My Sincere Thanks
to those who commented below, and others whom I am sure read who did not comment, but stood alongside me, and even stand alongside me, during this time. I'll take this time to update...
I saw my therapist, Sharon, for the last time Tuesday morning. She had been off Monday for the holiday and it was her last week in practice after many years of seeing clients. I know she had a long stack of people, some she had not seen in years, waiting to get in to say goodbye. My heart goes out to her, actually, during this week.
And the parting was wonderful. It really was. I can look back on six years and say that she acted in my best interest at every turn; that she never lied to me or acted in an insidious manner. In short, she did her job as a therapist and a human being. May God, in whatever form she understands God, walk with her the rest of her life. I was lucky to know her. The sad thing is that she was only a therapist, of course, not a family member, can I even say a parent. But history, and the past, and the hell-mess I grew up in cannot be dissolved; it can only be addressed.
As I said, I saw her once a week, most weeks, for six years. That is a long time. In defense, let me say that OCD is a very tricky disorder and that my past abuses in therapy certainly do slow down my ability to progress, tragic as that is. We worked on all of it. My fears in my marriage, my struggle to communicate with my wife, my chronic anxieties, my lingering depression, my family of origin issues, the therapists that betrayed me, and the obsessions. Always, always, retooling my brain in the face of the ocd. I cannot explain ocd, and I'm not at the place where I want to, not yet. That is the better way to put it: I do not want to explain it here yet, describe it in detail. But I will say it is a thought disorder with many components, driven by powerful underlying emotions and always by fear...strong fear. It involves the "loop," that chronic and persistent thought or action that oftentimes disturbs, even torments, the sufferer; but it also involves other things: catastrophic thinking, over focus on some thing that is wrong or out of place, hypervigilance...those patterns run so deep it takes me a long time just to see them. And the very hardest time not to obsess is when faced with the phobic object, whatever that is, and even more so, more importantly, when strong negative emotion is present.
Now I have come a long, long way. And I must say that I accomplished a set of remarkable goals: a master's degree with highest honors (the outstanding graduate in my discipline for my year); and even more remarkable, a tenured community college job...getting one of those in my discipline is incredibly difficult: when I got my job, 175 people applied for 2 positions. A family. A home in the mountains. I did all this while still suffering with my disorder, before I even understand I had it really. I did not start using the term ocd, as I recall, until Sharon. That is rather sad, for knowing my disease has helped me make progress with it. It is not the same thing as depression or other forms of "acting out." It is related, but not identical.
But back to strong negative emotion: the last two days since our goodbye I have been grieving. Genuinely and actively grieving. This is a great accomplishment for me. The fact that I have such a hard time staying in my feelings, purely, should remind me, the rest of my life, of the futility of egotism. I began to lose that center and obsess just a little, get anxious, yesterday afternoon, but I distracted myself, did other things, and continued to feel, just not as intensely. But before that, genuine and normal grief. Writing, here and now, I feel it again. Good for me. When someone has lived with those kinds of feelings shut off, or managed in abnormal ways (better) it is a victory to be in them and not be obsessing. Oh, I've felt pain in the past, plenty, plenty. But it was always controlled, kept at a distance, with powerful obsessions. I felt, at some level I think, that I had to do that to survive. Maybe or maybe not. But I have survived, and healed.
When I began to see Sharon, long ago, I was going through some hard feelings those first couple of years. She let me pick a cuddly, a little stuffed animal, to hold. I have not held that little guy, nor seen him, in at least three years. He is a little striped tiger. But the last time I saw her she said she had a gift for me, and tiger was it (I don't think I have ever named him). What a beautiful memento of our time together. A stuffed animal I can keep for the rest of my life. I am deeply grateful. My thanks, Sharon.
In return I gave her this blog address. She tells me she is not computer literate, does not know how to even go online...it may be she will not check this for years, if ever. But all my major life events, at least, are registered here. If I ever move this, I would post the link here. So I feel this blog has given me another unexpected gift: a chance to let her remain informed, over the years, should she so choose.
I will also note that today, waking up, the pain was much less. The fact that I only see her for an hour a week, that it is one sided and not mutual like a normal relationship...that lessens the intensity of the grief. During those two days I was thinking: dear god, how do people lose spouses and go on? I don't know, though I lost one once and did, I'd note, in a way worse than death. But if one say one's spouse only an hour a week over the years...well, there it is. It is good that I can take so much from Sharon, but in such a safe way. I will continue to grieve. I have to face my future without a therapist (for now, I have names...) and make decisions about my current situation and need, or lack of need, for more therapy at this time. I will miss her. I will be talking, sharing, with those I know more (and likely blogging more, too). But I want to stretch my mental legs a bit...see how I feel, one day and week at a time, without that formal support. If I need to find another one in two weeks, fine. I expect I likely will want to see someone, intermittently, as I continue to recover. As I have said and say again: ocd is an insidious, deeply rooted, powerful thought disorder. It responds to some therapies very quickly, like exposure work; but it has other components, and it has impacts, which take much longer to resolve, in the individual and the family, sadly.
