So... Hi
I hope everyone has/had a Merry Christmas/Happy Hanukkah/Happy Kwanzaa/Good Something/Beautiful Solstice/Crazy Saturnalia/etc.
I thought I would let y'all know where I disappeared to: Since I was in the intensive outpatient therapy program, I really didn't have the energy to do much. Besides that, and the main reason I haven't posted in forever, is that since I had the program to process/complain about all of the goings on in my life, I really didn't need my journal to do so. Now that I've graduated from the program, I'll probably be posting a lot more.
In IOP, you're assigned a therapist (who is a student of psychiatry or psychology). I ended up with the psychiatry resident. I was very wary of working with him. But after a few sessions, I felt really comfortable with him. This is amazing since I didn't think I could really trust a male doctor for that kind of thing ever again because of Dad. But he proved me wrong. I'm going to miss him a lot. However, I have convinced him that he needs to keep talk therapy as part of his practice after he leaves residency. He's too good to not do so. He was incredibly supportive, but also good at calling me on my bullshit. He also was great at redirecting my angst and helping me see other points of view. That was critical in my emotional recovery.
Now that I've gone through 10 weeks of 4x a week therapy, I have learned so much and am doing so much better. I'm calmer, much less anxious, less easy to anger, less prone to feeling like I am unloved because someone wants me to not do something, etc. At the end of the program, we had to present an autobiography. Oh. My. God. That was the hardest emotional therapy thing I've ever had to do. I finally took all of the memories I consciously have of my childhood and combined them with all of the new (recovered) abuse memories. I both wrote a few pages, and did paintings that illustrated certain times in my life. I included both happy memories and a couple of the tamer abuse memories (that were still very difficult to listen to). The reaction I seemed to get from the whole group was a general, "I had NO IDEA you went through so much. WOW." My point was that I tended to do that - you'd never know how traumatic and violent that part of my childhood was unless I told you. "Hi, my name is Emily and my father did Xhorrible thing and YOMGHOWDIDYOUSURVIVETHAT? thing." I tend to give a basic overview of, "Dad is a sadistic sociopath and violently abused me as a child." That generally covers it for most people. Anyway, the autobiography was a very very VERY difficult thing to do, but I'm glad I did it.
Now for more happy/miscellaneous stuff.
Midnight Mass at my church was really interesting this year. I didn't have slacks or a skirt to wear this year and had to settle for my trouser denim jeans. This felt SO WEIRD after having it ingrained in me as a kid that you have to dress up for church all the time, but the high holy days needed seriously dressy clothes. But I figured God only really cared about me being there, not what I was wearing. But, man, there were women in church last night that were just insane... it was really cold last night (we got a freeze and the very strong wind made the 35 degree temp feel like 20). I was wearing my awesome new coat, but there were a bunch of women wearing fur. I totally didn't get this at all. There are about a handful of nights a year in Houston that it would get even kind of cold enough to wear fur. But, on top of that, there was a woman at the end of our pew that was dressed to the nines. Much more like for opening night at the opera than church. Silks and diamonds. Seriously. Sis had her second bunion repair a couple of weeks ago and is still in the boot and sometimes needs crutches. She stored them under the pew so they were out of the way. However, after church, two old biddies decided to chastise her for having them at all. "A woman almost FELL and HURT HERSELF because she tripped on your crutches." They were both those women who don't work because their husband has a bunch of money, and so they spend their time donating money to the church and serving on a couple of committees/charities at the church. This somehow makes them better Christians than us. I always want to remind them about the quote from Jesus about camels passing through the eye of a needle easier than a rich man getting into heaven. Oh well. I just felt like, "Well, Merry Fuckin' Christmas to you too." Obviously, the priest's amazing sermon made absolutely no impact at all. However, his sermon really made an impression on me. He always seems to have just the right words to touch my heart and make me tear up. But he always says that it's God's words, he just writes them down. I really enjoyed going to Mass and singing all the carols. And, as always, Midnight Mass is just long enough to make the transition from Christmas Eve to Christmas Day. I've always loved it because my family would always lean over at twelve and very quietly wish me a happy birthday.
As for presents thus far: My lovely coat (that was actually given to me in November, but still counts), my awesome leather boots (also from November), a bracelet with the serenity prayer engraved on it, a new timex beepy watch because I had worn the strap on my old one down too much, and the best one yet: MY NEW CAMERA. OMG I love it so so much. Once I figure out how to use all of the features, I plan to become a picture taking crazy woman. It's an Olympus with a 5x optical zoom, a big aperture so I won't have to use the flash as much. Oh, and it's 12 mega pixels. Basically, it is so completely KICK ASS compared to the one I had. SWEET. Oh, it even has compensation for hand shaking - a very important feature for me, since my hands are always shaky. I have a couple of presents left to open today, but I've kind of loved extending out the time I've gotten presents. It makes each one a little more special since I can spend a lot more time admiring and using each one.
I can't wait for my cake later: I decided to forgo the traditional red velvet cake for something more for the current me. (My family would always make me a red velvet from scratch for my birthday each year.) So I had Mom and Sis get me a fudgy brownie thing from Panera this year. YUMMY. We've changed a lot of our holiday traditions now that our family has changed. We steam tamales for dinner on Christmas Eve, and then make something else on the Day. This year it's ham. Sis gets crab cakes, since she's not a full-on meat eater. It's good stuff. I'm just happy that this year, it should be more harmonious because Mom and I have worked out a bunch of our stuff and have learned how to get along a lot better.
