Tag Archives: mental health

Starting With a New Therapist

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Brain stem! Brain stem!

It’s been a while since I did a post about mental health so let’s talk about something that’s going on in my life. I started with a new therapist last week and I think that were going to be able to work together really well. I had several really great individual and group therapists in the past. They did amazing work and I have nothing but gratitude for them.

I started in therapy when I was 21, so that’s 19 years in therapy. When I hit 42 I’ll have spent more than half my life in therapy. I say that fact not because I think it’s depressing or that I’ve failed in some way, it’s because it’s just that a fact. I’ve made an effort to maintain some sense of self care. I do it because it makes my life so much easier. To have a release valve for all the things that make me angry or scared. To have someone tell me that I’m fucking wrong when I’m wrong and celebrate me when I have a success.

My first therapist, David, when I saw him at 21, I came in and told him that I felt broken. That I was born without the pieces that make other people happy. That I didn’t know how to do this and I didn’t think that I could ever be truly happy or okay.

He wasn’t that much older than me, being a grad student himself. But he listened to all of that and he didn’t judge me for it. He told me that he didn’t think he could fix me, which I told him made me question why I was there but instead it was because I wasn’t broken. Just that I needed some help and that the two of us would work together to help me with my pain. He couldn’t make it disappear forever but we could get it to such a point that I barely felt it. I hope that wherever he is, he’s doing well. I hope all of them are doing well.

I know a lot of people are scared of therapy or have misconceptions about it. But as someone whose been in the trenches for two decades and is showing no signs of stopping, I have to say that it’s made my life markedly better.

Weird Fear of Failure

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I had a conversation with my therapist about why I continually consume the same media, which is stuff I’ve seen before and police bodycam videos like those put out by Boze vs. the World. I don’t watch normal TV shows or movies all that often except when I see something that really interests me. Admittedly, I know this seems a little strange because I watch new things every week for Teen Girl Talk but those feel more like a job than something I do for pleasure. Despite the fact that I love doing Teen Girl Talk? It’s the obligation that pushes me to do it.

Now, as my career in attending therapy has reached the American voting age, I’ve learned to constantly think about things and the reason I think the things I think. So, I had been chewing on why I didn’t encounter the new that often. And it came down I’m afraid of failing. At watching TV. That makes sense.

Of course it doesn’t, that’s the problem with depression and anxiety. They hardly make sense. So, we have to figure out the stupid logic behind it.

For this particular thing I was able to think back to when I was a young concert attending kid. I would discover a new band, fall in love and do whatever I could to discover everything about them. I had to hear every song. Every demo. Everything. If I couldn’t do that, I wouldn’t get into the band. Thus, for bands with big discographies, I’ve kept myself away knowing that I could never quite “finish” with the band.

It follows the same thing about movies and TV shows. Movies less so because so many of them are solo projects unless it’s the Jason movies. But with TV shows, I keep thinking that I have to watch everything. If I start something, I have to finish it. For some Netflix shows that’s easy because Netflix just gave up. But for others like Star Trek, those feel like behemoths. I’ll never be able to finish all of it.

My therapist challenged me on this, why do I have to? If I like something, I can watch it as I want. If I don’t like it, I can just stop. She wants me to start watching something and stop after ten minutes. That doesn’t feel quite the solution but it does lead me to do something else. To get out and try. Even if I don’t hear every scary story in a horror podcast that’s been running for years, I can at least try something new.

That was kind of the whole point of doing the one hundred albums in a year was to break me out of this mindset. To push me to keep doing something new and discovering other things. The fact of the matter is when I find something new, I feel good. I can’t let the fear keep me from that feeling because it, like the anxiety and depression that spawn it, only survive when I feed them. Time to make them starve.

Am I lazy?

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I had this discussion with my therapist last night. It’s something that constantly pops into my mind. Mostly because there are some nights where I don’t really do much of anything beyond doomscrolling on my phone. I’m not one of those people that thinks you need to be on that 24/7 365 grindset or you’re a waste to society. I know that the body and especially the mind needs rest.

The question I wonder is am I getting too much rest to the point of being lazy or am I getting the right amount?

