Therapathetic

People find themselves drawn to different professions for a lot of reasons.  

Personally, if I had my way and all the money required, I'd be a cartoonist.  

Still, gotta make a living somehow, and being a Psychologist not only makes sense for me, but allows me the opportunity to help someone...
...Or accidentally screw someone up pretty badly. 

Exciting!  

Okay, so I'm actually pretty terrified.  

That being said, I learned what to do from my classes, and what NOT to do from most of my therapists.  

I've had a lot of therapists.

I take this as a strength.  
I've been where the client is.  
Also, as a therapist, I'll know that not all cases will be the same.

I even had a therapist direct me to a hypnotist who got SUPER excited over the idea of me puking in her office.

Let me explain that one.

See, I told her that I was having nightmares.  
She asked what happens when I wake up.
I told her that if they are really bad, I get sick.
Her response was: 

And so my response was: 

And my mother promptly removed me from the woman's office.

Mind you, I've had nice, sane therapists too.  
My current one, in fact.  

She's been very helpful, which means she's been supportive in a way that allows me to come up with what I need to do for myself. 

She guides without telling, and gives hope when needed.  

The one before her also wasn't awful.  

She was an art therapist and helped me learn that I like art therapy techniques but would like to do other things with clients.

The one before that one was mostly...  Good?  
...ish? 
 
She went out of her way to say that once I was diagnosed with PTSD, that would be my life forever.  

Don't tell your client, who is in your office to get better, that there is no such thing as healing or a future without intense psychological pain.  

Not cool.

Also, she was wrong. 

So, let's get to the utter shit of it, shall we? 

When I was of Bat Mitzvah age, I went to a woman about my crippling anxiety and dealing with some physical pain.  

After hearing that I was not going through this traditional Jewish ceremony (which was a very minor part of my story), she explained to me that: 

Yeah.  

She decided to let me know that I'd be "letting my congregation down" and that the rabbi and my own PARENTS would hate me for not doing it. 

This was utter crap. 

I responded with a: 

And my parents reassured me that they weren't going to disown me AND that I didn't have to see that woman ever again.  

It turned out that my family actually knew her, but didn't realize that she had a different last name than her child.  

My father was training her child for his/her Bar/Bat Mitzvah.  

Projection!  Don't do it!  

Next up was a woman I actually had twice.  

What I mean by that is that I saw her for many months, then switched to someone else, and then tried her again.

I had left the first time because she was very open about also being the therapist for a frienemy of mine.  

She'd talk openly about said friend/enemy and I felt uncomfortable, realizing she was probably doing the same about me.  

Breach of confidentiality, for one thing.  

The second time was somehow worse.

I was talking about something... I don't remember what.  

It triggered her. 
She started crying.
A lot. 

I was not crying. 

Pretty much everything this lady did went on my "Don't do this to people" list.

Still, not as bad as a woman who forced me to take drugs. 

Look, if you have a chemical imbalance and want to be on medication, more power to you.  
It can be helpful. 

I didn't want it. 

Beyond that, I had ZERO signs of clinical ANYTHING that wasn't direct cause and effect.  

I had anxiety and some depression because my legs didn't work right and my sister was scary.  

I wanted to talk about it. 

I wanted to find ways to work with it and build my life into something better.

She decided that would be too difficult, and handed me a pill. 

Since I had said from day one that I did not want to take any medications, and she had agreed...

I figured I must be REALLY screwed up for her to demand I try them.  

...So I took the pill.

It didn't take long before I started feeling like I wanted to kill myself.

I had never felt like that before.  

Thankfully, I was able to see that it was the medication having a strange effect on me.

In retrospect, the fact that she didn't mention that as a possible side effect, the fact that she talked me into taking something at all, and the fact that she didn't mention just STOPPING instead of weening off of it could be dangerous... 

Bitch could have killed me. 

DON'T DO THIS TO PEOPLE.

And you know what her response was when I said I wasn't going to take it anymore?

Thankfully, I had brought Dad in that day. 
I don't even know why I had dragged him in.  

Maybe I was afraid of what else she'd ask me to do. 

He told me I never had to see her again.
...She had always silently repeated everything I said with her own lips anyway.
That was really creepy.  

Like I said before, there have been good therapists in my life.  

They don't need to be on this list in pictures because every day that I talk about the progress I've made shows how not-shitty they are. 

Those are the people I hope to emulate. 
I hope to be a not-shitty therapist.

Testing the Skinny on the Skin Test Conclusion

Before I begin this particular post, I'd like to state that I did this to myself.  I chose to put myself in a situation where I was facing my allergy phobia in order to hopefully start a treatment for lessening my allergy burden.  

This was not easy, and yes, it was uncomfortable. 

However, I fully support people getting a skin test in order to get allergy shots, or to go on the drops, which I'm already on for my bazillion food allergies.

Mind you, they don't work for everything.  I probably will always have a couple deadly food allergies, but the idea is to lessen the overall load.  Becoming more tolerant to some things allows the body to chill a little bit about the more dangerous ones.  

