The Intake Interview

I think I've got the format of this down. It might change, but for now, I'm going to start out with writing about what I'm doing in my everyday life, and then move on to what happened at my most recent appointment, be that medical or mental. If this works, I'll keep it. If it doesn't, I'll try something new. Can't be afraid to try something new or none of this, the therapy or the writing, will work. Also, I was thinking I would make this a weekly blog, but how about if I make it an "at least" weekly blog? That way you know, and I'll know, that there will always be at least one new entry every week, but if I need to talk more often, I will. Oh, and if there is anything you would like me to talk about, let me know. Like I said before, I'm pretty good at research. And honestly, helping others makes me feel good.

I said it in the last post, I'm repeating it now. I'm terrified of what I'm getting ready to do here, and writing about it makes it that much scarier. Be prepared for a lot of deflection by way of humor and sarcasm. (Yeah, I already know most of those psychological terms I'm sure I'll be hearing in therapy. You learn a lot about psychology when you get your bachelor and master degrees in English.) Humor and sarcasm have been my go-to coping mechanisms my entire life. I've gotten pretty good at them, and I really have no desire to get rid of them. Hopefully, my therapist will be okay with me keeping them, too. (I would be okay with losing them as a tool for deflection, though.)

Sooooo, I went to my intake interview the day before yesterday. Of course I was really nervous, so I took along my crochet project to calm me down before my appointment. I started crocheting about eight years ago to help me quit smoking. It didn't work. I started smoking again, but I liked crocheting so much, I just kept doing it. It really is very relaxing for me. Aaaaaand, drum roll please, I did actually quit smoking November 19th of this past year. This time, along with using my crochet as a stress relief, I also used a vapor pen to stem the cravings.  I'm getting pretty good at not using it now, too. Thank you. Thank you very much. Yes, I am proud of myself for doing this, but to be perfectly honest, sometimes I miss it. Not the smoking, but the act of smoking. The putting the cigarette to my lips, inhaling, and then blowing out the smoke while people watched. I miss the "screw you" feeling I'd get for thumbing my nose at an ever increasing health-oriented society. Yeah, I know that's not a good attitude, but I did mention I was starting therapy, right?

Anyway, back to my intake interview. I went into a low-light room with a perfectly delightful woman...whose name I can't remember. That's part of my problem. I keep losing memories. Usually details, but not big picture stuff. Names go by the wayside, but my experience with them remains. Normally I don't know why that happens, but in this case, I'm sure of the cause. Blind terror! Yup, nothin' scarier than knowing that you are about to make yourself utterly vulnerable for attack, but not sure what sort of attack is coming. Of course this attack was all about asking questions, and I did know this was going to happen. What I didn't know was just how personal we were going to get in this first interview, and that had my knees knockin'.

So, my (interrogator? questioner? inquisitor? No matter what word I use, it sounds negative, so let's just call her Joyce.) So, Joyce begins by asking me basic health questions. Always a good place to start, but it had me wondering why I was being asked all of the same questions I had answered at my medical appointment last week. Now that I look back, I think the purpose may have been to ease me into the questioning, help calm my fear. It helped, a little. What helped more was when I asked if I could crochet while we talked. She said yes, so I pulled out my project and started working with shaky hands. As we went along, the questions became more personal, but my hands became less shaky.

I wish I could remember all of the questions she asked, so that I could give you a heads up, but that memory thing happened again. I do remember talking about seeing my brother getting hit by a car when I was 17 and talking about how hard it has been for the entire family since my niece died in 2008, but all the rest kind of went by in a blur. Except for one particular thing. I found out that Joyce and I are both HUGE Doctor Who fans. This happened relatively early in the interview, in fact, not long after I pulled out my crocheting. Here's a picture of what I pulled out:

Yes, that is my version of the scarf the 4th Doctor wore. We then discussed our favorite Doctors. (Eleven, you gangly, new-born giraffe, you will always be my Doctor.) After that, it was better. It was still difficult being open and honest, but I felt a little more like I was talking to a friend than a counselor, and that helped. (I had to rip out everything I had crocheted during the appointment later, though. Understandably, I had made a lot of mistakes while we were talking.)

One of the things I realized while we were talking, though, is that my family and I really don't have much in common. Joyce asked about familial/cultural inside jokes, and I couldn't think of any. Besides mutual love for each other and military service, we're really very, very different from each other. Some of it has to do with the fact that I was the first person on either side of my family to graduate from college, but most of it is because pretty much everything I enjoy doing is a sit-down and/or inside kind of thing, like crocheting, reading, watching movies, cooking, while they all really enjoy camping, fishing, hiking...I feel a little like a freak in my own family. (Apparently, that's something I'll be addressing with my actual therapist.)

The very last thing we talked about was that Joyce wanted me to start restorative yoga, She wanted to know if I was okay setting a goal to learn one new yoga pose every week over the next six months. I'm sure I seemed a little hesitant about this, because she then said that just researching yoga would work for the first week. Then she mentioned the corpse pose and Yoga Nidra and said that I could start with those. So, that was my homework for this week: research Yoga Nidra and restorative yoga in general, and the corpse pose specifically. I've  posted links to a few things I found at the bottom of the blog. I want to put them there instead of in this post because I want them to be available for quick reference at all times. I'll add more links there as we go along. In the meantime, I will post a picture of corpse pose here:

 

courtesy of yogaoutlet.com

I think I can do that. How about you?