Therapy, the Universe, and Everything
I feel like I've lost a week out of my life. I've been too doped up to meditate, to think. My life has been ruled by the timer I've been setting every 15 minutes: sit, stand, stretch, lay down, go for a walk... Today has been better though. I didn't take any Vicodin and its like my brain started functioning. I still have pain, but its been nice to actually converse and function intellectually again. Today I had conversations on the sexualization of children in pop culture, the politics of the Papacy and who would be the best choice to succeed, what is happening in Argentina with regards to oil production, and my upcoming vacation, and a lesson on the Swedish language. I also got a lesson in the definition of words in popular use in America today, including Tom Englehart's definition of Homeland n: A term successfully used by the Germans and the Soviets in World War II, less successfully (and in the plural) by Apartheid-era South Africa. It means neither home, nor land, has replaced both country and nation in American public speech, and is seldom wielded without the companion word "security." It is the place to which imperial forces return for R&R.
I actually had a productive conversation with Stephanie, caught up with a friend from college who is doing research on the molecular targetting in the treatment of cancer, and made dinner: ribeye steaks, green salad with perfectly ripe tomato and avocado, and a few sips of port with stilton & blueberry cheese and half a clementine for dessert.
Therapy was interesting...
We discussed the possiblity that my back injury was subconsciously motivated, that I needed a mental-health break but would not take one, so my body found a way. It is a thought. Who knows?
I talked with my therapist more in-depth about about Michael and me and his GF and the bad dream. And she asked me what I thought the dream was about and I told her, and then I asked her what she thought, which was very similar, but more insightful. Fear and Empathy and Violation, basically. Fear of the latent sexual aspects of a relationship that has grown beyond my intimacy comfort-level. Fear of her coming between us, as she did in the dream, her on the phone between me and him. Empathy for her and her feelings of violation when he told her more about me and our relationship, and how much I knew about the relationship between the two of them, compounded by my own feelings of violation when her told her about the phone sex we'd had, something that seemed like such simple thing to him but was very intimate for me--intimate enough that I haven't repeated it with anyone else. Those feelings of violation I refused to acknowledge to myself until my subconscious tied it to the one person in my life who symbolizes violation of mind, body, and soul--Demming--and made me face it in a dream.
And she said that it is appropriate for his GF to be upset by the things he shared with me, without her consent. And it was appropriate for me to feel upset even though I had given him a blanket, tired-sounding, tell-her-what-you-want-to response to his "what can I tell her?" question. Yes, my sense of intimacy is different from that of most people, but the important thing is to acknowledge to myself that I have the right to define what is intimate to me, and that I have the right to ask those I love and share things with to respect that, however odd or wrong it seems to them.
I told her also that Michael had said I was jealous of his GF, and how miffed it made me, and she said it did not seem to her that jealousy was at issue. And I told her how he had defined jealousy, as in being jealous of our time together and not wanting to lose that to his GF, and she said the common use of jealousy implies an unhealthy possessiveness or envy of another person, the basis of which is usually insecurity and or feelings of entitlement. She said his word-choice was poor. She said based on her understanding of my psychological makeup I am not capable of sexual jealousy, and I'm too rational and self-examining to be truly envious of anyone. Curious, I asked her why she thought I am not capable of sexual jealousy. She said because I'm very secure in my sexuality, that I have a healthy confidence most people would rightfully envy, and which Demming's abuse failed to destroy. She said I have built up a lot of fears and emotional hang-ups around intimacy, but unlike most people in this country -- and most people who have experienced childhood sexual trauma -- sex and my sexuality are not a source of insecurity or ... hmm... compulsion? I think that was it: compulsion.
We talked about my upcoming vacation and how much I am looking forward to spending time with Stas. Its been two years since I saw him last and I cannot wait to hug him and drive off into the desert.
We talked about JL, too, and the feelings he arouses in me... What a good and gentle man he is, how open he is about his thoughts and his feelings, and how much I admire these things in him and fear them as well, because, well, I want those qualities in my next partner. I'm so not ready for the demands of a relationship. No, not yet.
We also talked about my feelings of synchronicity and she smiled in surprise at a couple of things... and we discussed that here in the Western Hemisphere there is so little sense of continuity between generations and sense of place, that our experiences of synchronicty are often labelled as coincidence. We talked about chains of causality and my growing awareness of casual connections between my past and my present and how they shape my internal reality and thus my future.
As I left, she stopped me and she said again that she was very pleased with my progress, that sometimes she gets discouraged with her clients because they aren't willing to do the 'internal work'. And I told her that I'd almost given up, back February, but I knew that if I stopped now I would never have the courage to go back and do it again. So now is the time and place, and I am committed to following it through, however painful it often is, so I can get on with living the life I am supposed to live.