I even had my mom and my Knight in Pinstripes right there with me.  Rob drew things for me:

With all that said, yes, I was stuck with a thousand needles and it was terrifying.  

In fact, Rob drew that too: 

However, obviously, I did not die.  
 
I even had a panic attack at one point, but managed to somehow stifle it into a series of stupid jokes.  

One of which was actually, "Well, I'm not dead.  So, you know, that's better than I thought would happen." 

Rob illustrated my emotional journey: 

The constant joking and being silly while clearly exaggerating was partly to calm myself down, but also to make sure the nice lady giving the test wouldn't feel bad.  Then, consequently, when she laughed, I felt like it wasn't a huge deal either.  

This entire "personal story" aspect of this blog has a lot to do with the power of reshaping our stories and finding humor and beauty where there is otherwise pain.

Now then... 

The day went pretty smoothly.  My mom picked me up from my apartment to take me to my parent's house.  Rob was at work in the morning, but took the afternoon off just to be supportive. 
*Insert proud grin*  
Meeting at my parent's house just wound up easier than meeting at the doctor's office, with it's three or four waiting rooms and such.  

I spent my morning desperately trying to ignore how nervous I was, and did this by doing the following:

1.) Playing stupid dress up games online, including games that allow a person to have careers.  Some of these careers are easy enough to really have, while others are almost impossible to get in real life.

2.) Staring at my toys and thinking about ways they could do a whole television series of just the minions from Despicable Me.

I freaking love those guys.

3.) Eating bacon and eggs, lovingly prepared by my momma, 'cause I'm an adult.

 There are very few foods that don't freak me out, and bacon is one of the consistently "safe" foods for me.  I can't even explain why.  
A lot of the foods I go to are heavily processed and probably inherently unhealthy on some level or another, but having no allergies to preservatives or dyes and ALL the allergies to organic foods on their own anyway...  
I just don't care.  
If I'll eat it, awesome.  

Rob showed up, we hung out for a bit, and then we were off! 

When my name was called, my heart dropped into my stomach, but knowing I had some support made me breathe again.  
At that point, Mom had Dad on the phone, who was asking for a play-by-play.  If everyone had their way, that tiny room would have been filled with people.  I felt very loved.  

The first part of the test was on my left upper arm and did not involve any needles.  
It was maybe a third of the size it was supposed to be, because I asked to not test for any foods.  I'm already on the drops for specifically food allergies, so it would have been a waste of resources and my patented Rowyn-panic. 

This was just a tray of tiny pokey things on top of the skin, yet the reaction to a couple of them was instantaneous.  

She had marked where the first tray would start with a little heart, so sideways, the first to react (grasses) looked like a little face.  

Rob and I both drew what it looked like:

 His was somehow more accurate: 

"I am the grasslord" 

Yes you are.

The left arm slowly got more and more itchy, though most of the dots of allergens didn't react at all.  That's a good thing.  

The ones that DID react, however... 

And then came the right arm.  

OH MY CRAP.  

So many tiny little needles.  I tried to just not look.  

Mostly, it didn't hurt.  ...I was still afraid though.  I think I kept it in check well.  I was told later that despite me openly stating my crippling fear, I apparently handled it like a pro.  

Rob drew some stuff during this whole right arm process, like the Cheshire Cat telling me to relax:

And his way of telling me I was very brave for facing my fear: 

He actually printed out a certificate of "Bravery at the Doctors" for me to frame on the wall.  He even signed and dated the thing. 

By the end of my twitches, wincing, and bad jokes, my right arm looked like this: 

Rob expected me to just pass out once the adrenaline wore off, and I'm surprised that I didn't.  
Instead, I just wanted to eat and not be touched ever again.

Back at my parent's house, my father told me that Batman himself had heard about my appointment and how brave I was, and had asked him to give me an awesome Bat-signal magnet.  

Yes, I'm 27.  
Shut up.
I'm the goddamn Batman.  

Later, "chicken for dinner" turned into this:

Oh, you mentioned a food in passing?  LETS HAVE THAT TOO.

...My broccoli isn't drawn well.  

...That's broccoli in the middle on the bottom there. 

...

Anyhoo, then Rob and I went back home.  

I cuddled up in my robe, going from itchy and awake to exhausted and a little dizzy.

It wasn't horrible, but the ick came in waves.

To get my mind off the crap of it, Rob played American McGee's Alice: Madness Returns so I could watch it like a cartoon.  

It's a pretty game. 

I wasn't going to sleep at a reasonable time that night, and I wound up hungry again.  Rob, being amazingly Rob-like, scrambled an egg for me.  

I'm going to be pretty freaked out the first few times I get the allergy shots.  However, I've been on the drops for forever, and I'd be getting the shots in a safe setting, surrounded by doctors and epi-pens.  

I was told the red dots from the test would be there a few days, and a day later, they are almost entirely gone.  Clearly, I'll be able to handle it.  

I have a year to decide.  After that year, I'll need to be tested again, and that's crappy, so screw it.  I'll do the shots. 

Now to figure out my insurance!  

Stress in the Family

Stress is a common factor in my life.  It just is.  It's so common that I tend to flip out even more when things are going smoothly, because that isn't what I'm used to.

