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A single moment with so many different levels of irony: I (who is not celebrating christmas this year and was wearing a buddhist prayer necklace at the time) was at the staff christmas party last night and overheard someone else who described themselves (unsolicited) as a “strong christian” saying things that were definitely trinitarian heresies, and had to resist the urge to pipe up about it.

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I came out to my therapist today.  Which was hard, and largely positive, and she told me the christmas unicorn on the side table is genderfluid and prefers they/them pronouns.  Which I have now latched onto as the best thing ever.

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This morning I am sitting with my dog before work, and I don’t want to leave this moment.  It’s not wholly free from all the anxieties and questions and hurts, but this is an easier moment.  A moment of calm exchange, of me loving my dog and him being content (and hopefully loving me back, but I don’t know if he works that way).  I want to stay here.  I know I can’t.  I know that being caught up in how I don’t want to get up and go to work is robbing some of the peace and joy from this moment.  But I... I need more rest than I’m finding right now.

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I JUST ACCIDENTALLY OUTED MYSELF BECAUSE I COULDN’T RESIST A PUN AAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

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Thoughts on psychiatrist appointment yesterday:

I felt more like a collection of symptoms than a human being.  It was “you have this symptom, here’s this pill that can take care of that.”, and didn’t have room for me to have complex opinions about my own recovery.  Like, introduce yourself to me, with your name.  Don’t ask if I have any questions while perched on the edge of your chair, like the appointment is over already.

I don’t ever want to take the pill that’s going to knock me out cold because what if something awful happens again and I’m not aware enough to stop it.  And there wasn’t any space for me to bring that up, or the issues I’ve had in the past with melatonin and not being able to wake up from nightmares.

I was terrified to cry.  I was so scared to look for a second like I wasn’t perfectly in control of my emotions and faculties.  And later M curled up next to me when I was crying and it felt like all the acceptance and validation in the world.

Fear isn’t bad.  It’s not unhealthy, inherently, or unhelpful.  I do better when I give things like fear and anxiety and sadness and grief some space to exist, and don’t pathologize them or treat them like things I just need to get rid of.  It’s perfectly reasonable to be scared.  Some really awful shit happened.  Doesn’t mean I’m really awful shit.

I have some feelings about humanity, and how whatever our other roles in a given situation may be we all continually remain human.  I’m a human, and a psychiatrist or therapist or “case manager” (because apparently now I’m a case...) is a human, and I just want people to act like there are two human beings in the room.  Like I’m a human having a hard time right now, and gentleness and kindness and connection aren’t luxuries only afforded to the fully functioning, and that either of us could be sitting on either side of the table if circumstances were just a little bit different.  And the fact that only one of us is expected to emotionally disrobe is weird and unbalanced and doesn’t mean that leaving our humanity at the door is emotionally cleaner.  

There’s a dog currently sleeping on my legs.  It’s 3:30 am, and the fact that he’s sleeping soundly is the thing that’s keeping me calm right now, because his senses are better than mine and his sleep is lighter and he likes to bark at everything and he currently isn’t barking because there isn’t anything to bark at.  That has been more helpful to me in the sleeping department than anything else.

It seems like I accomplished more on my own than when I’ve been trying to engage with the therapeutic process over the past six months. I found a way to exist in my body, and worked to get my thinking a lot healthier, and did a lot of really productive work around trigger desensitization.  Which is something to non-patronizingly honor, and it’s okay that some of that progress has slipped away now, and it’s okay that I loose my crap when I try to be present in my body.  No one is allowed to suggest that I’ve just been stuck in survival mode; I did some serious work, and that matters.  It seems like trying to be a good therapy client is distracting me from going foraging for my own path through the woods again.

I want to quit therapy.  I want to call and cancel every appointment I’ve ever had, and change my number, and I don’t know if I want to find someone else or just never go back ever again.  I won’t be doing that, but my god I just want to crawl under a rock.

