Themes: Love Island All Stars, the health triangle, how often dogs need to go to the bathroom, therapy, weed
Hi hi hi hi. I am in a beautiful house in Queens, dogsitting a lovely dog named Ginger. She is very narrow with almost no flaws. She barks a lot, but I used to drink and drive a lot, so no one’s perfect. Let he who has not drank three Long Island iced teas and driven 2.4 miles cast the first stone.
I have been having, shall we say, “a tough time” but yesterday I had a really nice time. I had delicious pita with fresh tzatziki, and connected with friends. I talked to my friend Jade on the phone in the park for like an hour and cried, then Molly came over after he chemo and we talked, then we did parallel play: she worked while I watched Love Island All Stars, which she has already seen and we chatted in between. (We hate Mitch).
Then Ariel came over and we got Indian food and made lists of 7 things we want, which somehow turned into me sobbing at the dining room table about a WEBINAR (lol) while they ate samosas and handed me tissues. Friendship!!! Sometimes there’s crying AND Indian food!
I stress made an appointment to get checked for a UTI, which if it is a UTI I’ve had it for more than a year. Bodies. Why can they withstand so much? Do I have a UTI? Only time will tell.
Love Island All Stars is a drug to me and I am relapsing. I love it. It’s all people who have been on the show before. Some people it was like 10 years ago and they have kids and matured, some people it was 10 years ago and they haven’t matured at all (Josh), some people it was 6 months ago and they somehow got worse (Mitch). I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Love Island is an anthropological study with guitar covers of pop songs and a Scottish comedian narrator and it’s so so good.
This has been a week of dogsitting and reality TV for me, earlier I was in Manhattan and I watched the new season of The Traitors, a reality competition show on Peacock hosted by Alan Cummings where everyone is working together to build up a prize that they all split at the end, except there are three traitors who if they get to the end they take all the money. Each night they have a round table and vote someone out who then announces if they are in fact a traitor or a “faithful.” It’s comprised of reality stars from all other genres, Housewives, Survivor winners, Big Brother cast members, The Bachelor, Love Island, there’s even a former member of British Parliament because, “all politicians are liars.” I recommend it, it’s really fun. It’s coming out right now so you can catch up, then watch it every Thursday. (Remember when TV had a schedule?).
I went to the doctor and got some more bloodwork done to compliment the bloodwork I got done in November. In November we determined my iron was low, I was dehydrated, vitamin D low, b12 somehow low, and was pre-diabetic. This sent me into a bit of a tailspin because I’ve done so much work around not seeing fat as bad or unhealthy, then getting a pre-diagnosis for something very tied to weight in people’s minds feels bad. It also makes you moralize food, and can make your head feel like a dark unsafe place to be.
But I googled “pre-diabetes HAES” which is Health At Every Size, an anti-fat phobic medical lens, and that was incredibly helpful. I found an essay by a woman who was explaining that she doesn’t even like the name diabetes because what it really is is a glucose processing disorder, your body isn’t able to process the amount of glucose in your blood within a timeframe that works for the rest of your body. This was amazing because I’m anemic and when my doctor was explaining the side effects of that, it’s basically like, since your blood carries everything to all your organs when your blood doesn’t have enough iron to do that, every organ is functioning at a slightly incapacitated/sub-optimal level.
So I thought maybe this was related to why I wasn’t processing glucose fast enough! Maybe not the only reason, but it certainly doesn’t seem to help. So I’ve been more conscious about wanting to eat things that give me good nutrients and moving my body in a way that feels good to me and then see where the chips fall. I’ve also been taking pills for my hair and I hope those do stuff. Your thirties seem to be a time where your body stops being invincible and you have to start actively taking care of it. I’m glad to get that message so early if that’s what needs to happen.
It’s really cold out, which you don’t think about if you go outside just to walk in between being inside but when you are walking dogs, you have to walk them a lot and the point is to stay outside. And it’s really cold out there. Before a trip to Colorado I bought a fleece circle that goes tightly around your neck, potentially called a turtle, and I’ve been very grateful for that.
