Why I Broke Up With Counseling

Years ago, I felt like my life was over.

I had a long road to walk before I learned to pick up the pieces.

Well meaning people around me decided that rather than simply finding a way to still do the thing that I loved, I should just drop all of that and do something else entirely.

What was picked for me was Counseling.

I looked at this thing that was supposed to give my life meaning, and felt empty. I assumed I was the one at fault, not it.

Every now and then, I'd run off to my true passion, and I'd find myself feeling really guilty about it.

I felt selfish, because I was supposed to find meaning in being a therapist... Yet it wasn't happening.

 

And Counseling just kept screaming nonsense at me, so I put it with all the other stressors.

Of course, I kept getting new ones from people too,
and others just wandered in on their own...

They all looked kind of the same, so it was hard to tell which were important and which were really not. As a result, I treated each as equally important.

I ended up neglecting the ones I had put there myself.

This means that eventually, I was taking care of EVERYTHING else...
 
...until I stopped caring for myself at all.

 

Like I said, I felt guilty and selfish for not paying every ounce of attention to the ones other people told me were necessary and important.

How far down did I have to go before I realized what I was doing to myself??

 

I was right that it wasn't fair...
but I was wrong about which party was being neglected and hurt.

I blamed myself.

 

It was hard because I didn't want it. ...but being a therapist is tough even when people DO want it.

So, that couldn't be my fault, right?

Trying to fake it was exhausting at best, and depressing when I realized I still hadn’t tricked myself.

I felt guilty drawing.

 

As that was my main source of feeling like a real person again, it was a shame to stop.

I wanted to be passionate and to love Counseling, because I thought that all good people naturally want to do that... but not only is that untrue, it was unfair.

I've had enough crappy therapists to know that. Besides, you can't fake love and passion.

Being “good” at it didn't mean it was good for me, much like any other one sided relationship.

Finally, I looked at Counseling again.

I moved it to see what life was like without it.

I found that I felt lighter.

Away from me, I could analyze its true use, and realize that I was not the best person to take care of it.

Counseling was fine without me too.

I'm still surrounded by stressors, but some are welcome.

 

Others are a real necessity, and I'll continue weeding out the ones that aren't.

It has even freed up space so that I can get back to my physical health.

I've already had less panic about eating, and I actually enjoy the gym again.

 

The take away here is that guilt is never a good reason to live life for someone other than yourself.

I am ready to start finding out who I really am.

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.

Maggot Madness

 

 

 

So, the other night, I found myself rummaging through the refridgerator in a half asleep stupor:  

 

Soon after, I felt something strange. 

 

 

It took me a moment to realize what was happening. 

 

HOLY crud it was on my foot.

 

Oh ew.  OH ew ew ew.

 

 

You know, actually, it was kind of cute. 

 

 

 

But I was still:

 

 

 

See, in reality, there were two tiny wormy thingys. 

 

 

 

In my mind, there were thousands, writhing around in a pile. 

 

 



 

 

Actually, based on what my Knight said about what was still in the trashcan, that wasn't too far off. 

 

In any case, I responded to this by making a noise only dogs can hear and running to my Knight like the floor was made of lava because I'm an adult. 

 

The moral of the story is that if you ever eat chicken, once you throw away your excess bird-parts, you should really take the trash out as soon as humanly possible. 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Rowyn Answers: 4: Gouache

Question:  

What is gouache? 



Answer: 

The technical definition is apparently "A method of painting with opaque watercolors mixed with a preparation of gum."  I find this definition unhelpful and lacking, so lets add to that.  

Gouache is a word which has too many vowels. 
Gouache is like working with watercolors but being able to go back in and work with a piece hours later, like oils.  The colors are vibrant, which reminds me of acrylics.  
The paint is expensive, but a little tube can last a very long time if one is using them more like watercolors. 