One of the most supportive and affirming interactions I’ve had in this whole process was with the nurse who did my forensic exam.  The exam itself was a small slice of hell, but she’d pause and tell me that I was doing great as I was sitting there hyperventilating and not super responsive, and firmly but without pushing told me it wasn’t my fault it happened, even if I had left the door unlocked, and that people should be able to leave their doors unlocked during the daytime.  And when I was actually up on the table and freaking all the way out, she paused and told me to breathe, and said that she was there with me, and that P was right outside the door, and the entire thing was horrible and I wish I hadn’t had to go through it,  But I don’t think she ever really lost sight of the fact that everyone involved was a human, and I’m very grateful to have that memory to draw on.

And the very fuzzy memory of the car ride after that, when P audibly breathed in and out what I’m pretty sure is the longest breath anyone has ever taken, trying to cue me that my breathing was way too fast, but it felt like an invitation.  Like a small, wordless connection, and an acknowledgment that she knew I was trying so it wasn’t a command.  It felt like we were two humans in a car, one significantly more calm than the other, but still connected.  Like she was just this calm, compassionate presence, and whatever reaction I needed to have was okay.  Didn’t make me weak, didn’t make me unstable, didn’t make me fragile.  We were both just human.

This whole thing dragged up three particular experiences I’ve had in the past with psychiatrists.  The earliest was the time I was actually medicated, by this mouse-y man who looked at me over his glasses and nodded when I talked and I don’t think he listened to a work I said.  The second was with a lady, Dr. V, who I only saw once, because she refused to medicate me because I didn’t want to take medication (which I am very grateful for).  She said to my parents, while I was still in the room, “she’s one of the worst cases I’ve ever seen”, referencing how depression-shut-down I was.  Thinking about that now, I can see that in a much more compassionate light, but that’s a phrase I’ve carried with me for years.  That I’m that broken, that messed up, and she didn’t have a comprehensive picture of me at all, but I don’t think that excuses the fact that she spoke about me for a solid ten minutes like I wasn’t in the room.  The third was the slimeball ARNP I saw for a year and a half-ish, who was an enabling jerk who gave my parents ideas about how to be awful.  The case manager, with his arrogance and frat-bro-ish-ness, kind of reminded me of him.  

Right now, I hold more of the cards than I did when I was younger.  I don’t have someone who looks more respectable and sounds more convincing sitting there saying that I’m a manipulative, destructive liar anymore, but I’m scared because I’ve seen how people can act when I don’t have the power in a given situation.  I’m scared of seeming like I’m not in control, because then other people take the control for themselves.  All of that’s exhausting.

I just want to be able to say a thing sometimes and not have someone feel the need to “address” it.  Sometimes, all something needs is fresh air and some space to exist.  

As I say that, I think that might be a major issue in why therapy isn’t super effective right now.  Every time I say something, there has to be a response.  There has to be some psycho-education, some talk about how we can therapeutically address it, some comment about how it’s normal, and that almost makes it worse.  Especially if I don’t have something else to say at that moment... accepting silence is okay.  Compassionate witnessing is okay.  That goes in therapy, and with myself.

I didn’t like that.  It wasn’t bad, or unhelpful, or counterproductive, but I didn’t like that at all.  I felt like a collection of symptoms rather than a human being, and it was like there wasn’t space for my reservations or questions, and the nature of therapeutic relationships in the first place is weird but I felt poked and prodded more than I felt seen.

A smile.  A thoughtful pause.  Welcoming body language, or a kind comment about how it seems like I’m having a hard time right now... it’s the details that give people dignity.

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My dog has decided it’s cold and he wants to snuggle all the time and it’s raining and I have the day off and I made some really good soup the other day and everything is beautiful and nothing hurts.

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There’s a kind of terror to coming out.  A moment of panic, when you have no idea how the person is going to react, or what they’re going to say, or what kind of questions they’re going to ask.  Even if you think you know, you’re still not sure.

I have intentionally outed myself three times.  The first time, to someone I was pretty sure would be pretty lowkey about it, was through writing, and the few days before I heard back were absolute agony.  I was twisting in knots, not sure if someone else was about to ask me a bunch of questions I didn’t know how to answer, or look at me weird, or... I didn’t know.  But she just took it in stride, like just about everything else, and said something about how knowing something about yourself that can stand up to the questions of others and your own tears is its own gift.  Because she’s a lovely human being who says the perfect thing sometimes.

