The dream begins with me breaking into a mega corporation. The complex itself is several miles and I know that something important is inside but I’m not sure what. I just know that it is imperative that I find it soon. I keep getting caught and thrown off the premises, during these attempts I learn that the company is owned by my mother and it is under her orders that I am not allowed on the grounds. Once I learn this I feel more frantic. I run into Kara and Jeremiah, two of my siblings, an I explain the situation to them. They help me evade the guards and throw mom off of my scent. I make it to her office to find a file but there is nothing on it but an address. I don’t recognize it at first until I see “Beltway Sth” on it and I feel my stomach drop. I meet back up with kara and Jeremiah and explain to them that whatever is wrong, we will find it at our old church. That sinking feeling doesn’t leave me for the rest of the dream, it only gets worse.

We catch a plane and then a car and arrive at the church. It isn’t a church day so I surprised to see a few cars in the lot. We get out of the car and start towards the front doors when a woman comes out. She isn’t a real person in real life, but in my dream I immediately know that she is an elder’s or deacon’s wife. She runs up and gives us each a hug and tells us she was wondering when we’d arrive. I ask her what she means and she looks confused. She tells me she knew we’d be coming because of what happened to Dad. I start to panic now and ask her again what she means. She gets that calm pitying look all good southern church wives reserve for “unfortunates” and tells us that dad was killed at the church three days ago and they’ve been waiting for someone to come for the body. I ask her where it happens and she points at a large lime stone rock that we always used as a door stop at the front entrance. There is dried blood on the rock and the ground and I am appalled that no one was kind enough to clean it up before we arrived, and then I wonder if they’ve even bothered to prepare the body. His head was bashed in. A church that he spent so many years at and they didn’t even bother to take care of his body. I wake up thinking, ‘Why’d you go back Dad? you knew better.”

But I know why he went back. You don’t give up on family.

In the center of our house was a water closet. If you opened it you would see a foot and a half of space in the bottom for air ventilation before you reached the baseboards holding up the water heater. It wasn’t a very big space and the one hallway in our house formed two of its walls. The main door to it faced the living room and ultimately the T.V. which is how I first became interested in it. The second door to it was in the bedroom I shared with my two sisters. My older sister’s bed came right up against the door so you had to move it back from the wall a few inches in order to get the door to open a bit. If you’ve read much of this blog at all you know that I’ve had nightmares my whole life. The result being that I was terrified of sleeping in the dark. Originally because I was absolutely certain there were gremlins living in my older sister’s side of the closet and later because if I was lucky enough to wake myself from a nightmare I needed some kind of stimulation to keep myself from drifting back to sleep. (As a side note: spell check includes the word gremlins.?!) Normally the dark of the water closet would have made me avoid it, but the bottom portion, the foot and a half I mentioned earlier was three sides vents that I could peek out of and listen to my parents talk or watch t.v. from after I was supposed to be in bed. The trick was getting back out of the closet before my older sister went to bed and shoved her bed back up against the door.

It used to feel like a portion of the house that was not part of the house; if I was in the ventilation space, then I didn’t exist. I know that’s wierd for a child to want. I spent so much of my life as a child feeling like people were always watching. My dad’s church, my family, my teachers, and if you managed to ever get a moment alone you still knew God was  watching. And if they are watching then it is because they expect you to do or be something a certain way. So it was nice to have a space where you just didn’t exist. Peaceful. As I got older I found ways to replicate that feeling. At school I knew how to fly under the radar. I met everyone’s expectation just enough that they didn’t feel the need to micromanage me. When I hit that awful stage in high school where everyday is  a fight with your mother I learned to put distance between myself and the situation. I would find myself repeating the word, “rock” over and over in my head so that I wouldn’t have to feel what was upsetting me, or I’d find myself telling myself, “this isn’t you, this is some other teenager fighting with her mom over something this idiotic, isn’t this absurd? Look at them.” Which usually resulted in me laughing at the situation which only enraged my mother more. Even as I grew older: in Thailand when I knew my engagement would have to end, I found myself wishing I could be on an island somewhere absolutely alone, away from my fiance, other people’s prying eyes, or even my loved ones who where trying to comfort or encourage me.

