Here is the funny thing though, I do think some part of me knew I needed to go through some extra hoops but my unconscious needed a break. I had been suffering from depression since the birth of my second son and instead of genuinely taking care, I worked harder. I am grateful some part of me knew to slow down and frankly, it isn't hard for me to be in a slow rhythm. I am a heart centered person who has never lived a heart centered person's flow for sure.
I won't recap everything that has transpired except to say that I have gotten a lot of support, am enjoying being home full time with my children, and have been even braver in going deeper into what underpins some of the behaviors I readily engage in that feel reactive or just plain not me. I am stepping away from the traumatology and somatic resourcing model I have been steeped in for ten years and now working very psychodynamically with a new male therapist on myself and working the same way as a client. What does that mean? Means I am looking at unconscious patterns rather than the "here and now" stuff that I was trained in. It has been breathtaking to say the least to work in this completely new way. I will no longer remain so dogmatic in my humanistic and existential loyalties. There really is something to how the unconscious moves us.
Second, I started taking some anti depressants five months ago and they have created some solid ground beneath my feet so I can go deeper in my own therapy. I think it has been useful, as a therapist, to find a very skilled psychiatrist who has worked with other therapists and for me to really witness the power of psychiatry. Another modality I used to poo poo. Drugs are absolutely not a crutch but rather the medicine of courage for they have increased my ability to witness myself with greater clarity, to sit longer with feelings so they can work themselves out rather than analyzing and obsessing - which have proven only to keep things stuck. I appreciate what my new therapist said to me the other day, "Sometimes we are repeating to repair, sometimes we are repeating to repeat". I am wresting with the difference right now.
I decided to write today of all days because I was able to get enough distance from my own shame and had a massive enough "ah ha" last night that has left me feeling like a hollow wind blowing inside my core. To readers it may seem like no biggee and for me there have been other big ah ha's but this one took the cake.
First, what happened? Well, groups, as I have mentioned elsewhere in this blog have been a major sticking point. I come up with theories, think I have figured it out only to be baffled again. I diagnose myself as narcissistic or histrionic - neither of which help me heal anything. Yesterday, I went to lunch with one of my closest girlfriends and her friends, mostly all therapists, for her birthday. A group of fabulous, interesting, open, complicated, wise, conscious and wounded women. I had a ball but I did my usual thing: This kind of bigger than life persona comes out in groups, a ball-buster, if you will. It doesn't feel like me always. It has a tinge of aggression and it serves to keep people away while simultaneously entertaining or irritating. None of this behavior is new to me.
Then I went to a second group event, way more triggering because they were women who, for the most part, I have never felt safe, comfortable, like minded or good in. It is the playgroup moms from my son's playgroup. A couple of moms in attendance are tricky figures for me to be around. I made an interpretation after arriving that this group had been planned and I was "the outsider" - the last to be invited. My heart started racing but I managed to calm down and settle in with the one or two people I felt safe with and somewhere inside I gave myself permission to leave early if it was just too triggering.
After being there 45 minutes, I decided it was time to leave. I felt an obligation to say goodbye to a couple people but in that side group were some triggering women and I do what I always do when I have some judgement, projection or general disdain for someone - I say something "shocking" - something sexual, inappropriate or rude but in that "ha ha aren't I funny sort of way". I came home feeling terrible about myself. Why do I act like such a buffoon? I was also clearer about the role of anger and aggression that belies this behavior. Well, for once, I was able to set the self criticism and shame aside and went in my kitchen and sat down and closed my eyes at the kitchen table and just felt what I was feeling. Not with the intention of "figuring it out" per se but with the intention of giving attention to the part of me that was so hurt and pissed off that she continually needs to give people in groups the bird, so to speak.
As I did a flood of all the groups in my life I have been in came back to me. There was a pattern. The pattern was that I either put myself in groups where I am not a fit or made myself an outsider in groups that are potentially good fits. I did this in high school, in a therapy group, two work groups, my school cohort, my mom's sharing group, the playgroup, church group...my god! How many times do I have to do this over and over again before I can look? Again, looking requires being willing to feel the stuff without being swallowed up by the feelings. Your head and heart are both still in the game as you just bare witness to the past and the present. It hurts to process this way which is why most of us would rather analyze but this is the way of healing stuff.
An image of my brother came to me - just the image. No story. See my mother was married 5 or 6 times, I can't remember any more. I have never met my biological father. She married a man when I was four who adopted me but they quickly had a son together, my brother. We used to lie and not tell anyone I wasn't his biological child. So I played along and my rage out being the outsider went underground. I was so much the outsider that the rule was, "She is mine, don't discipline her nor should you intervene when I am abusing her." I had some disturbing acting out behaviors on the sly, was very depressed but was also a perfectionist, church going, straight A student, so not much attention was paid. As I sat at the kitchen table, it was like a mathematical equation that was missing part of the equation got a huge piece added.
I can't say where this awareness will take me. I am kind of discombobulated, but I am hopeful of my direction and have complete confidence in my therapist and psychiatrist who unearthed some of this this week during my homeopathy assessment.
To be continued.
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