Stress is a family trait.  

However, how we deal with that stress has some different variation to it...  

Though most of our ways of handling stress end with us curled up in a little ball on our beds.  I've noticed that pattern. 

When my mother is stressed, she goes into denial: 

And then goes to sleep until the problem goes away.

When my father is stressed...
 Sometimes he handles it really well:

Other times, he turns into an ogre:

Makes unintelligible noises:  

And eventually goes to sulk in the bedroom.

Then there is my sister. 

When she is stressed:

When I'm stressed: 

...

Well, you probably know about that by now.  


Also, migraines run in the family, partly, I'm sure, because stresssss runs in the family.  

Like the other stress-bed responses, when I have a migraine, I generally go to bed, hydrate, take a pain killer, and cry a lot until it stops.  

But, that was before Rob.  

My Knight in Pinstripes is relentlessly...

Himself. 


See, me having a migraine was a problem.  

And Rob?  He fixes problems.

He fixes problems whether you like it or not.

So, first thing was first.  

My Halloween mug was presented to me filled with filtered water and along with that came a pain killer:

He read to me.  

Can we just process that?  

Rob freaking read to me.  Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, specifically.  Not even a full chapter in, I was happy.  

Even though my head felt like it was trying to both implode and explode, I felt loved, and that was helpful. 


Next, I mentioned, briefly, that I was cold.  

SUDDENLY THERE WAS MY FUZZY ROBE.

Again, I was pleased.  I felt like an asshole though, because I didn't know what to do with someone really actively taking care of me as an adult, let alone who wasn't my mom or something.  

Still, it was nice.

We cuddled on the sectional couch:

Once light didn't make me want to rip out my eyes, we watched the animated Disney Alice (well, half of it)

And I was pleased to be nestled until I was sleepy and pain free between Rob and my sandworm.  

(There are pictures of the real thing in Birthday Bashing)


All things said and done, it was a MUCH better experience than just being comforted by a pillow.  

Going Domestic

To start this off, I should mention that my housemate FATE and I have a strange kind of friendship.  He refers to me as Mom and I refer to him as my son.  Normally, this means whoever I happen to be dating is by proxy his "dad" and generally that person just kind of shrugs, accepts it, and never brings it up.  

Rob took this Dad thing to heart.

I'm not kidding. 

We quickly became a bunch of grown ass adults playing house.  

...

My therapist says it's okay so shut up.


Rob and I have already domesticated each other anyway.

He cooks for me:

I do his laundry:

Domestic!





In any case, now that I'm finally settled in, moving is happening again.  

Technically, I'm not the one moving, so there is that.  ...  Rob is moving in, Xena is moving out, FATE and I talked about moving more rooms around, and we decided to have my room be a studio/office space for whoever is in the apartment, since Rob and I might need a little more space, but we'd be sharing a bedroom.   

*Cue Rob's grandmother asking what my clergy father must think of Rob moving in with me* 

Hypothetically speaking, this seems simple enough.

...

It's been chaos. 

The problem is that Rob needed to start moving his stuff in, but there isn't space yet.  As a result, we have boxes of stuff and some of my stuff crammed into weird places and everything is just teetering on a I-don't-know-where-this-goes string. 

After a bit of this, I had started to go a little utterly-too-intense over trying and failing to find things.  I stopped really communicating when I got too frustrated and instead opted for hand gestures and strange noises.  

For example:

Meant that I had lost this thing: 

And I wanted it. 

We've already invested in more shelving in an attempt to avoid our clutter invading the clutter of the other:

This shelf did not stay in that spot very long and it will be moving again, I'm sure. 

And in the meantime, we've each started organizing the few things we actually can have some control over until we are all settled on space again.  

Rob and FATE organized the entertainment area: 

And I have started doing little projects in an effort to eventually become this super-pseudo-mom.  
Between Rob and my own fuckery, we have a lot of magnetic, wipeable, and cork boards.  
Like this one:

I decided that these would become a giant area of wall.  I wanted one slightly bigger wipeable board, so I made one out of a frame that wasn't useable for it's intended purpose and some old color swatches:

 In the meantime, I've been stressing over where everything will go and what I could possibly fit now that I couldn't before.  

Can my vanity now fit in our bedroom?  I could use it as a side table... Maybe? 

What about my drawing desk?  Surely that'll go in the office/studio for everyone to use!  ...Right?

Lastly, we had cockroaches seep in from downstairs, but now that Rob sprayed the Hell out of every corner in this apartment, they seem to be leaving us alone. FATE saw two, "half-dead" recently, but that's it.  Next, we'll have to patch the giant holes where they were getting in.

On the way, we should probably re-caulk the asshole tile:

Every time someone steps on this thing, he or she assumes he or she was the one to magically break it.  I don't know if everyone I know collectively has no idea how tiles work, or if they all just think they weigh a lot more than is possible or what, but no.  No guys.  No.  The tile was already busted long before.  

I'm sure fixing it will be another post.  

...As well as rearranging, organizing these rooms, possibly painting things...  

Stay tuned!