I guess I never really felt comfortable being myself,or even figuring out what myself is. Until I got fed up with it in grad school. Not fed up with not being myself so much as fed up with these invisible expectations my paranoid self seems to think everyone has of me. I made some new friends, the opposite of my normal church bunch thinking that I could be myself with them. They would not have the same expectations or judgements of me my church friends did. It felt true at first. Then I slowly came to realize that they had expectations of me just different ones than I had encountered before. I had to learn to put up boundaries, so I feel a little closer to figuring out who I want to be. It was stupid to think that the problem was an external one that could be fixed by changing environments. One of my “new” friends (M) gets drunk frequently. I find myself hauling him out of bars and tucking him into bed frequently. He seems as ill at ease with himself as I am, but I know he’d be there for me if I needed him and that he likes me in spite of my awkward and uncomfortable in my own skin ways and so I love him and he’s quickly become one of my favorite people. He doesn’t understand why I hang out with him and his friends. I don’t really know what to say. I can’t hide in that group and feel like they don’t expect anything of me anymore but I still like them. Each of them is so different so I don’t think it’s any one thing. I just like them even if we don’t always agree. M gets really drunk and asks how I could possibly keep hanging out with him. We seem to have this conversation every single time.

m: Why do you even hang out with me

k: I don’t know, probably because I have a sick need to fix people

m: huh, you aren’t changing an F******* thing about me, I can tell you that right now

k: yeah, I’m not really into it anyway, you couldn’t afford my counseling services.

m: have a drink

k: no thanks

m: why not? come on. what do you want? I’ll get it for you.

k: I really don’t feel like it, but thanks.

m: k, come on, seriously? why do you even hang out with any of us?

k: because you’re my friends?

m: B*******, I know why

k: this should be good, please tell me

m: you want to feel superior that’s why. you would rather judge all of us so that you don’t have to judge yourself.

He says this last line to me a lot lately. Not maliciously, he’s just like that when hes been drinking, he doesn’t like me any less for thinking it and it doesn’t bother me for him to say it. It was what made me realize that looking for an external change to my problem wouldn’t work. I told him that while I did judge people, even without realizing it, I don’t have any isues about judging myself. I judge myself worst of all.

I guess the problem with not putting any effort into figuring out what my own expectations are instead of always guessing at what I think others expect from me is that I don’t know how to judge myself accurately. I have no criterion. All of this to say: I guess it’s time to come out of the closet.

Carl Whitaker says he believes people choose to die. That people can give themselves cancer. He’s kind of crazy and absurd but he’s my favorite therapist. He is a forerunner in Experiential therapy. He talks about symbolic experience and how what should be huge life experiences are not necessarily symbolic to people. The smallest experiences can be the most meaningful. I love this kind of therapy. He endorses being crazy and tricky as a therapist in order to be effective.  The therapist is a foster parent whose main role is finding the right symbol. It’s time and energy consuming but effective.

Today I’m a bit tired and broke. I do not want to tell another client the same thing I;ve told the twenty before. I hate sitting in class this long. Blech. Broke as in poor, but a little down too. I like german and czech names. i like how that W is a V. I’m tired. My dreams have shifted from bloody running in terror things to weird testing my morals and boundaries dreams.

Whitaker says old symbols can still be pulled to the present for therapy, self therapy I guess. Today my favorite symbol, one of my favorite memories, is watching an old building get torn down. It was the most understood I’ve ever felt. I’d had an awful day, an awful semester really and after bombing my greek final for a second time, my best friend took me to watch this building get torn down. It was perfect.

Emotionally: frazzled

Mentally: Drained

Spiritually: Lost

This is the check-in we do in process group every morning. My day in a ledger:

+I got to work on time

-I had to observe in process group today in order to learn how to set up a proper crucible after the guys railroaded me friday.

+The guys got their just rewards in that the therapist I brought in m place is super strict. They instantly were unhappy. (petty, yes. But still satisfying after Friday. They needed a good cop bad cop experience in order to induce them to behave properly the next time I take over.)

-Nearly passed out.

+The guys made it clear that they considered me the primary/trusted therapist over the real therapist I brought with me and yet still did the work with the other therapist.

-One of the guys called me sweetheart when he left the group. Patronization is the bane of my existence right now.

+ The other therapists consider me enough of one of them to ask me to lunch even when my supervisor isn’t there.

- I ran into my ex at lunch.

+ I had my first truly successful session with my client. He worked hard. Showed up on time which he never does. I really needed this after last week.

