The OFP, or Once and Future Psychologist, is the therapist that I saw when I was an adolescent back when she was specializing in treating teens with eating disorders.
Twenty-some years later I looked her up to ask for a referral (since at the time she only treated adolescents). Turns out, she now treats adults... particularly women with mood disorders. Go figure. I went to see her last week. After about a year and a half. I got mad at her for using my children to try and shame me into taking care of my mental health. I can't remember exactly what she said, but something about if I wasn't concerned for myself, I should think about how my Ups and Downs affect my children. This was fighting dirty. I saw her about a week after I got mad. To let her know that I was mad and to question whether or not I needed to go to therapy at all. She was sorry. And apologized. And agreed with me that for the most part I know what the Cognitive Behavioral Therapy party line will be. And that I would just know when I needed to come in for a tune-up. Which was last week. Actually it was two weeks ago that I should properly have gone in, but oh well. I talked to her about my late state of High Anxiety. What does that feel like, she wondered. What was different now that brought me in? My heart racing every morning before I got out of bed. Excessive weepiness. Hair-trigger irritation. A fight-or-flight response as my state of rest. She wondered what was causing this. I told her the usual sob story about being a flaming bleeding-heart liberal scared out of her mind about the future of the world. And my powerlessness. Worry over big things that I cannot change. And also confessed my news obsession. I had mostly figured all this out before talking to her. But mostly I figured it out because I knew that I was going to talk to her and didn't want to sit there without having a plan of what I was going to say. It is a common complaint of hers that when I show up I have already sorted things on my own. Nevertheless, sometimes it is nice to have someone to be accountable to. And someone to give blessings to my already-formed plans. Here is the plan (already in motion)
Ironically I was unable to log in to my blog here without REACTIVATING my Facebook account and then deactivating it again. There is part of me that is tempted to keep my FB active just so that these posts appear in people's feeds. But I don't know how many people read the blog because of notifications through FB. The trouble is, if I have my FB page active at all, I will be tempted to go and check in just to see if anyone has reacted to what I have read. I will be writing into a vacuum for a while. Shouting at the silence. It will feel strange. It does feel strange. People at large cannot comment here because I don't want to open myself up to comments (negative or positive) from the Outside World, but I have allowed friends to comment through FB. Right. So far I am experiencing less of the Anxiety. I am, however, trying hard not to get sucked into the Downs. This is the world of rapid cycling bipolar. I feel like I have a touch of anhedonia. You know, but I don't care. Ha! Because that is a symptom of anhedonia. Spouse says I need to go for walks every day. And get outside. Because sunlight. I told Spouse that he is a no-good busybody and he can go sit on a pin. I'm gonna try to go back to the basics of remembering to do at least one thing to do besides popping pills to see to my mental health. Grateful Crap: Spouse (I suppose) and sunlight (or whatever) Equatorial Actions: meds 200 mg lamotrigine walked around the block with Spouse quite grudgingly yesterday dyed my hair a bit reddish (counts under the self-care column) umm... other stuff I think Comments are closed.
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K. BuchananQuaker, teacher, parent, |