Therapy Avoidance
September 21, 2007
So, I finally made the call to set up my first appointment for real, live, actual, therapy. Puke. I feel nauseated. Can I just tell you, at the beginning of the summer, back in may, I had two main goals for myself. 1. Get my Philadelphia driver’s license switched to an Alabama driver’s license, 2. Start my practicum 1. I didn’t do either. I avoid them for similar reasons. Both take time. Both involve other people. Both are things that I’m required to do. Yet the license thing is really about laziness. Also, I don’t want the license person to give me the what for about not getting a new license yet. I know, I was supposed to do it when I moved here. Whatever.
Therapy is a little different. What will she say to me? What will she ask me to change? What if there is something wrong with me? What if I cry? What if she’s mean? What if she thinks I’m a bad Christian? What if she thinks I’m a bad wife? What if she tells me that I worry too much about what she thinks?
I called the office and got a voice mail. Usually, I really like that. I’d rather leave a message. Today, though, I just wanted closure on it. I wanted to know when my appointment would be and I wanted to get it checked off my list. Now I have to wait for a call and worry about sounding stupid then too. My message was stupid. I actually mentioned that I was having to do this for school. That’s lame. It’s lame because I need to do it either way. If I heard that as a therapist I would think, “Oh, she wants me to know that she doesn’t need this, that she only has to do it.” She probably thinks I’m a narcissist. Well, I might be, but I do know that therapy will be good for me. I don’t even think this in a general kind of way. It’s not like, “Well, it’s good for anyone.” My life has been crazy and I don’t have very good coping skills. I want to be more at ease and less anxious. I want to be more present with people and not so task oriented or so worried about what they think. Still, my stomach is doing flippies. I think I’ve already learned my first lesson from my practicum 1. By the time people have finally come to you they’ve already jumped a lot of hurtles and they might actually puke on you from nervousness.
Monster Appetite 
I think it’s two hippos dancing
first i thought it looked like a butterfly, and then a split second later i decided it looked like kidneys. does that mean anything about me? i do think about my kidneys sometimes.
i love you chica. you are so cool. this will most likely make your therapist want to be your friend. but she will restrain herself due to all those rule things. she’ll like you though. i am sure of it.
I saw 2 hippos doing the moonwalk about to bump into each other and not realizing it…but the universe realizes it because they are meant to be together and this will be their first meeting. They are about to begin a long and beautiful journey of love that will end painfully when the Hippo on the left realizes that Michael Jackson is in fact who everyone has been saying that he is, thus making their love gross and the moonwalk not cool, even if Chris Brown does perfom it at the MTV VMAs.
Oh, and your therapist is totally going to love you…and eventually wish she was you, cause that’s what everyone eventually gets to when they know you. And if all else fails, just do the zipper thing and make yourself laugh. 🙂
I like to tell my therapist that all inkblots are my mother coming back to haunt me…then I scream.
Oh Jess…you are completely normal in your nervousness to see a therapist. I think the lesson you realized that people jump through hoops before even calling to make an appointment is a very very very true realization. It took me months….lots of months to call a therapist. I went back and forth so many times… and even then, I only went twice only to leave and then I tried it again, and the second time around, it took me a long time too! I think that part’s normal.
Hope it goes well, though. It’s something different, but I guess good….
oh…by the way, I saw a mardi gras mask….weird.
I have funny friends that are nice. I like you all. None of you quite got the inkblot right though.It’s hippos but they’re having an intense game of hide and seek. Unfortunately, they both think that they are supposed to be hiding. They are tip-toeing quietly yet, in mere moments, they will crash into each other and they will be quite frightened. Then they will laugh.
personally, i think they are two velociraptors having a thumb war. wait, velociraptors dont have thumbs…how silly! perhaps they are playing rock, fern, iron implement, or so mezzozoic type of game. anyhow, i dont think that therapist like anyone, but if they did, it would be you. i miss you guys. honestly, more so james, but i always thought highly of you too! di you get my facebook invite? the oversite was purely accidental i assure you. peace out sister!