- I spilled bleach on one of my two pairs of nice work pants. Which means I’ll be wearing more dresses and skirts until I find the time to go shopping. I dont know if dresses or skirts are really allowed at the center, but I think they are generally a bad idea since all my work right now is done with male clients. Plus they are generally less comfortable and I hate hose.

+ Two members of the therapist team told me that I’d be a great therapist. This means alot since they have let two interns go in the two months I’ve worked there.

I’m exhausted all the time now. I fell asleep on the waiting room couch in the therapist suite last week. I intern and work 10 hours a day. I have class on the weekends. It’s wearing me down. I need to start going to bed earlier but that leaves me feeling like all I ever do all day everyday is work. I love what I do, but it’s draining and I have just enough time at night to pull my books down and try to figure out a better way of doing whatever I’m trying to do in therapy.

I’m learning DBT and motivational interviewing right now. Everything has gone smoothly so far except for my anger management group. An incident happened that left me angrier than I have been in a while. Ironic. Not angry at a group member. Angry at the intern who took my group over while I was leading it. I was too angry to respond in an appropriate way for anger management group. Obviously, I still have a lot to learn.

Random:

1.) There were two Emancipation Proclamations

Current music fixation: Jack Savoretti

His version of Ring of Fire is beautiful.

To answer your question B, I guess I know he did, but I’m glad it wasn’t said.

I hate math. Typically I like things that are concrete and have a logical sequence, but all higher level math becomes abstract and while I am a visual learner, I have difficulty incorporating abstract symbols in the forms of Greek letters into math formulas comprised of numbers. My OCD mind doesn’t like mixing what I consider two very different sets of symbols. Letters shouldn’t have a meaning if standing alone. They should only represent something when combined to form words. But I digress.

I am using this theory in my internship. For some reason applying it to people and relationships gives it meaning that its simple formulas did not. Group Theory has 4 main tenants:

1.) It is composed of members that are all alike in one common characteristic, while their actual nature is otherwise irrelevant for the purpose of the theory. The outcome of any combination of two or more members is itself a member of the group. The numbers on a clock for example: 1+2= 3 which is another member of the group.

2.) Combining members in varying sequences still ends with the same outcome. Using the clock scenario: 12+2= 2 o’clock because the group itself is circular in nature. The outcome will always be a time of day that progresses forward. One cannot go back in time. If you put this in the context of relationships it means that no matter how many changes members implement the result is the same. Ashby’s homeostat is a good example of this. In a couple relationship there is a sort of homeostasis that is maintained despite the actions taken by either partner. One partner might make a change in order to become closer to the other partner, but the other partner inevitably and simultaneously makes a change to move back. It’s like two people dancing. The maintenance of this distance is necessary for the dance to work. One partner moves forward, the other back, and they are never moving closer to each other than the original distance they began with but that is what makes things function.

3.) The group contains an identity member such that the combination of it with any member of the group gives that other member, which means it maintains that other member’s identity. 5+0=5. This other member is a reflector of sorts. But this null member (0), maintains homeostasis.

4.) Every group member has an opposite, and the combination of the two gives the group identity member. 5 + (-5)= 0. Thus the group identity is maintained. In families it would look like this: If the family’s identity is currently one of a family in crisis dealing with a troubled teen, then what happens when the troubled teen changes. If the troubled teen turns into its opposite, the responsible child, often the other child in the family, the previously responsible other child, will become problematic in an effort to maintain group identity. Therefore, in spite two drastic changes in the family, homeostasis is maintained. The identity remains the same.

This of course is the problem of group theory when reflected in relationships. It never moves past first order change (a change within the system that does not change the system.) The system becomes known as a game without end. There are never any solutions. No purpose the group is working towards because even if it tried infinite in group changes it would never achieve a second order change (change within the system that alters the system). The groups natural tendency is to sustain itself in its current form.

I’m learning in my internship how to help people find second order change. I’m not having bad dreams about it anymore. Ultimately I am not a member of the group. I cannot change it. But I can help a member find a way, even the smallest of changes, that can bring about a shift in the entire system. For the first time in 3 almost four years I feel passionate about my future again. I have been so sure these past years that God brought me to this place for a reason, and I’ve been so disappointed. I missed my old dreams and I felt certain that my future would be a service of sacrifice. Our dean spoke to the school once about how our ministry might not always be something we love but simply something we must do and I hated that because I was sure that that would be me. I am hopeful now that I will be passionate in my new career, maybe not always happy, but I will have purpose. That’s what excites me. I’m not sure that God brought me here because I will be a great help to others, I think it is probably the opposite, he brought me here because there was a need that would fill my own.

