Individual Therapy Session...1

My uncle is dying. My mother called while I was in group this morning, but I didn't answer. When I called her back once I got in my car she told me. I guess he had texted her earlier and told her that she, my father, and my grandmother shouldn't wait until May to visit. As innocuous as it sounds, for my uncle to have said this was tantamount to him saying, "Hey, sis. I haven't got long, and I really want to see you and mom before I die." She and my grandmother are going to fly out of Colorado Springs on Saturday. My dad doesn't like to fly anymore, so he'll drive out to Washington after he drops them off at the airport. He's asked me if I want to drive with him. Now I have to decide whether I want to road trip with my dad or stay home, safe in my nest. *I wrote this paragraph on March 23rd. Uncle John died in the ICU on March 28th, about 11 hours after my father and I got there.*

My uncle died 3 weeks ago today. It feels weird to be writing that. I thought I would feel sadder about it. Don't get me wrong, I feel sad when I think about him, but I just don't think about him very often. It's probably because I'm not used to thinking about him. He lived half a country away, and I had other stuff to think about. In fact, pretty much the only time I thought about him before was when I was on Facebook and saw something he posted. He liked to post political articles. Since we have similar politics, I read most of them. He also liked to post funny memes and puns. They made me laugh. And he liked to post about his family. I liked those posts, too.

So you see, I'm not really used to thinking about him now that he's gone, either. Accept... Accept when I see a political post I know he would have given a thumbs up to. Accept when I see my aunt or cousins post a memory of him, or a copy of the obituary, or picture, or a request for prayers. They're really hurting, right now. I wish I could be there for them, but I'm here. All I can do is write encouraging messages to them or post some sort of sympathetic smiley on what they have shared. It feels inadequate.

It feels wrong to be writing this post, too. I mean, this blog is about me: my feelings, my illness, my therapy, my experience. I feel selfish thinking and writing about me while my family in Washington has to go through what they are going through. I'm beginning to wonder, though, if that isn't the crux of my problems. Guilt over what I perceive as being selfish.

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I had my first individual therapy session today. My therapist's name is Meredith. She seems like a lovely, young lady, and I think I'm going to be able to work with her. This first session was just a get-to-know-you meeting, but I still learned a little about myself. While we were talking, I heard myself talking about how I take care of others. Meredith even asked me when, recently, have I felt like I'm "better," and I said, "When I'm helping someone." Now, this isn't a bad thing, but what I realized is that I feel I NEED to help or take care of others or I'm not a good person. I feel guilty when I do things for myself, like buy books or get a manicure or talk about me. I feel selfish and uncharitable when I complain in my head about what someone else is doing, or not doing. I feel ungrateful when I have bad thoughts about family members. I feel like a horrible, horrible person when I focus on me instead of others. Needless to say, this is going to make therapy very challenging for me.

Something else that is going to make therapy a challenge for me is patience. I don't have any when it concerns myself. I need to be better NOW. As unreasonable as this is, I need it. I need to stop feeling out of control. I need to stop feeling guilty. I need to start liking myself. Having the patience to wait for therapy to help me fix all this is going to be the hardest thing I'll ever do. Waiting is going to be torture, the kind of torture you get in a Soviet GULAG. (And now I feel bad about comparing my "pain" to that of the victims of torture and the Soviet regime. No, really. That's not a joke. I thought about deleting the sentence, but I need you to see how I think, to understand that EVERYTHING I do and think makes me feel guilty! I would ask you to pray for me, but as a Deist, I don't believe in prayer. Of course, if it will make you feel better, pray away. *sigh*)

Meredith has asked that I write in a journal daily before I go to bed to try to get the bad thoughts out of my head before sleep. She also wants me to include the good things that happened to me that day. I'm not much for pen and paper. (*gasp* a writer who doesn't like pen and paper?) My thoughts tend to swirl around and out so quickly, I find that trying to write them down makes me forget half of what I wanted to say. Since I type more quickly than I write, a keyboard is much more handy. No computer in the bedroom, though. I guess I'll have to try to think slowly. (And now I have guilt because, even though I didn't write down all the political jokes that popped into my head after writing this sentence, I thought them, and that's bad enough. Oy, this is gonna be a lot of work.)

The last thing I did before my session ended was ask if I could stop going to group therapy. Meredith said that was fine. I told her I didn't think I was ready to be sharing in a group setting, yet. I love Connie, but I'm just not comfortable with everyone else. I then asked Meredith to tell Connie that she wasn't the cause of me leaving. Thus proving that one session is definitely not enough for me to stop placing the needs and feelings of others above my own. I'll find that balance eventually. I have to.

I am now very tired and in pain. Before I can go off on a tangent about my pain, though, I'm going to stop writing. Instead, I will get some dinner and go watch season 2 of Turn. (Yes, the whole season. It's that good.)