that don't make people think.  Unfortunately, what start out as aspiring ideas and concepts for my blog usually turn into "I just have enough time and/or energy to photo dump and do a bit of journaling so we remember our lives in a few years".

I'm sad that I don't have better things to write about, but recently I've thought that maybe I can change that.  I've learned so much already just this summer about relationships, family theories, and emotional skills that have been proven to predict marital satisfaction.  And the coolest part is that they can be learned, practiced, and implemented at any point in your life.  They will always help!  I'm thinking I might start a new blog where I can write about all the fascinating concepts I come across and my thoughts about them so I remember them in two years when I graduate and start doing therapy completely on my own.  What do you think?  Is that pretentious?  Or would that be something interesting to read?  Maybe I'll just make it private so only I can see it but I'll still have an archive somewhere, you know?

Drafts...

Today while I was looking through my old blog drafts I found the following:

"Things...."
'Recently I have come to the conclusion that I' 

The End.

Maybe this was some incredibly genius attempt at a Post-modern writing technique.  My stream-of-consciousness was clearly meant to encourage my readers to think about the fact that life is not meant for concrete conclusions.  It's an open book.  I'm a regular Robert Frost.

Yeah, let's just forgo the fact that this was probably an ADHD moment and go with the idea that my subconscious is a literary genius :)

What do I write about in a blog...?

So I have avoided the blogging craze thus far. I don't have an out of the ordinary life, I don't have any jaw-dropping, rolling on the floor laughing, hilarious stories, and I don't really have anything specific I want to share with the world. But a few people in my life have recently convinced me that I should start one because I am an English major and:

"Every English major should have a blog" and, I "like to write, so I should definitely have a blog!"

We'll see how this turns out for me...I have no idea what I'm supposed to write about and I don't want to seem "Pretentious", as a good friend described most bloggers. (No offense intended...) I suppose this little blog will just be a description of the little thoughts, little moments, and little things in my life that matter to me. I hope you enjoy following along with my everyday experiences :) Thanks for reading!