I Need Some Carrots

I still have to make those calls.
I am a bit calmer.
I am keenly aware of all that I have to do in the next week - and then some, but I'll start with 1 weeks "to-do's."

I was really disappointed in myself today. I went into therapy and heard myself whining (for lack of a better word) about this liteny of things and suddenly it was like the last 2 years of work weren't there. I mean as if my progress had disappeared. I wondered if my therapist sometimes asks herself, "Really? Will she never get it?" I don't think she REALLY does . . . well, I don't usually think so.

But she did ask me to ask myself some good questions:

1. Is this anger a red herring?
2. What am I getting out of it?
3. What purpose is it serving?

In discussing my sadness in regards to friendships and my experiences of loneliness (really of late compared to the recent past):

1. What does loneliness mean to you?

This was a difficult question to answer. I had never thought about. How could I describe it? It is a numbness. It is a lack of hearing others' stories. It is not being part of "something," something bigger than me maybe? Even just any "thing."

She said that what she sees is that loneliness means that I cannot see my "self" and so, yes, it is numb and it is empty. Because for someone (me) who is so relational having no one to interface with all day means I have no one to see my own reflection in. And this does not mean people who I can mirror or who I am similar to, but people. Interpersonal experiences.

Thus, I must wrestle with some internal demons. Some that I have already wrestled - it's like the 2008 Championships - Demons vs Heather.

Part of this, I have come to realize, is the impact of facebook and myspace. Feeling a false community makes me feel lonelier. In some ways it is great because I can connect to people I have not spoken to in well over a decade. In others it makes me aware of the gaps. Other times I just see that I do not get messages and experience the whole "last kid picked for the team" feeling. Either way, for me, it is this sort of false reality that, while it has its benefits, is risky.

Don't know if any of this really makes sense. But what I know is that I need to have a pretty clear agenda for the next week. A schedule - probably to the hour.

Starting with now.

I can read for 45 minutes. Then I have to go to an AA meeting for class. Then tomorrow dental "surgery" and more and more and more. . . BUT one day at a time with a dedicated schedule. My therapist said that if I am not doing homework anyways I need to schedule things like coffee dates or something. Or since I won't let myself watch TV in the day she said, "you're not studying, so study from 1-3 then you can watch something." Permission for tv viewing? She said it is like dangling a carrot.

(More on the role of TV in a healthy measure for creating relational experiences another time . . . )

For now? I need some carrots.