So, it isn't automatically transparent and can be used without thinning it out.  An artist can choose the opaqueness of the paint pretty easily.  Sometimes the colors lighten when they dry and then can be layered or not in stages.  This can be a much thicker paint than other types of paint.  

Gouache is what artist Alex Ross often used for his famous superhero portraits. 

I'm not as good with gouache as Alex Ross.  
My dancing girls are done in gouache: 

To compare, here are a couple things done in watercolor:

 Watercolor pencils:

I have no idea if I answered your question adequately. 

Adventures in Fabric: Tops Down!

Continued from last time, I'll start off with a fun fact. 

Want to spruce up an old tank top?  Cut out the crotch of a new pair of tights or slice off each leg to make sleeves:

Fishnet:

 Stripes:

 You can even cut thumb holes...

Next up, a friend of mine gave me a T-shirt that is wonderful but was huge on my teeny tiny body: 

 It still needs to be hemmed and cleaned up, but this the dress I've made from it so far: 

Not bad for not knowing what the Hell I'm doing, right?  

...Right?

HOKAY.  Last on this list today is the awful, too big turtle neck I never wear: 

Becoming a warm cut-out T:

This was taken before the last bit of cleaning up and sewing around the chest holes, but you get the idea. 

Sleeve detail: 

Weeeee!

EDIT:  Why haven't I posted updated pictures of these?  ...  Still not doing so.  
...
Oh well. 

Wishy Washy Dishwasher

Our dishwasher was wonky and poorly placed when we moved in.  

This was our sad dishwasher:    

I had to hip check the damn thing to close it.  I had bruises.  

This was either because there was no slab of wood beneath it, and so it drooped into the empty space, OR it was too big and so they removed the slab of wood.
Either way, without that wood there, there was that GIANT, dusty, grimy, GROSS EW EW EW empty space for bugs and monsters and all sorts of things to hide:
 

(For the record, cleaning up, getting organized, spraying the Hell out of everything and caulking up the place relieved our squatter-roommate-cockroach problem.  They were coming up from a lower apartment and now they fear us.  :-D) 

Because it was off kilter, the dishwasher would take a while to right itself on the inside and would make horrible noises while it struggled. 

I was previously unaware of the noises, as I normally have headphones on while I play stupid games:

 

But this time I was headphoneless AND it happened to also vibrate the ground:

So, my totally sane response was:
 

I called my sponsor friend Dani to explain that I was about to fall through to the first floor and die. 
 
It was then that Dani and I determined that the dishwasher is, in fact, a dragon.  Dani then drew this to express what the dishwasher was trying to articulate:
 

Another fun fact is that when the dishwasher is running, nothing else can be.  It's not that nothing else will turn on, so much as that if you want to say… put something in the microwave…

 

All the lights go off.  Power goes out.  Total darkness besides, for whatever reason, the clock on the coffee maker.  

This is particularly problematic now that we've set up the office (read: has a lot of shit plugged in) in the room with one outlet that is, for WHATEVER REASON shared with the kitchen. 

Then the biggest bedroom has three outlets, one of which is almost to the ceiling. 
 

…We have high ceilings. 
(And wall nipples.  What are they?  Were they something before?  There are two of them in the bedroom.  …I don't?  Wat?) 

I don't even understand. 

There are bullshitilly placed outlets in the living room too:

 

That's above the TV, if you can tell.  ...Basically ceiling. 

Also: 

Next to the radiator.  Does that seem completely unsafe to anyone else?

Anyway, my Knight got down on the floor and fixed the dishwasher issue.

He also fixed the tile:

 

So now that one rebellious tile actually looks nicer than any of the crap around it:

 

We just rent here, so screw making the entire thing all nice and shiny. 

I may still turn the dishwasher into a dragon (with completely removable parts, of course) much the same way I turned a toilet into a creature once.  
(See: Showers, Baths, and Referring to Poop Too Many Times) 

If I do, you internet cats will be the first to know.