[258/366] updates

[cosmolinguist]

Thanks so much to everyone who commented on my last entry. I just thought I was having a little complaint before bed, I wasn't expecting so many and such helpful comments.

They really helped and therapy was good today. She asked again to do this, but she said just "check in with how you're feeling now," which honestly I didn't do but which gave me a bit better of an angle to approach it from, as did a couple of examples she gave of stuff she's included in this herself.

I ended up borrowing otter's description of "feeling like I am full of sand" and she really ran with that, saying it wasn't fine Sahara sand that floats through the air or beach sand but heavy builders' sand. I've seen those huge bags on sidewalks sometimes, and I nodded vigorously at this. Also she'd asked for something extremely sensible which I did do ahead of time, which is to send her a kind of timeline of whatever I wanted to say about my life. So I talked a bit about my relationship with my parents, my standard "problems gifted kids have," my brother dying, moving to a new country, etc. Much better than having to say it; I'm always better in writing. And the fact that she was interested in all that stuff is a good sign too; this is worlds away from shitty CBT. I don't even have any homework to do for next week, ha!

My homework for tonight has been practicing tying a tie before my job interview tomorrow, now that diffrentcolours taught me, with much giggling from me in the sunny warm garden as I started out with a weird flaw in the process (the thin bit was sticking straight out to the side rather than lying flat behind the big bit!), devolved from there to not being able to tie the knot at all, and eventually could manage a wrinkly but effective success.

It was sweet, and really interesting actually, watching him deconstruct something he literally couldn't do if he was thinking about it or even looking at his hands at first, even altering his process to make it easier for me and my relatively-tiny hands which weren't really able to hang on to as many things at once in quite the way he does.

I'm still glad no one will actually look at my tie in more than the resolution of a Zoom meeting (there are so many good things about remote interviews!), this seems like a good way to start the tie-wearing phase of my life.

Comments

[otter]

So happy I could be of assistance. Navigating mental health and therapy is better done with community support, in my experience.

[ewt]

I hope the interview goes well! I am glad that therapy is going better than CBT was.

[silveradept]

That sounds like a good session and a potentially competent therapist.

Also, tie-tying is absolutely a learned art and skill and while I have figured out how to do it, I don't think I ever figured out how to do it well.

[jesse_the_k]

I'm so happy to hear the therapist is not terrible.

(The tie looks great!)