The second time was to someone else in her early 20′s at a unitarian fellowship, who had just come out to me.  That time was more for me than the other person.  I just wanted to tell someone “I don’t think I’m straight” in an environment where I was pretty sure I would be accepted, to feel what those words felt like in my mouth, to see what it was like to say that out loud.

The third time was to a friend who’s pretty devoutly LDS, in the context of talking about how a bunch of the friends I’d had through the campus ministry I’d formerly been the president of said some kind of awful things when they found out.  Wasn’t relationally pretty.  That one was where the panic set in, and still does sometimes.  There are some legitimate issues around what she believes is the nature of homosexual sin (and it mirrors pretty closely what I believed until very recently), and some honest questions to be asked, and... she’s the first person to know, who I know might take issue with it, whose friendship I desperately want to hang onto.  And I said “I’m agnostic” without equivocating (”I think agnostic might be the word...”  “I don’t know what the word is but I can’t believe in the god I used to...”), and said “I’m not straight” the same way for the first time.  Felt weird.  Both of those things are still gigantic question marks, things I have no answers besides “I don’t know” and “I don’t know if it’s possible to know”.

I have a patch on my ukulele case that says “love wins”.  Super subtle, the majority of the kids won’t catch the reference, and a lot of adults won’t either, but I rest my arm on the side to cover it up sometimes.  Feels vulnerable.  Especially here.

I had another teacher come up to me and tell me she’s a “strong christian”, basically unsolicited.  Which is absolutely fine, I don’t have a problem with that, but I don’t know what that means about what she would think about me if she knew.  For some people, there’s a functional difference between someone who’s LGBTQ and any other straight and cis non-christian.  They won’t say you’re a different level of sinner, but the implication is there.  Most christians aren’t like that, but the town I live in is home to a super conservative bible college, and can attract some of that nonsense.  Every woman in the group wearing a skirt, regardless of context, can be a signal, but I never know if I’m talking to someone who thinks being not straight is a sign that I’m not elect, and am therefore hopelessly damned and worthy of shame.  Or if things would just get weird.  Coming from a big, liberal college campus, people aren’t visibly “out” here.  It’s just not a thing.  I’m probably projecting my own insecurity with how I feel and the experiences I’ve had in the past, but... there’s a terror sitting there when I think about outing myself.  As queer, as agnostic, take your pick.  I’m not comfortable with either of those things.  I’m scared of finding myself all alone in a world I don’t know how to exist in.

One hour.  One fucking hour.  How could one hour do this much damage?

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Here’s the thing; I know I live in the world of analysis.  I know that especially because coming out of it was a fucking odyssey in the past, and learning how to inhabit my body and let myself feel my feelings were massive steps that took a lot of time and care.  I can feel exactly how far backwards I’ve moved in those regards.  This time, there’s a before, and I know some of how bad this is.

What you label as over-analysis, I would call being thoughtful.  Taking the time and effort to complexly interact with the world around me, and using precise language to communicate.  And yeah, I can get stuck in trying to make things that are inherently resistant to rational thought into something I can analyze, but I don’t think that makes all of it wholly unhelpful or unhealthy.  And I don’t think that’s anywhere near a primary issue to focus on at this moment.

P and I went through a whole thing last year just trying to get me to name preferences I have, to myself.  Admitting to myself that I like the color purple, or the sound of rain, or that I don’t like the taste of pickles... saying that to myself felt like I was creating new ways someone could hurt or manipulate me.  And then telling that to someone else... I went to get pizza with some other teachers last weekend, and because I didn’t say that I don’t like jalapenos we got them on our pizza and all ended up picking them off, because I didn’t say anything.  To tell someone that I don’t like hugs, or that I hate it when my feet are wet or cold, or that I can’t stand infantilizing nicknames, anything about my preferences... it feels like I’m asking them to ridicule or hurt me.  Like I’m opening myself up in a way I can’t protect myself from the damage that might happen.  It feels so much safer to not state any preferences, or to just never have any in the first place.