The webinar that made me cry was from NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, which works with families and loved ones of people who have, you guessed it, mental illness. This was an educational talk spreading awareness and shared approaches for a mostly unknown symptom for some mental illnesses called anosognosia, which essentially is something in the brain that prevents that person from knowing they have a mental illness/convinces them they’re not sick. He did this powerful exercise where he got a volunteer from the audience of like 3,000 people, all it needed to be was someone who is married and has a job. A woman named Bernadette volunteered and he started asking her, “What’s your husband’s name?” “How long have you been married?” and who her supervisor at work was. Then he immediately switched into this role play where he’s informing her that she has a delusion she’s married to Jim (her husband) and that the doctor has restraining orders from Jim and his real wife Susan, that Bernadette’s been harassing them, going to their home, and that her supervisor Kirsten at work has asked him to do this and if she doesn’t comply she will be fired.
Walking her through next steps, he asked questions like, “Do you believe you’re married to Jim?” (Yes) and demonstrated how quickly these things escalate because if you think you live somewhere, isn’t that where you’d go if confused to check? And if you think you’re married to someone, isn’t that who you’d call for clarity? But how if someone has a restraining order even a text message is a violation of that and can put you at risk of being arrested. I think it allowed people to experience how disorienting and isolating it would feel if your reality and other’s didn’t line up.
It was helpful and interesting but really difficult for me because the approach he advocated for was something called the LEAP approach, which essentially means that the biggest indicator of if someone seeks and stays in treatment/takes medicine is having a supportive, respectful relationship with a loved one who wants them to get help.
This type of approach presupposes/requires a previously close relationship with the person. He covered separating the illness from the person and how if someone says or does something awful you have to think, would they have done that before they were sick? and just treat them like the person you knew before, but what if you didn’t have an especially close relationship with them before? He also says you’re not supposed to deny things they believe, or lie, just try to delay answering in conversation, or answer in a way that is true to you but humble and offers the possibility you could be wrong. Like if your adult child with schizophrenia thinks you sexually abused them as a child or are trying to poison them you’d say, “I could be wrong but I really don’t believe I’m poisoning you” you also say, “I don’t want to argue about this” either before or after. It’s important to ask them, “Do you feel like I understand you?” and if they say no, ask them to explain things, and then repeat/restate them until they feel like you do. “You believe I tried to poison you, is that right?” Things like that. So they feel like they’re being heard.
I got really down after the webinar because a. it felt like it was designed for a type of relationship I didn’t have, and b. it felt like this was a lifelong process that is a lot of work and may never be over. This was upsetting for obvious reasons but also because it feels like while this is happening my parents are unable to give me the consideration or support I need to process and heal. It feels like they do not have the capacity to support both me and my brother and he’s in more active crisis/needs them more and it feels like I’ve been neglected. I worry that when this is done then they’ll be able to focus on me. But maybe this never will be done, or will take 20 years, and while this is happening, I don’t think they understand they’re doing damage to our relationship.
It just feels overwhelming and sad. I also can foresee a future where they all work it out together and get to a good place the three of them, which doesn’t include me and I’m just on the outside of my family forever.
After the webinar I texted both of my parents in a group message and asked what they thought about it and they answered a little then neither of them asked me anything about how I was feeling or my response to it. And it just cemented this feeling of how alone in this I feel, it seems like they talk to each other about it, and to my brother, but no one talks to me. It hurts. I cried a lot over the samosas.
Luckily I have my partner and I’m working on things on my own and doing my best. I also have been feeling the loss of a friendship that I was asked to give space in and I’ve been trying to respect that and it’s been 5 months and that loss has been hitting me really hard these past two weeks.
In sixth grade Health we learned about the health triangle, comprised of mental, physical and emotional health. The lesson was that it’s really easy to be doing well on one side, even two, but to have all three in a good place is very difficult. I appreciated that lesson a lot and I think it gives me perspective, when I feel down, to look for the areas I’m doing well in and recognize that it all takes hard work and it all just kind of goes in waves, sometimes you’re moving your body a lot, and eating stuff you like that feels good, sometimes you’re really connecting with people in your life in a big way, or sometimes you’re feeling so good about your own projects and time with yourself but not all at the same time. But right now it feels like I am having a hard time in every area and that’s so difficult. Difficult to feel, difficult to approach/try to fix, difficult to sit with, just difficult.
