defusing the hbomb
Really starting to feel like this thing is getting under control. I am on a 4-day streak of normal moods and I am dreading May less and less because of this. Three cheers for progress!
Great therapy session yesterday--even got props from my doc. It's amazing how good a little encouragement can feel. She commented on my progress and said that I was very insightful yesterday. Oh, how I enjoy a little stroke from her every now and again. I might always be someone who seeks approval in every aspect of my life but I do really feel like I am coming into my own. After coming to the decision that I no longer want to define myself by what I've lost in my life it has become easier to start seeing myself as the individual that I really am and not some shell of what I was. On the heels of this revelation she asked me to make a list of attributes that did describe me now. I really was surprised by how positive and thoughtful my own answers were because positive things just don't come out like that when my meds aren't right. I guess there must be something right going on there despite how unfinished I currently feel waiting for my next referral.
I was told that people form their identities in their teens and that she wasn't surprised that it took me till this point to get to where I began to feel a concrete identity. Being my mom's primary caretaker while she was dying of brain cancer quashed any real development and was compounded by my manic depressive illness. It's taken me two years of therapy to be mostly at peace with my mom's passing, 15 years after the fact. And the realization of how much I was a pawn to this illness, never really having a chance to form an identity because I could not hold onto a mood long enough to be stable. Due to my ever-shifting moods I also had an ever-shifting identity. And I would literally hate myself some days and be as hyper as a puppy, loving everyone and everything, other days. My opinions never were concreted and I really was a stranger to myself. God it feels good to have an idea, of who I really am even if I just have an inkling at this point.
And the happy maker:
http://stereogum.com/328772/stars-fixed/mp3s/ -- Stars new single (and it's good) w/streaming audio.