It’s infinitely harder when it comes to talking with someone else, especially someone who has more power in the relationship than I do, about things that I’ve found helpful.  I first noticed it in voice lessons, when I’d volunteer something I’d been trying or thinking to this one voice teacher, and then it would end up as something that caused more anxiety, where before it had been helping.  It’s worse in therapy, because if I tell you about a technique or idea that’s been helpful to me and it turns into something that doesn’t help anymore, I’m up a creek without a paddle, because I’ve only sussed out a small handful of things that are helpful this time around, and if those get ruined I will have utterly nothing that helps.

I tried to voice how uncomfortable I was with revisiting the container-thing in both of the recent sessions we had.  I don’t know if I didn’t say it loudly enough, but I am really reticent to try using that as a tool again.  It took a lot of courage and caring about myself to actually tell you that wasn’t working the first time we tried it -- I sat sobbing in your office, it was a whole thing.  Trying to come back to that now drags all of that with it, along with the fear that it’s going to cause more pain than it helps again.  I don’t care if this is some inexplicably magical technique that works for everyone else.  The last time we tried it, the flashbacks got worse.  We’ve done nothing in the meantime that would do anything to prevent that from happening again, and it seems almost reckless to me to just jump back in.

As the resident expert at the things that go on inside my brain, I’m comfortable using pretty definitive language in saying that, at least right now, this container exercise isn’t going to work.  I understand the point of the exercise, and I understand that there are multiple places where it could’ve gone wrong, and I don’t think it’s just that the container didn’t have a lock, or that I didn’t have a fully formed image in my head.  Ninety percent of the time, my flashbacks are mostly bodily sensations and emotions, some sounds, and on occasion the odd image thrown in (usually the images are present during the more intense and/or longer ones).  When I was working with those visualization exercises, even if I didn’t try to use one during a particular flashback, the visual images were worse.  If I did try to use one during, it was a lot worse.  Once I stopped trying to use them, it went back to how it was before.  I know that things in the flashback department will probably get worse before they get better, but as I understand it this is supposed to be a calming/coping technique, which should be able to be used to manage and deescalate symptoms, and shouldn’t aggravate them.

If you’re looking for a more decisive answer, here it is: no.  I’m not doing this container thing again.  I don’t care if was the magical answer to every problem ever; I’m not putting myself needlessly through that again, and I’m not putting myself through the anxiety of wondering if/when the flashbacks are going to get worse again.  I didn’t practice with it this week, and I didn’t come up with a way to make it more secure.  Please hear me when I say that I’m not going to jump right back into the thing that took so much to say no to the first time.

Don’t pat me on the proverbial back for sticking up for myself.  Don’t try to convince me that it seems weird, but it’s worth giving it another try.  Just move on to something else and don’t try to talk me out of feeling what I feel and knowing what I know.

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Someone's butt is partially naked. How very uncouth.

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This one is the "don't talk to me unless you have the treats" nap position.

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I adopted a dog about 3 months ago, and they say that’s about the amount of time it takes to really tell what they’re like and how they’re settling in.  I don’t know much about this little guy’s life before he came to live with me, but with all the medical issues and weird little behavioral things I’m pretty sure he was neglected and abused.  He was found on the side of the road in a shopping cart, and is loose-his-mind terrified of the broom and spray bottles, and occasionally cowers away from me when I go to pet him.  When he first got here, he didn’t really like me putting my hands on him, but he always wanted to be close.  He’s still the snuggliest dog you can imagine, and he seems to really be taking to his role as the goodest, smartest dog.  He’s so quick to learn, and will almost show off what he knows (especially around other people).  He has claimed the couch as his territory, and we have figured out how to sleep in the same bed without squishing each other.  To start, he was pulling my arm out of the socket any time we tried to go somewhere, and yesterday he walked in a loose leash heel about half the time at the farmer’s market (and only barked at two dogs, one of whom had peed on me.  True story.).  What a smarty pants.  We figured out that stairs aren’t scary, and that the neck scratchies are his favorite, and he has learned to get very excited when I ask “Wanna go for a walk?”.

