random thursday in april...
gawd its been over a month - well over a month now in france that we've all been stuck at home. or should be anyway. not sure its really happening in other parts of france but who knows: were supposed to open up soon enough. its a bit worrying because we dont want the city folk streaming in with the rona.
it was a somewhat challenging day - dont know whats going on with me. some days i feel fine - think im okay, doing well, mentally healthy despite a few health issues like i need to replace the left hip now and terrified of going back in. it was traumatizing the last time. they take your leg off - cut off a huge bone, stick something in it and put it back on - and then stitch it up. all while you are asleep in a freezing cold room. and then you wake up and you dont know where you are and you cant roll over in bed. then it takes another month to heal from that! no thanks. but there you have it. anyway - thats not why it was a bad day. im a therapist with patients. one of my patients is griping my ass at the moment and its making me tired. i was thinking further on this today - seeing as so many people are really finding it at least somewhat difficult to get their head around what is happening - what is wrong with this person! you know where unconditional positive regard flies out the window? yea... time to stop the therapy. i owe her two more sessions and the attitude - the excuses - the denial. the quarantine taking her deeper into isolation to the point that she finds it all very enjoyable because it means she has to do less and less work... and simply retire to her bubble. except of course when it comes to the guy she met on tinder nine months ago named 'bones' who prefers contact by text - writing in in his language not hers - then, suddenly - when the texts are not returned and she identifies his location is not at home where she surely expected he must be as everyone is stuck home alone ( a secret satisfaction that satisfies the fantasy that everyone can now feel as lonely as she does) for how else could anyone think that isolation is enjoyable!!! well...then she whips herself into the neurotic tizzy fit of not getting what she wants when she wants it thus self loathing ensues and the tears. the paranoia and stalking. is he with another girl? it seems like its all just a long distance relationship - she says. and as patient and calm as i can possibly be - i try and get her to focus on the feelings. she tells how suddenly after a few days of waiting - the phone rings! she says she becomes so over excited she cant control herself with wanting the assurance that yes he will come - even during a lockdown. and then she says - the next day-- shes exhausted and doesn't want to talk to anyone else anyway. she is not interested in her friends. but she feels she should talk about what she wants to talk about and doesnt like it when i ask her what she's feeling about how tired she is from going from really low and paranoid to overwhelmed with excitement that this ' bones' from tinder called her back. i ask her if there are other male friends in her life that she feels more comfortable talking to as she says she doesnt feel she can be herself with 'bones'. this has been going on since last september. therapy is going no where. isolation is giving some of us a chance to grow. i spend most of my time completely alone and yes i have a dog. my BF is living at the hotel where he is currently under contract - so he can work. all his work mates are there quarantined together. i speak to him at the end of some days - but know the labor of building just hurts at the end of the day and he has to get his chance at the shower plus graba bit of lasagna or whatever and hit the sack! hes a trooper. and he is learning and growing and doing what he has wanted to do for a long time: get paid at his level and pay into the french system so he can retire well someday. he loves france and i know he is happy. it makes me happy that he is happy. my day was difficult because i too do enjoy the peace and tranquility of my life - as much as it does come with the trials of the human condition. my reality is right there in front of me. i open the door - its there. i think the more all of us get used to this idea of reality - the better off we will all be. and its not so bad. its not so scary. loneliness is part of the human condition but speak it. look out the window. and see that it is all okay. forget the wretched mess. and from one of my teachers - who ironically posted for the first time in a very long time - on this day when im redy to throw in the towel of my practice he says: "On the topic of existential therapy, due to be published in Self&Society:
'The hope is that through the ingenious hypothesis of a self - a neurotic formation birthed in culpability - the magnificence and terror of the world may be magically endured and its arbitrariness justified. The existential answer is: fat chance. The accompanying delusion is that without an atomistic self there can be no agency, when in fact the opposite is true: agency emerges whenever experiencing is uncluttered by self-driven agendas'. so i thanked him. and now i will sit - and not let myself be destroyed by my own self-driven agendas - one being whether to quit my job or not!