Love Island All Stars helps this a lot because I can look at these people who by certain standards seem perfect (this girl Georgia’s bangs are everything I’ve ever wanted. Full but somehow still wispy? Never greasy but always shiny? Her bangs could move mountains) but are still feeling rejection and insecurity and loneliness all the time too. It’s nice to know having zero body fat doesn't prevent you from experiencing sadness, that’s just something that happens to everyone.
I’m at the end of a book that I had such high hopes for but now hate. It started out as one thing, but ended up a book about World War I. I hate World War I. And it’s’ sequel. We’ve learned nothing from all the wars, senseless killing so people can write different words on a map. No one owns land! It’s just the ground.
The people I’m dogsitting for have two children who apparently are in the Girl Scouts and it’s cookie season. Two packages came today from the Girl Scouts of America, which I assumed were cookies so I texted a picture and said, “You got cookies!” and the mom replied, “Help yourself!” Help myself?? Help myself? To the cookies? I texted back, “Aren’t they someone’s order?” and she said, “These are the ones we ordered and we can always get more!”
When people say Heaven must be missing an angel, this is what they mean. A woman who would be generous about her Girl Scout cookie haul. I tried some new ones and some old favorites. They did not order any Samoas because maybe no one here likes coconut, but I had three tagalongs (the peanut butter and chocolate one), and tried a s’mores one maybe called Thoughtfuls? Then a caramel fudge one. They have the lemonade one which scares me but I will try. Girl Scout cookies are a phenomenon I hope science is looking at.
They invented cookies you can only get for like 4 weeks a year from little girls? That’s an insane concept but wow did they pull it off. The Boy Scouts don’t have anything like that. They sell popcorn and peanuts, something you can get 24/hours a day at every gas station and they’re not even special flavors. Just popcorn and trail mix. I googled “How much money do Girl Scout cookies make a year” and do you know what the number is? 800 million. I learned this week there’s a rich person version of Craigslist called JamesEdition, and on there I learned there’s a type of ruby called “Pigeon’s Blood.” The world is a very big place. Anyway, the cookies are good.
I have been using edibles as emotional regulation and I don’t think it’s bad but I’m keeping an eye on it. Also as treats and rewards.
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So, it’s the next day, funny that I ended on the edibles because that is where I will pick up. Yesterday in the afternoon I ate an edible, half of one that I forget exactly how many milligrams it is but stronger than 10. So I ate more than 5 when my usual dose is 2.5. I was very high and it lasted longer than I thought it would, it lasted all the way up to and through my therapy appointment at 5:00pm.
Doing therapy high is probably fine for some people but not really for me because I can’t think the same or access all my thoughts with the same perspective or read the situation with any certainty. So I get lost in thinking about thinking and what’s really happening. When I’m high I like to watch movies, make art, look at animals, lay outside. Not read, not have a phone conversation, and definitely not try to have therapy.
But I felt like cancelling last minute would be rude so I showed up to the appointment. I tried to do it like normal but after about 6 minutes I realized it wasn’t working and I said I was high. He asked if I thought I could do the session and I said “Not really” but at the same time that he said, “Let’s try it” so I agreed to try. I also asked ‘is that okay’ (that I was high) and he said not really but that we could work around it, or something like that. There are red flags here for me, and for him, but assuming best intentions for everyone, we (I) continued.
After they asked me a question about my family I realized I didn’t want to think about that right then. All my feelings are intensified when I’m high and I didn’t want to feel sad or scared or bad. So I said I didn’t want to talk about that right now, not clarifying it was because I was high. Then I don’t remember the order of things but pretty soon after he said he didn't think we were a good match and that I should see someone else and he would pass it on to his supervisor to find me someone else.