James Hillman said "You are born with a character, it is given, a gift, as the old stories say, from the guardians upon your birth...Each person enters the world called." As I grow older, this statement has grown more meaningful, not as some supernatural, god-given purpose (however valid or invalid that idea might be) but as a call to accept my nature and the life-purpose that best suits it. I have learned that people aren't really afraid of dying -- no they are afraid of facing, at the end of their lives, the fact that they have never really lived. Few people take the time to contemplate their own life's higher purpose, and fewer still ever step into that purpose and thus, sadly enough, they miss fulfilling the purpose, the true calling, of living -- to make a difference in the world.
I actually had a productive conversation with Stephanie, caught up with a friend from college who is doing research on the molecular targetting in the treatment of cancer, and made dinner: ribeye steaks, green salad with perfectly ripe tomato and avocado, and a few sips of port with stilton & blueberry cheese and half a clementine for dessert.
Therapy was interesting...
We discussed the possiblity that my back injury was subconsciously motivated, that I needed a mental-health break but would not take one, so my body found a way. It is a thought. Who knows?
I talked with my therapist more in-depth about about Michael and me and his GF and the bad dream. And she asked me what I thought the dream was about and I told her, and then I asked her what she thought, which was very similar, but more insightful. Fear and Empathy and Violation, basically. Fear of the latent sexual aspects of a relationship that has grown beyond my intimacy comfort-level. Fear of her coming between us, as she did in the dream, her on the phone between me and him. Empathy for her and her feelings of violation when he told her more about me and our relationship, and how much I knew about the relationship between the two of them, compounded by my own feelings of violation when her told her about the phone sex we'd had, something that seemed like such simple thing to him but was very intimate for me--intimate enough that I haven't repeated it with anyone else. Those feelings of violation I refused to acknowledge to myself until my subconscious tied it to the one person in my life who symbolizes violation of mind, body, and soul--Demming--and made me face it in a dream.
And she said that it is appropriate for his GF to be upset by the things he shared with me, without her consent. And it was appropriate for me to feel upset even though I had given him a blanket, tired-sounding, tell-her-what-you-want-to response to his "what can I tell her?" question. Yes, my sense of intimacy is different from that of most people, but the important thing is to acknowledge to myself that I have the right to define what is intimate to me, and that I have the right to ask those I love and share things with to respect that, however odd or wrong it seems to them.
I told her also that Michael had said I was jealous of his GF, and how miffed it made me, and she said it did not seem to her that jealousy was at issue. And I told her how he had defined jealousy, as in being jealous of our time together and not wanting to lose that to his GF, and she said the common use of jealousy implies an unhealthy possessiveness or envy of another person, the basis of which is usually insecurity and or feelings of entitlement. She said his word-choice was poor. She said based on her understanding of my psychological makeup I am not capable of sexual jealousy, and I'm too rational and self-examining to be truly envious of anyone. Curious, I asked her why she thought I am not capable of sexual jealousy. She said because I'm very secure in my sexuality, that I have a healthy confidence most people would rightfully envy, and which Demming's abuse failed to destroy. She said I have built up a lot of fears and emotional hang-ups around intimacy, but unlike most people in this country -- and most people who have experienced childhood sexual trauma -- sex and my sexuality are not a source of insecurity or ... hmm... compulsion? I think that was it: compulsion.
We talked about my upcoming vacation and how much I am looking forward to spending time with Stas. Its been two years since I saw him last and I cannot wait to hug him and drive off into the desert.
We talked about JL, too, and the feelings he arouses in me... What a good and gentle man he is, how open he is about his thoughts and his feelings, and how much I admire these things in him and fear them as well, because, well, I want those qualities in my next partner. I'm so not ready for the demands of a relationship. No, not yet.
We also talked about my feelings of synchronicity and she smiled in surprise at a couple of things... and we discussed that here in the Western Hemisphere there is so little sense of continuity between generations and sense of place, that our experiences of synchronicty are often labelled as coincidence. We talked about chains of causality and my growing awareness of casual connections between my past and my present and how they shape my internal reality and thus my future.
As I left, she stopped me and she said again that she was very pleased with my progress, that sometimes she gets discouraged with her clients because they aren't willing to do the 'internal work'. And I told her that I'd almost given up, back February, but I knew that if I stopped now I would never have the courage to go back and do it again. So now is the time and place, and I am committed to following it through, however painful it often is, so I can get on with living the life I am supposed to live.
James Hillman said "You are born with a character, it is given, a gift, as the old stories say, from the guardians upon your birth...Each person enters the world called." As I grow older, this statement has grown more meaningful, not as some supernatural, god-given purpose (however valid or invalid that idea might be) but as a call to accept my nature and the life-purpose that best suits it. I have learned that people aren't really afraid of dying -- no they are afraid of facing, at the end of their lives, the fact that they have never really lived. Few people take the time to contemplate their own life's higher purpose, and fewer still ever step into that purpose and thus, sadly enough, they miss fulfilling the purpose, the true calling, of living -- to make a difference in the world.
posted by KR | 4/01/2005 11:32:00 PM
1 Comments:
Liked this post.
But the previous one: "Evidence for Charge Density Pulses Associated with Bioelectric fields in Living Organisms
W. C. Levengood, Ph.D. and J. L. Gedye, M.B., B.Chir., was above my head.
Regards
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