10:40 p.m. - 02/21/03
people agree with you. that doesn't make you right. ]:-
Sooo tired. I'm not sure if it's meds, or after-effects of the sleep deprivation, or just Friday night crash time, but I am *so* tired. For the sake of interaction, I (gasp) went to a workshop tonight (with my mother), where I proceeded to have a good time despite the fact that it was positively awful. The woman's delivery had no spark of entertainment to entice me, and the material was baffling in its offensiveness. It was on self-discovery, using tools like the Enneagram and Myers-Briggs, and there was no consistency. She'd discredit one theory for the same reason she supported her own. And she kept talking in terms of therapy and healing, when my story sure as hell did not fit her terms. She went off on cognitive therapy at more than one point, and for the first time in my life, I felt compelled to defend it. I hate cognitive/behavioral work as as singular course. I've experienced therapists who think it's the be-all and end-all to self-healing, which is utter bullshit. But in combination with other types of therapy, working to change thought and behavioral patterns is hugely important to recovery. And what's more, changing those patterns brings up the feelings she's so fond of, that she's saying are superior to thoughts. Blargh. I took notes- which consist solely of what bothered me, and when she started preaching narcissistic wound philosophy (basically original sin theology masquerading as psychology) I drew all over the back of my notepad to the Ani quote, "I just happen to like apples/ and I am not afraid of snakes..." I still felt like a teapot building up steam, though. Some examples:
"Tapes" (i.e. the messages we have ingrained from childhood that continue to play and effect our behavior) are apparently not thought patterns because working with thought patterns does no good for anyone.
I am not in control. (I'm sorry, but I think I'm very much in control- once I stop trying to be. I think the essential me chooses a lot of what goes on, and I am very much *the powerful one* in my life. So fuck that.)
We need two types of self-identification (Enneagram and Myers-Briggs) but we don't need two sides of the brain.
She dissed meds and talk therapy, both of which have saved my life.
She said we should change what's inside. I think we should listen to it. She wants me to drop it; I think I can heal by speaking with the pain.
She said the (faulty) concept of cognitive therapy (which you'll recall I hate) is that if you change the dysfunctional thought, your behavior will change, and you will feel better. It's working from the outside in; that's true. But the point is not to make you feel better. The point is to hand over your destructive thoughts and behaviors and feel what it is you're numbing. Stopping a behavior and challenging a thought usually feels like shit to begin with, and that's how you start to make progress. For Christ sake.
Speaking of which, she kept talking about God, as if everyone in the room had that kind of spirituality.
And she said that once you reach your essential self, you don't have to work at an addiction because the need for it just falls away. At that point I honestly wanted to hit her (and she's a very sweet person; I didn't feel this way at all talking to her before the workshop.) I know more and more of my essential self, and I know her in part because of the work I've done against addiction. The two correspond, and even if I *could* somehow manage to jump through to finding my essential self without having to work on my addiction (how the fuck would that happen?) I would still have to break old-habits. That's a given. A lot of people continue to use behaviors they don't need. And I don't want anyone telling me how to heal now. That's the theme of the week. I don't want anyone, no matter what their status, their degree, their level of guru-dom, to tell me how I am. I really need to say that out loud to someone who can hear it. I think it's what's going to push me to discuss the first set of fears (i.e. those fears that are keep me from wanting a sexuality, rather than those fears of what will come of it) with Dr. R. I need to know who I am so I can advocate for her fully. Because I'm not putting up with this anymore. From anyone.
The fact that I think now it might be related to my good-self also makes it more necessary. I can't handle hurting a girl I love and have fought for so much. I just can't.
To make the workshop more interesting, my mom, of course, had to vent halfway home. And I needed to vent also, but not to her. Venting to my mom always feels like defending my feelings, my opinions, and she's so heated up in her own that she doesn't validate any of what I have to say. If she even acknowledges it, "that's right" there's always more to be said, there's always something I didn't know, or there's always a better way to articulate it. We can have the same theory, and I still feel like we're debating, which I hate. So I just keep my mouth shut, mostly, make a few points, sing Ani songs, and come home to this journal. Ah, to talk with space that doesn't fight back.
And she kind of forgot, pointing out the wholes in this woman's theory and the destructiveness of "selling" your theory rather than "exploring" it- that I don't necessarily buy into her theories either. For instance, she said that making choices and thereby losing opportunities is the gift/curse of living in time and space. I don't believe in that at all; it's against my rather complicated work-in-progress spirituality, and it just pissed me off that I was supposed to nod along. I so need time with my punching bag right now. Too bad I'd collapse before I made it to the garage. Must sleep soon.
What else do I need to say? I still haven't talked about the dream. And I had a dream last night that I was at Rogers (damnit. Those are so good while they last, and I hate them when they're over.) My dad is home early this week. He's breaking down entirely, and though the doctor's keeping close watch, he didn't have the opportunity to warn me about what I might be facing. We're talking my dad is probably quitting his Narnia job (which is good)...and is currently sitting in his chair, where he has been for hours, refusing to make even the smallest effort toward optimism. Refusing to smile at me even when I go out of my way to fetch one from him. Did we hit a vortex back to eighth grade? I almost expected to drive "home" to Neverland tonight. Just had a sense of that's where we live, which I haven't in sometime.
I live in Wisconsin. Maybe I'll talk about the dream tomorrow. Yes, for the record, I'm from Wisconsin, and that's why my parents don't define me. I live in Wisconsin. Everything else is lies.
chord
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