I made the most amazing recipe last night. I bought Julia Child’s cookbook and it is phenomenal. The dish took forever to complete but it’s worth it. My whole apartment smells amazing, like thyme, wine-braised onions, beef and garlic. I’ve decided I really love Thyme.

Christmas was great. The best one since my parents’ divorce. Things aren’t perfect, but it was nice to have us all together. I forget sometimes how comforting it is to go home to family. It’s not that we do anything amazing, its just nice to go to sleep in a place where people actually care how you are and what your day was like.  Also, my mom has turned out to be pretty awesome. I never thought we’d have a good relationship but its possible apparently. It just took 12 years. I’ve been very careful around her in the past, but as I watch her these past few years, I see her not only listen to her children but encourage them, support them, and fervently pray for them. It means a lot. I know everyone has differing spiritual beliefs, and while I struggle with God sometimes, there is something to be said for prayer no matter who you are or what you believe. It’s an intense focus on your wel lbeing from another person. It means you meant enough to them for them to want to take your name before their God, the one they love most.

We all went and I spent most of the time with the blonde guy who was very funny. The party was at another mansion and after a while I grew very tired, so tired I began to worry that I was sick because I could barely stand. I went over to the blonde guy and told him I was too tired to stay and I would see him later. He told me I couldn’t leave because it was already morning and we had to go to class.

I was too tired to even remember what class I was supposed to go to but luckily the blonde guy had the same class with me. It was a film class and the semester had just started. There were about 20 students in the class but I didn’t pay much attnetion to them because I was so tired. Students were taking turns showing off their summer film projects. The current one was an educational film for grade school kids. Something about science. I put my head on my desk and started dozing.

As I started to doze off I heard a familiar voice on screen and glanced up. I thought I must really be dreaming because the educational video had a splice of another video in it. The splice was of a curly headed guy trying to play the guitar for someone not in the picture. He was awful at guitar and singing and he knew it and was laughing. I felt a horrible sinking feeling because the guy on the screen was J and he was singing to me. I wasn’t in the picture but I could remember that day. I thought that I must be dreaming and having a nightmare. The screen showed my brother in the background cracking up and J ducked his head, still laughing but his ears were going red. I didn’t understand how it was happening. I jumped up and started looking around the class room. I saw J sitting three rows over looking at me with that frustratingly blank look he always used to give.

I was suddenly furious. i started running to the VCR but J beat me there. His video was going to start so many questions and rumors and I’d have to tell people about what we had been and how it had ended and I just never wanted to go there. J grabbed the video tape out a second before I tried to grab it. I demanded to know where he got that and whose video it was. He just smirked and said it was his. I lunged at him and he took off running out of the class room. A small part of me knew we were behaving childishly and I couldn’t believe he just ran away from me. However the angry side of me over rode that thought and I chased him down the hallway until it became clear to him he wasn’t going to shake me. He stopped for breath outside of the girls bathroom and shoved the tape in my hands. I asked him what he was trying to do and why he had this. He yelled at me. He actually raised his voice and yelled at me,” Maybe I just wanted to remember! Maybe I wanted to remember what you were like and try to believe that those things you said weren’t just lies!” Then he ran and left me there with that stupid tape.

I was completely shocked. I didn’t do anything to him. He left me so how could he think that anything on my part was a lie back then? I was totally confused but still angry enough about the tape to throw it on the ground and stomp it into oblivion, yank all the film out of it and flush it down a toilet in the ladies room. Then I woke up.

There are things in life that I have felt strongly about. I had so much conviction I thought that surely things would never change. But it always did. I guess over time without even realizing it I started to believe that everything wavered and was reversible. Nothing stays the same. In a way it was hopeful. Things could get bad and then better again. But one day I saw a face and I felt total assurance for the first time that I can remember in my life. It was devastating because I knew without any doubt that there was no hope for a reversal. Once done it would never be undone. It wasn’t strong emotion or even conviction. it was just a cold empty knowledge that there was no changing what was about to happen, no going back. That was the shocking part, not that it happened, but that it was the first thing I knew for certain could never be changed.