I think that's it for right now. This is long enough as it is.
I thought I would let y'all know where I disappeared to: Since I was in the intensive outpatient therapy program, I really didn't have the energy to do much. Besides that, and the main reason I haven't posted in forever, is that since I had the program to process/complain about all of the goings on in my life, I really didn't need my journal to do so. Now that I've graduated from the program, I'll probably be posting a lot more.
In IOP, you're assigned a therapist (who is a student of psychiatry or psychology). I ended up with the psychiatry resident. I was very wary of working with him. But after a few sessions, I felt really comfortable with him. This is amazing since I didn't think I could really trust a male doctor for that kind of thing ever again because of Dad. But he proved me wrong. I'm going to miss him a lot. However, I have convinced him that he needs to keep talk therapy as part of his practice after he leaves residency. He's too good to not do so. He was incredibly supportive, but also good at calling me on my bullshit. He also was great at redirecting my angst and helping me see other points of view. That was critical in my emotional recovery.
Now that I've gone through 10 weeks of 4x a week therapy, I have learned so much and am doing so much better. I'm calmer, much less anxious, less easy to anger, less prone to feeling like I am unloved because someone wants me to not do something, etc. At the end of the program, we had to present an autobiography. Oh. My. God. That was the hardest emotional therapy thing I've ever had to do. I finally took all of the memories I consciously have of my childhood and combined them with all of the new (recovered) abuse memories. I both wrote a few pages, and did paintings that illustrated certain times in my life. I included both happy memories and a couple of the tamer abuse memories (that were still very difficult to listen to). The reaction I seemed to get from the whole group was a general, "I had NO IDEA you went through so much. WOW." My point was that I tended to do that - you'd never know how traumatic and violent that part of my childhood was unless I told you. "Hi, my name is Emily and my father did Xhorrible thing and YOMGHOWDIDYOUSURVIVETHAT? thing." I tend to give a basic overview of, "Dad is a sadistic sociopath and violently abused me as a child." That generally covers it for most people. Anyway, the autobiography was a very very VERY difficult thing to do, but I'm glad I did it.
Now for more happy/miscellaneous stuff.
Midnight Mass at my church was really interesting this year. I didn't have slacks or a skirt to wear this year and had to settle for my trouser denim jeans. This felt SO WEIRD after having it ingrained in me as a kid that you have to dress up for church all the time, but the high holy days needed seriously dressy clothes. But I figured God only really cared about me being there, not what I was wearing. But, man, there were women in church last night that were just insane... it was really cold last night (we got a freeze and the very strong wind made the 35 degree temp feel like 20). I was wearing my awesome new coat, but there were a bunch of women wearing fur. I totally didn't get this at all. There are about a handful of nights a year in Houston that it would get even kind of cold enough to wear fur. But, on top of that, there was a woman at the end of our pew that was dressed to the nines. Much more like for opening night at the opera than church. Silks and diamonds. Seriously. Sis had her second bunion repair a couple of weeks ago and is still in the boot and sometimes needs crutches. She stored them under the pew so they were out of the way. However, after church, two old biddies decided to chastise her for having them at all. "A woman almost FELL and HURT HERSELF because she tripped on your crutches." They were both those women who don't work because their husband has a bunch of money, and so they spend their time donating money to the church and serving on a couple of committees/charities at the church. This somehow makes them better Christians than us. I always want to remind them about the quote from Jesus about camels passing through the eye of a needle easier than a rich man getting into heaven. Oh well. I just felt like, "Well, Merry Fuckin' Christmas to you too." Obviously, the priest's amazing sermon made absolutely no impact at all. However, his sermon really made an impression on me. He always seems to have just the right words to touch my heart and make me tear up. But he always says that it's God's words, he just writes them down. I really enjoyed going to Mass and singing all the carols. And, as always, Midnight Mass is just long enough to make the transition from Christmas Eve to Christmas Day. I've always loved it because my family would always lean over at twelve and very quietly wish me a happy birthday.
As for presents thus far: My lovely coat (that was actually given to me in November, but still counts), my awesome leather boots (also from November), a bracelet with the serenity prayer engraved on it, a new timex beepy watch because I had worn the strap on my old one down too much, and the best one yet: MY NEW CAMERA. OMG I love it so so much. Once I figure out how to use all of the features, I plan to become a picture taking crazy woman. It's an Olympus with a 5x optical zoom, a big aperture so I won't have to use the flash as much. Oh, and it's 12 mega pixels. Basically, it is so completely KICK ASS compared to the one I had. SWEET. Oh, it even has compensation for hand shaking - a very important feature for me, since my hands are always shaky. I have a couple of presents left to open today, but I've kind of loved extending out the time I've gotten presents. It makes each one a little more special since I can spend a lot more time admiring and using each one.
I can't wait for my cake later: I decided to forgo the traditional red velvet cake for something more for the current me. (My family would always make me a red velvet from scratch for my birthday each year.) So I had Mom and Sis get me a fudgy brownie thing from Panera this year. YUMMY. We've changed a lot of our holiday traditions now that our family has changed. We steam tamales for dinner on Christmas Eve, and then make something else on the Day. This year it's ham. Sis gets crab cakes, since she's not a full-on meat eater. It's good stuff. I'm just happy that this year, it should be more harmonious because Mom and I have worked out a bunch of our stuff and have learned how to get along a lot better.
I think that's it for right now. This is long enough as it is.