He still has an issue  with submissive urination (which I have been referring to as the “danger pee”), and won’t let me spray his skin medicine on him or clean his ears, but we’re working on it.  He doesn’t loose his mind when I leave, and doesn’t nap or lay down on the couch with half his muscles clenched.  He watches me when I’m moving because I’m interesting, and doesn’t feel the need to hypervigilantly watch me all the time, because he knows how I’m going to treat him.  If he messes up, I tell him no, and at the very worst he has to go chill out in his crate for a few minutes.  He’s my dog, and I’m his person.

It’s cool to watch how much he’s chilled out since he came home.  He knows the routine, knows what to expect, knows he’s going to get food and treats and love.  He has thoroughly settled into his new life, and I hope he’s loving it.  I hope he knows how loved he is, and how much I want to give him the entire world.  He is the cleverest, goodest boy, and I love him.

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Two things that have made me frustrated lately:

Someone talked disparagingly about a student who was experiencing an emotion and expressing it (by crying).  Like, you know it’s okay to cry, right?  That sadness and fear aren’t big, scary, terrible things to feel, but just a normal part of life, and that kids need to be taught the skill of self-regulation in order to be able to calm down?  And you’re a teacher, so that’s part of your job description?  Our students are CHILDREN.  They’re still in the process of figuring out how to be people, and that’s okay and fine and exciting (to me, anyway).  Let them be silly, and emotional, and sweet, and enthusiastic.  Let them be kids.

Second thing, and parts of this are frustrating and parts are full of other emotion: my supervising teacher is the flavor of Christian I used to be, and I know she prays for me to come back to God, and that doesn’t bother me.  Yesterday, she and someone else were talking, and the idea of someone’s son coming out as gay was shocking and scandalous.  And I’m sitting there, after the day before having heard for the first time someone in this town talk about being lgbt like that’s something that’s not dirty or wrong or awful, thinking to myself that I can never tell her that I don’t think I’m straight.  I’ve known that for a long time, in one way or another, and it’s made complicated by my past experiences with sexuality, but I’ve never breathed a word about that to another soul.  Once I let go of Christianity in January, and let go of the Bible as an infallible rule book, that immediately popped up, as if to say “hey, you’ve been ignoring this for a long time, but you don’t have any moral qualms about it now, so...”.  And I don’t know anything more specific than that I don’t think I’m straight (tried to type “I’m not straight” there, and that even felt a step too far).  But I’m scared of what happens if the people in this community find out.  I’m scared of what happens if some of the people I love find out.  And it feels weird holding this to myself, too.  There are no good answers.

But yeah, when she said that I instantly felt alone.  She didn’t know she did that, but within about five seconds I knew that if I was upfront with that part of my life I would become even more of a “situation” and a project than I already am.  I have never felt this in this way before.

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Another way insecurity manifests itself: bragging.  If I’m secure in myself and what I’ve done, I don’t need to look to someone else to validate it.  I don’t need a score, or for someone to understand that I’ve done the fanciest thing (or, at least, a fancier thing than their thing).  I can rest in the private knowledge of it all, which doesn’t require external validation.

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It is now an Officially Established Pattern of Behavior that when I try to float telling someone no, and it’s usually pretty subtle, and the person pushes harder after noticing my hesitation, I shut down and refuse to do what they want, no matter the merits.

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Don’t know why this is the thing I’m thinking of right now, but I was thinking about the fact that a year ago I was coordinating a 6 a.m. weekly prayer meeting, and I ended up at something vaguely similar to a Quaker meeting.  At the time it came out of a conviction about how the previous year there had been so much time wasted with chatter and stuff that didn’t matter, and some complementarian convictions about being a woman in a teaching role over men.  Here’s the format I designed (which was a complete change from the previous one): everyone would filter in, get some note cards, and write down what they wanted someone else to pray about.  Then each of the three groups represented would have one person share a passage of scripture, which could be anything between two words and a book of the Bible, but the caveat was that they only got one sentence to give context.  No sermons, no lengthy exposition, no opinions possible.  And then we would go around the circle we were sitting in and pray out loud.  Some people stuck to what the cards said and kept it short, some people prayed for whatever was on their mind, and when we were all done we were done.  Some people had to leave early, some people struggled to get up in the morning, some were uncomfortable with the idea of talking in front of people, but it was this moment of shared time and space and emotion between fellow human beings.  The only capacity in which I was in charge was that I sent the reminder about it in the group chat and set up the format.  No one was really leading, no one followed, everyone went together.  