Now, in me, while he is saying this, I feel a familiar response, to shut down and be cold because of my pride or ego. Also falling into a familiar story/refrain: “This always happens, no one understands me, I’ll always be alone.” But I also felt another option, which was to remain in the present and not act out of hurt, but to be honest and open. I said, “I respect if you want to do that, I’ll be grateful for the time we had and what I learned with you, I’ve been really enjoying our sessions” and this made him ask more questions like, “Doesn’t it seem like your emotions are high with me?” and I said that when I talk about intense things that bother me, I feel those emotions and express them but they aren’t reactionary to his style, if he was just sitting and nodding I think I would be presenting the same way. He asked if I got high because I was stressed or trying to avoid anything about our sessions and I said no, I was disappointed when I realized they would overlap and I look forward to therapy. He asked if I said I didn’t want to talk about my family because I was high, or because of him. I said because I was high.
A lot of back and forth. In about 10 minutes we had realized it was a misunderstanding. He was projecting that I was reacting to his therapy style and cut it off for me, I was high. We decided to end and pick back up next week at the same time.
After we got off, my initial emotions were really positive, I was proud of myself for choosing a more honest/open response, and for being able to hold room for and navigate the insecurities of my therapist (seemingly). But after more time passed I felt a little uneasy that this happened. I think there’s a few options for how this could play out. I think it’s possible it brings us closer in our therapy relationship, because earlier I brought up with him that when he was late and we didn’t add it to time at the end that was very frustrating for me and he responded really well, didn’t get defensive or anything, acknowledged my feelings and I felt supported and safe in that exchange and better about our relationship. And I think this could be a mirror of that, he acted confrontationally and I responded really well/without ego and we can move to a better place.
But, it’s a little worrisome that he brought that level of emotion into the sessions, I don’t want to have to caretake the emotions of my therapist, and it worries me that he moved to that seemingly so quickly, was that building up and he had been feeling that the whole time and this was the last straw and it’s a bigger thing that will keep happening until it’s addressed/I should move on? Is he going to be emotionally reactive to me in a way that will be triggering and unhelpful for me?
I was explaining to EJ that I think in the therapist/client relationship I’m open to some flexibility around professionalism because I think that is needed or can even be helpful sometimes depending on context and I’m trying to figure out if this falls within my definition/understanding of that flexibility or outside of that. I know it sounds bad but a lot of things sound bad but they’re fine (drinking and driving) (just kidding) and I’m figuring out if this is one of them. I think I need to talk to him next session about this, and what was happening for him, and does he feel like he wants to continue and if we should. Also I want to ask if he has anyone that he shares with (consulting) and gets feedback or advice because I think that would be helpful for him.
I also don’t want to put myself in a potentially harmful position to be rejected or emotionally mishandled by a mental health professional, that would be very bad for me in terms of rewriting some of the negative stories I have about myself in my head from past relationships. So I don’t really know.
It’s tricky. I had been feeling really good about our sessions, I’m thinking maybe 30 minutes is enough and I liked the old time slot better 3:00pm instead of 5:00pm, because I like to get it over with and still have day left. I will communicate that in our next session hopefully. Whew. Brutal.
I’m impressed at how strong I am and proud of myself because I think there would have been a time when this would have been very bad. I guess that remains to be seen, but I wouldn’t have been able to take the time to process it as it was happening, I just would have reacted and launched into self-pity and shame and anger. I have had some terrible relationships/experiences with therapists and that makes it so hard to try to find a new one, be emotionally vulnerable with one. But we’ll see. I hope it all gets worked out. And you know what’s funny, I think watching Love Island All Stars primed me to have this more enlightened reaction. Because I’d just been watching it all day (hours and hours) and all it is is watching people mediate (or try to mediate) conflict over and over. You learn so much by watching how everyone is mostly seeing things through a lens that the other person isn’t, and how much is getting lost. I think being high let me see this experience as it was happening to me from a spectator viewpoint and access a higher self to respond outside of my own insecurities. God bless Love Island All Stars.
Last night I watched The Dark Knight and that movie is so so good. It’s so good people forget about it because it’s such a given, but it’s really good. I hope you have chocolate and Indian food if you want it, and therapy for you is calm and straightforward and not psychological warfare. Some pictures:
Thank you for reading,
Julie
"It’s nice to know having zero body fat doesn't prevent you from experiencing sadness" I agree....also you have to watch Love in Blind if you enjoy terrible communication and unhealthy relationships.