Now, the thing is that I think part of this is the race conundrum. There are people further along in the race of life than I am. They’re married, they’re making more money than me or they’re just doing something that they want to do. I’ve achieved some things but it doesn’t feel like enough when I compare myself to them. So, that’s something that I have to deal with.

Then there’s the goal oriented anxiety. There are things that I want to do like start a Youtube channel, there are novels that I want to write, I want to learn to make amigurumi, I want to travel, I want to read more, listen to more new albums or podcasts and then there are so many other things that I want to do. When I stare up at that mountain, I get intimidated and once more, I do nothing.

Well, last night, I think I finally came along the way to solve this. It’s called the footpath. Don’t stare at the sheer cliff face and wonder how you’re going to climb it. You have to find the little way up the mountain. I’m going to take that list of things and introduce each footpath.

I want to write more- start with a single sentence a day.

I want to learn to make amigurumi- start watching the instructional videos so you have an inkling of what you’re getting into.

I want to travel- There are interesting places in this state and other states surrounding mine that I can travel to that doesn’t require much effort to go to

I want to read more- Novel too much? Start with a fanfiction, poem or short story.

I want to listen to more podcasts and albums?- Find a short podcast or start with one song from an album that you didn’t know.

Wait for one of those things to hook you and bring you along. I know that part of this is dealing with depression but this can help with that. I’ve found that when I’m depressed, I do something even if I don’t want to do it, eventually the joy of doing it starts to come along. You have to remind your heart of the things you love. Like calling a friend that you haven’t talked to in a long while.

    That new Psycho Killer video

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    So, a little under two weeks ago, the Talking Heads released a video for Psycho Killer, a fifty year old song. You can find it here:

    It’s a simple video, a woman played by Saoirse Ronan, wakes up, she talks to her boyfriend, she brushes her teeth, she goes to work, sometimes she goes to a field, sometimes she goes to therapy, she goes to bed and the cycle repeats. In that simple premise though we see a perfect representation of anxiety and depression. The way that she seems cut off from everyone. How her emotions go wild while no one pays attention to her.

    The biggest part of this is of course Ronan’s performance. Her facial expressions and body language tell the entire story. Sometimes she’s gently rocking back and forth while reaching out to take a coworker’s hands, she’s annoyed with boyfriend, she’s scared, desperate, she’s crying, she’s ecstatic, she’s being weird and every scene you somehow can imagine how she got into that scenario. Of course, it’s unsurprising given her remarkable talents.

    Having had anxiety and depression throughout my life, everything she does is accurate. Despite what movies and tv shows illustrate, you’re not able to just lay in your feelings. You have to get up and do the thing. No matter what it is, no matter how you feel, you have to live.

    There are moments when you feel like you’re weeping or begging for help in front of people and they can’t hear you. Then there is the endless repeating of the days. Where you feel you’re just moving through copies of the same day. The only thing that changes is your clothing or roughly how you feel.

    This is why art is so important and to be made by as many different kinds of people as possible. I would have loved to have this when I was younger so that I could point to it and say, “this is how I feel almost all the time”.

    The other great thing about this and the description of the video points it out, that you could make something so on the nose. Some murderous man harming people, blood and violence. Instead, we have this showcase of a great song by a phenomenal actress.

    A big fuzzy Rubik’s cube

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    What you see before you is a good portion of my knitting supplies. Twisted into knots and generally a big mess. There is a simple solution to this, which would be to cut it off at the ends and just absorb the loss. There’s an obvious reason not to do that, which would be waste.

    But the real reason is because I just enjoy unraveling it. It’s just another puzzle like jigsaws or Rubik’s cube. The reason I think I’ve always liked these kinds of things is because it gives me the act of putting something right. Returning something to its original form. The way it’s supposed to be.

    The same satisfying feeling as when you finish cleaning your house or something else like that. Everything in its Right Place as Radiohead would say. I’m going to work on it until it’s done and I have a big basket of yarn balls. There are still ten more seasons of X-files I need to watch.

    My mind has become a lot clearer since I moved out on my own, so I think I’m going to try and make amigurumi dolls again. I’ve never had the clarity to do so before. I’ll keep you updated on how that goes.