Do I believe in prayer the same way I used to?  No.  But I don’t think that entirely cheapens that experience.

Been thinking a lot about prayer, and what that means to me now, and what I think about the interaction between my intention and hope for others and the numinous.  Not sure how that works.

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This hasn’t happened very frequently, and I’m not sure if I consider myself actually disabled, but I had the odd experience of having a colleague talking about disabled students in front of me, and it wasn’t disrespectful or offensive in any way, but I just had this feeling of “wow, you have no idea you’re talking to someone who literally has to make modifications for herself to play some instruments...”

I’ve never connected as fully to the feeling of isolation that comes from being physically different until that moment.  Maybe with the scars thing, especially with recital dress nonsense, I’ve come close, but it was in the middle of basically a job interview and I wasn’t about to blurt out that I have this hand issue that requires job modification that I can currently do for myself, but it going to deteriorate over the next few years so who knows what I will and won’t be able to do.  But part of me wanted to, because I have a personal bias that we need more teachers with visible differences.  I am a professional musician with a physical disability, and I want my kids, both disabled and currently able-bodied, to see that.  I have been able to use myself as an object lesson in what it means to be different, and to teach how to interact with someone with a difference, and I think that’s been really meaningful.  

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Deep in the corners of Youtube, I ran across some clips from the Dr.  Phil show,  involving kids.  At the outset, it’s a trashy daytime show with a super exploitative premise, and that’s just one subset of kid who needs help, but my parents used to make me watch stuff like that and tell me that’s where I was headed.  That they were going to send me away to treatment (didn’t realize until later they had no intention of doing that), that CPS was going to come and take me away, and that was scary because they made all of that out to be worse than the hell I was living in.  Long story.  Stirred up a lot of crap.

But here’s the thing that struck me this time (before I wisely decided that watching that garbage wasn’t good for me): the adults were escalating all of that.  Crowding a kid who you’re telling is about to be dragged into treatment against her will?  Yelling at her?  Putting a very self-absorbed child in front of a literal audience, and just telling her over and over again that she’s spoiled and self-centered?  Not helping any of those kids.  And yeah, they’re probably only showing the most dramatic bits, but still, those bits happened.  When a child, no matter how they got into that situation, feels scared and defensive, giving them no choices or way out of the situation will only ever escalate the situation.  That’s all it will EVER do (and I’m including the kid shutting down and becoming docile, because that is an emotional and painful thing for that child to experience, which makes it an inward escalation, even if there is outward deescalation).  It’s like pinning a scared animal into a corner -- they’ll lash out because they’re scared.  You’ve gotta give the child a way to approach you, and you’ve got to give them even the smallest way it’s on their terms.  Don’t block their path to the exit (which brings up legitimate questions about safety, so whenever possible structure your environment so that there is another place they can go to decompress).  Don’t become emotional, don’t say things you don’t mean, and don’t treat the kid like they don’t know what they’re talking about.  They’re probably trying to communicate fear to you, and they’re doing a very poor job of it, but that’s what they’re trying to do.  Find a way to honor that communication.  Find ways to let that child feel understood by you, not judged, and recognize that on some level they’re missing a social skill they were never taught.  See if you can figure out what that was, and find a way to hand it to them.  Kids don’t want to feel badly.  Kids don’t want to feel isolated and alone.  No one does.  We’re all just people, and we all want pretty much the same things.  The things we need at the very bottom aren’t bad, and we ought to find ways to honor those needs and help others find ways to meet them.  There’s a better way than this kind of violent communication.