We had a good dinner w/ an old friend this morning. He’s the husband of my friend who passed away five years ago. I found several of her letters and cards to me while doing my final purge of cards and letters this weekend.
His youngest son is gay, and he’s really wrestled with it. We’ve been very open from the beginning, open and kind, that we see no issue w/ it. His number one priority is loving his son, and hopefully having his eyes opened to the fact that this is not a moral issue.
As the years have gone by, it’s been interesting to see his views shift. He is now saying things that I remember saying to him when he first told me and was fairly strident. He’s seeing the hypocrisy in the church and in people in general. He has enough medical friends to now know that our biology is often not linear. He has female friends who are physicians who have told him stories of the wide range of things they see in people’s bodies, especially reproductive, sexual organs that do not fit “normal” categories. He sees the damage the stigma and discrimination do to people, people like his son.
It’s been encouraging to see him shift and become more sensitive and understanding. I’m encouraged that we can talk about it and be open. He’s a good friend, and I think my friend would be happy with where he’s landing in the case of their son.
*****
I had a good, long therapy session today that was pretty intense the whole way through. I started organizing my notes better today and think I’ve found a better way to organize what I write down and learn for the future and for processing. I got about halfway through organizing and processing my notes and all we discussed.
One of the main topics we discussed was this ongoing need I feel to take care of people and not focus on myself. I have default settings oriented around being busy and productive and as soon as I have free time, I fill it with something related to another person.
I have found that sometimes when I get together with that person, I actually have this mental sense of checking something off a list, like I might not even want to be there in that moment. It’s incredibly strange.
She had me get a sense of that feeling in my body, that feeling of needing to go and find someone to help or go through a list of people to keep me busy. It’s like I don’t still quite know how to be in my body and in my own life.
She then had me go back to when I first remember that feeling. It was when I was about eight, and I remember starting to help a lot with chores. I remember starting to feel responsible for the family and really disrupted by the anxiety and tension in the house. I felt like I needed to do something to deal with it. I started cleaning and doing chores.
She had me then come in with some members of my resource team and decide what to do. The result was telling my child self that I didn’t need to keep finding new chores to do. I could do a normal amount of chores but then let my parents figure it out. I was going to go do fun things that I wanted to do and maybe even travel with some friends. I had a chat with my parents and let them know my new game plan. I decided to stop being anxious and being a receiver for the family’s anxiety.
This was substantially eye-opening for me.
It made me realize that in a way, this is connected with my anxiety still around the girls being adults. I still don’t know how to be in my own body and life fully, so I don’t quite know what is appropriate for them and us together. We never transitioned well as a family when I was younger in my adult years. My dad’s issues and health dominated everything. My mom tried to make things normal, but they never really were. Dad was just a mess, and there wasn’t much easiness about life with him at all.
You live life on a merry-go-round when you live w/ a mentally-ill person, especially one that is patriarchal and not able to articulate any empathy for what everyone is going through as a result of their issues.
This was significantly eye-opening and is going to take some time to really process. I have a lot to think about and ponder.
I also have been really tired the last several days and feel I am making headway on my back and hip pain. This is separate than my pelvic floor pain. That seems to be under control w/ my Foundation back exercises. It seems those pelvic floor muscles need to be kept strong with bigger muscles not just the isolated ones related to doing Kegel exercises. Those didn’t really help a ton over time especially.
I’ve been doing foam roller work on my sits bones and then some stretching/yoga w/ my pelvis and hips. The yoga class I ended up doing on Saturday in Rossland was specific to the pelvis and hips. So to Kay’s point today, I’m sending out vibrations to the universe of what I need and this came back, confirmation of the direction I’m going w/ this latest approach to pain reduction and better movement in my back.
All that to say, with this sense that I’m getting more in touch w/ my body and my true self and life, I am feeling less compulsion to do things. I am not feeling this drive to do a bunch of stuff in the evenings. I just want to relax. I don’t want to keep working all the time. It feels like I’m slowing down or healing or something.
It’s a little disorienting.
These seem like big changes. I’m so grateful for this time w/ Kay. I have much to work through and process.
Sometimes, this doesn’t feel like much forward progress at all. Between just doing house and life stuff then all this, it feels this is still largely all I can do.
I am in a very different place than three years ago, but wow. It’s just not what I ever expected to have happen. SIdelined in many ways in my early 50’s. It’s hard to envision what another career or life could look like when this has taken so long to heal.
Kay was happy to hear of my story on the chair lift, of calming down my limbic system, undoing my brain lock and moving on with my day. So, progress. But I’m just in such a different space than so many of my peers who just cruise along.
I’m tired and I guess I just want to honor that but also not get lazy or complacent. I keep things moving forward fairly substantially. Sometimes, I just slow down and do this deeper emotional work.
And then honestly, I just want to relax and enjoy things a little more.
I think one reason I feel the pressure, I’m making a lot of headway in getting things done. I’m over halfway toward a house that has been really stripped down after thirty years of accumulating. I’m anxious to start painting and decorating the house as well as doing art again. I’m trying to stabilize my exercise and eating. I’m just trying to make a ton of life changes, sort of alone. That part’s okay. I’m just tired and wish it was all done now. That, and I wish I had something more obvious to show for all this work. El did comment at Christmas that the changes in both of us are pretty remarkable. That I guess is worth quite a bit :)