Other than that: my wife graduated with her master's, is now a therapist herself working with kids (how cool is that) and we had a huge party. I am glad that is in the past, for it was very hard for us as a family. She was gone all the time, busy and stressed the rest of the time, for several years. That is done. Now she is working full time (plus, actually, just a bit) and I am playing Mr. Mom, waiting for my summer class to start, and enjoying my own summer break...even if it means laundry, shopping, cooking...at least there are no papers to grade.
My faith again is in a strange place. I do not have time or energy in this post to discuss this, but listening to an excellent teaching company series on religions of the "axial age" (Karl Jasper's term)...learning about the roots of Hinduism and Buddhism...their belief systems...I am not going to convert to either in any full sense; they are utterly diverse, anyway...that is not it. But as someone who does not believe the Christian bible dropped from the sky but is in fact a human record of interactions with the divine (of varying authenticity, I'd add) it is amazing to see the connections. It may well be God is speaking, has spoken, through or to Zarathustra (Zoroaster) or through Hindu practice, for example. And I am ashamed at my own church's history of doctrinal manias, violence, etc. One would think that the presence of the Holy Spirit would make our faith stand out, not leave the church with (some) of the history it has). But then the organizational church is not the church...just because someone holds or has held a position of influence and power in Christianity does not mean that person is in Christ. Jesus talks about that all the time...good trees bear good fruit...the rest of you claiming to work for God, who aren't aligning with the values of God....look out. Anyway, I am reading the gospels again, closely, as a critical academic more than a seeking believer. I am convinced, again, that there is no one single way to understand or experience the gospel: that the Eucharistic Mystery holds more interest to me than any idea or systematic belief set; that the loving gesture, the slow crawl towards love, remains the center of the Christian life, not some special, and of course "correct," distilling of the Biblical books. But that is me. Some find the heart of the gospel in how they understand predestination, say. Fine. I am as far from that as I could ever be. But it seems to me different understandings of Jesus are necessary for different human beings. We continue to try to find the center, sure. But for some, it's individual experience; for others, the Book; for others, the liturgy and mystery...and mixes of all. For some, it is music. If it is true there is a God, and if it is true he loves us, that is the single greatest philosophical, metaphysical, epistemological fact in the universe. The problem of suffering remains. Other problems remain. But I cannot deny the strength of that idea, nor its Christian originality.
But I am drifting again....
Very nice to be here. Thanks for letting me share. I go out into the larger world now...I will keep you all posted. Love to all.
I saw my therapist, Sharon, for the last time Tuesday morning. She had been off Monday for the holiday and it was her last week in practice after many years of seeing clients. I know she had a long stack of people, some she had not seen in years, waiting to get in to say goodbye. My heart goes out to her, actually, during this week.
And the parting was wonderful. It really was. I can look back on six years and say that she acted in my best interest at every turn; that she never lied to me or acted in an insidious manner. In short, she did her job as a therapist and a human being. May God, in whatever form she understands God, walk with her the rest of her life. I was lucky to know her. The sad thing is that she was only a therapist, of course, not a family member, can I even say a parent. But history, and the past, and the hell-mess I grew up in cannot be dissolved; it can only be addressed.
As I said, I saw her once a week, most weeks, for six years. That is a long time. In defense, let me say that OCD is a very tricky disorder and that my past abuses in therapy certainly do slow down my ability to progress, tragic as that is. We worked on all of it. My fears in my marriage, my struggle to communicate with my wife, my chronic anxieties, my lingering depression, my family of origin issues, the therapists that betrayed me, and the obsessions. Always, always, retooling my brain in the face of the ocd. I cannot explain ocd, and I'm not at the place where I want to, not yet. That is the better way to put it: I do not want to explain it here yet, describe it in detail. But I will say it is a thought disorder with many components, driven by powerful underlying emotions and always by fear...strong fear. It involves the "loop," that chronic and persistent thought or action that oftentimes disturbs, even torments, the sufferer; but it also involves other things: catastrophic thinking, over focus on some thing that is wrong or out of place, hypervigilance...those patterns run so deep it takes me a long time just to see them. And the very hardest time not to obsess is when faced with the phobic object, whatever that is, and even more so, more importantly, when strong negative emotion is present.
Now I have come a long, long way. And I must say that I accomplished a set of remarkable goals: a master's degree with highest honors (the outstanding graduate in my discipline for my year); and even more remarkable, a tenured community college job...getting one of those in my discipline is incredibly difficult: when I got my job, 175 people applied for 2 positions. A family. A home in the mountains. I did all this while still suffering with my disorder, before I even understand I had it really. I did not start using the term ocd, as I recall, until Sharon. That is rather sad, for knowing my disease has helped me make progress with it. It is not the same thing as depression or other forms of "acting out." It is related, but not identical.
But back to strong negative emotion: the last two days since our goodbye I have been grieving. Genuinely and actively grieving. This is a great accomplishment for me. The fact that I have such a hard time staying in my feelings, purely, should remind me, the rest of my life, of the futility of egotism. I began to lose that center and obsess just a little, get anxious, yesterday afternoon, but I distracted myself, did other things, and continued to feel, just not as intensely. But before that, genuine and normal grief. Writing, here and now, I feel it again. Good for me. When someone has lived with those kinds of feelings shut off, or managed in abnormal ways (better) it is a victory to be in them and not be obsessing. Oh, I've felt pain in the past, plenty, plenty. But it was always controlled, kept at a distance, with powerful obsessions. I felt, at some level I think, that I had to do that to survive. Maybe or maybe not. But I have survived, and healed.
