SUB TITLE: OVER AND OVER AGAIN, LESS
My therapist gave me an assignment. Likely that’s why I called this story therapist assignment. Then added a subtitle when I really wanted it to be something else. I won’t do it. This assignment. It might turn into a story about why I can’t or won’t or it may end up being what she asked. I haven’t thought about it.
Yesterday we zoomed. Yes. Zoomed. That’s a verb for meeting with someone over an app but in a therapy portal. We zoomed through this therapy portal. It sounds like something out of a movie. One specifically that I can’t think of but has Bette Midler in it and it was a book. Where the dad goes missing to some other portal. And flowers turn into people. Where the red fern grows came to mind first. Or time travelers wife…it’s going to bother me.
I am avoiding already. I started avoiding as soon as she told me what to do. Am I avoiding or just focusing on what needs to be thought?
She did an assessment yesterday to see where I am. I am in this portal. I suffer from repetitive thoughts. Suffer is the right word. Yesterday I felt at my worst. I felt selfish and worthless. Over and over again. I was being told these things. Made to feel them. They are triggers. No one wants to be called selfish but especially me. I heard it for years. It was back. I heard it over and over again. Same voice. Not mine. He was louder than me yesterday.
I don’t know if I woke early enough to write about this. You dont even know the assignment yet. And I also won’t be able to do it. I snoozed for a half hour. Every nine minutes I laid there not thinking of it. Not creating a story of my worth. I laid there thinking of anything but. Over and over again.
I told her it wasn’t a great day to assess me. She disagrees in all her therapy ways and says it’s the best day to. If I’m better than, at my worst I’m better, if I’m not, or the same, then I’m at my worst and still fine. Just fine. Got that? Me neither.
The questions are the same. Very repetitive for an assessment for repetitive thoughts. You would think they would make them very different so I didn’t repeat the answers. Or hear the same questions so I think Of them over and over again.
I’ve said over and over again several times and now have Tim McGraw song stuck in my head. Over and over again. The one with some random guy who sings with him that never made sense. I would have to change it because he says over and over again over and over again. It bothered me.
She tells me when we are done I’ve gone from severe repetitive thinking to moderate. Like way low moderate. From way up severe. Borderline consume severe. On my worst day. In the midst of a great loss during a global pandemic. Not bad she says. Not bad. She may be nodding her head but in this portal I can’t look at her. It’s too weird to also see my head in the top of the screen. Looking back at me. I can’t decide who to look at me or her. Or the floor so she just sees the top of my head. I don’t know what she sees. It’s too hard to see. Because I can’t feel it. My last assessment was in January.
I am immediately cautious of this news. Did I answer honest enough. Zooming isn’t the same as sitting in a room with her. I can’t feel them. Did I answer hastily to end it? Did I really think about the questions? Should I have thought about them longer? Dig deeper? Repetitively thought of what she said to repetitively think of what I should have said to what she said? No I’m now a moderate repetitive thinker. I can’t be consumed by it. Just moderately.
She is a great listener. It’s her job. But what I like about her the most is she tells me she suffers too. She never says we all do. But her specifically. I feel better knowing my therapist breaks down like clock work every two weeks. She can’t be bothered, she is bitchy, and irritable and feels like she is alone. I secretly wonder if it is today. Or tomorrow. When was her last break down day? I feel relief. I’m not alone. I know this anyway. Yet to hear it feels one step better than just guessing.
I took my shower really well. To avoid. It took 14 minutes longer than usual. I am worried I had spider eggs in my hair. I haven’t brushed it all week. I just keep washing it and letting it air dry. I like the way it looks. Like a sexy beach I’ve been surfing in salt water and live carefree enough to let it air dry. But I feared today it was becoming a bit too much of a nest. I also couldn’t get it brushed. It’s gone too unbrushed. I will need detangler like a child.
I thought all night of my plants. Not what I’m supposed to think. Except I don’t have the time to. It’s going to be below freezing tonight on the night before Mother’s Day weekend. Biggest weekend in plant world. I have to make sure they are all inside and covered when I don’t have many inside and covered places. Cover your plants! I don’t want to think of my value. I can’t be bothered with it today.
I am almost ready to just stop writing. If I try to think of what she wants me to think it gets stuck. Is it still in the portal? Is my value and worth somewhere else? No it’s not. I have other things to think of. That’s what moderate repetitive thinking is?
I have value and worth. I just can’t describe it. I can only describe movies and songs today. She wants a good proper list of reasons I can think of that I’m not selfish. Reasons I think I have value. I can’t come up with any. I will not get this assignment done today. It didn’t have to be. It can be done any day. On a day I can think about it. Repetitively think of how I am not selfish to replace how I am. Was? Never was? Except I am now a moderate over thinker. So I can’t quite get it today. I need to just regular think it. Let it wiggle in between other normal regular moderate thinking.
I know I’m kind I just don’t have a list of reasons how I know I’m kind. I know some that show Im not. Not not kind just ways I don’t do unkind. Wait, what? now I’m confused. I know I don’t hurt others intentionally. I know I don’t make others feel like they are selfish. I know I don’t make others feel they are worthless or have no value. That they are to be ashamed. I know I’m kind by the way some treat me now. Not all, but some. Not everyone is kind. Not everyone knows how to be. Some aren’t because of things that have happened to make them unkind. They once were and no one gave them an assignment to list ways they are or aren’t. It’s not about me. I’m not selfish.
My dad died. I wanted him to. Not always. Just those last moments, I let go of him. For him. It wasn’t about me. I’m not selfish. My mom couldn’t. She still can’t. It doesn’t make her selfish and me not. Their dynamic was a bond that was different than mine and his. Husband and wife like my parents are two wholes that made a one. She didn’t lose her other half she lost an entire whole. But I couldn’t fight to keep him here just for me. In my mind I know my mom finally did. I heard her whisper it’s ok to go. She didn’t mean it though. I didn’t really either. I whispered I’ll take care of mom. It’s ok to go.
I didn’t want to cry today. I didn’t want anything to turn into tears. I cry every chance I get. I cried yesterday watering plants and a lady asked if I was ok. I said no, my dad died. She said Oh my God!! Like right now? I said no, it just feels like it was right now. I couldn’t read her expressions with her mask covering half her face. I can’t read people anymore. It’s all eyes. Eyes freak me out.
I still can’t think of that movie. I can’t repetitive think as well. I can only sort of moderately think of it. I keep describing it in my head but then stop.
I mean I really want to know it but I can’t let it consume my day. I can’t let someone telling me I’m selfish consume my day. I have plants to consume my day. I am consumed enough.
It’s not Bette Midler. That’s why. It’s Oprah Whinfry. Still Rees Witherspoon. I was thinking of Hocus Pocus. A Wrinkle In Time is what the movie is. See now I can think of plants. Moderate repetitive thinking is letting me get so much more done. If I look close I came up with some reasons I’m not selfish. I even wrote it. Said it. Because I know it. Because I’m not selfish. I can’t even let geese get hit by a car. And I don’t really like geese. And the babies look nothing like their grown ups. They are too yellow. They look like something else. I help geese cross roads. The massacre of an entire goose and their gooslings is too horrible to think. To think over and over again but now finally just only moderately over and over again. A little less.
Aspenleaf 