When I began to see Sharon, long ago, I was going through some hard feelings those first couple of years. She let me pick a cuddly, a little stuffed animal, to hold. I have not held that little guy, nor seen him, in at least three years. He is a little striped tiger. But the last time I saw her she said she had a gift for me, and tiger was it (I don't think I have ever named him). What a beautiful memento of our time together. A stuffed animal I can keep for the rest of my life. I am deeply grateful. My thanks, Sharon.
In return I gave her this blog address. She tells me she is not computer literate, does not know how to even go online...it may be she will not check this for years, if ever. But all my major life events, at least, are registered here. If I ever move this, I would post the link here. So I feel this blog has given me another unexpected gift: a chance to let her remain informed, over the years, should she so choose.
I will also note that today, waking up, the pain was much less. The fact that I only see her for an hour a week, that it is one sided and not mutual like a normal relationship...that lessens the intensity of the grief. During those two days I was thinking: dear god, how do people lose spouses and go on? I don't know, though I lost one once and did, I'd note, in a way worse than death. But if one say one's spouse only an hour a week over the years...well, there it is. It is good that I can take so much from Sharon, but in such a safe way. I will continue to grieve. I have to face my future without a therapist (for now, I have names...) and make decisions about my current situation and need, or lack of need, for more therapy at this time. I will miss her. I will be talking, sharing, with those I know more (and likely blogging more, too). But I want to stretch my mental legs a bit...see how I feel, one day and week at a time, without that formal support. If I need to find another one in two weeks, fine. I expect I likely will want to see someone, intermittently, as I continue to recover. As I have said and say again: ocd is an insidious, deeply rooted, powerful thought disorder. It responds to some therapies very quickly, like exposure work; but it has other components, and it has impacts, which take much longer to resolve, in the individual and the family, sadly.
Other than that: my wife graduated with her master's, is now a therapist herself working with kids (how cool is that) and we had a huge party. I am glad that is in the past, for it was very hard for us as a family. She was gone all the time, busy and stressed the rest of the time, for several years. That is done. Now she is working full time (plus, actually, just a bit) and I am playing Mr. Mom, waiting for my summer class to start, and enjoying my own summer break...even if it means laundry, shopping, cooking...at least there are no papers to grade.
My faith again is in a strange place. I do not have time or energy in this post to discuss this, but listening to an excellent teaching company series on religions of the "axial age" (Karl Jasper's term)...learning about the roots of Hinduism and Buddhism...their belief systems...I am not going to convert to either in any full sense; they are utterly diverse, anyway...that is not it. But as someone who does not believe the Christian bible dropped from the sky but is in fact a human record of interactions with the divine (of varying authenticity, I'd add) it is amazing to see the connections. It may well be God is speaking, has spoken, through or to Zarathustra (Zoroaster) or through Hindu practice, for example. And I am ashamed at my own church's history of doctrinal manias, violence, etc. One would think that the presence of the Holy Spirit would make our faith stand out, not leave the church with (some) of the history it has). But then the organizational church is not the church...just because someone holds or has held a position of influence and power in Christianity does not mean that person is in Christ. Jesus talks about that all the time...good trees bear good fruit...the rest of you claiming to work for God, who aren't aligning with the values of God....look out. Anyway, I am reading the gospels again, closely, as a critical academic more than a seeking believer. I am convinced, again, that there is no one single way to understand or experience the gospel: that the Eucharistic Mystery holds more interest to me than any idea or systematic belief set; that the loving gesture, the slow crawl towards love, remains the center of the Christian life, not some special, and of course "correct," distilling of the Biblical books. But that is me. Some find the heart of the gospel in how they understand predestination, say. Fine. I am as far from that as I could ever be. But it seems to me different understandings of Jesus are necessary for different human beings. We continue to try to find the center, sure. But for some, it's individual experience; for others, the Book; for others, the liturgy and mystery...and mixes of all. For some, it is music. If it is true there is a God, and if it is true he loves us, that is the single greatest philosophical, metaphysical, epistemological fact in the universe. The problem of suffering remains. Other problems remain. But I cannot deny the strength of that idea, nor its Christian originality.
But I am drifting again....
Very nice to be here. Thanks for letting me share. I go out into the larger world now...I will keep you all posted. Love to all.
Comments
Haven't been here in awhile, not much energy for intense thought lately as things I can't say on my blog cloud and illuminate my world, but you remain in my thoughts just like an IRL friend.
Once again, your raw honesty touches me and speaks to my soul.
I am sorry for the stress of this transition and all that this summer will mean, but you do sound so strong (is that the right word, or healthy, or just REAL) in the midst of it, I can't help but also be happy for you.
Struggling with prayer these days, but will remember you by name and let the Holy Spirit do the intercessory work I can not right now ;)