I love my therapist. –

I love my therapist.

best week ever, boozing, city living, Depression

So I went out last Friday. Like, OUT out. Out with friends, out to a show, and out some more after that. But I was worried, because I hadn’t been looking forward to it. Not at all. And, while the night turned into something supremely spectacular, I had trouble getting in the groove.

The next day, I was thrashed. Even though my sister was in town for the weekend, even though I’d just had this great night in the city, I couldn’t enjoy myself. I was kind of reminded of that Phish show last winter, where, despite all efforts, worrying about how I wasn’t having a good time totally spoiled my good time.

That Phish show turned out to be kind of a tipping point in my emotional life, and I spent the better part of two months trying to get back on the right side of the tracks. And so I worried – would this be the same? Would this be the beginning of the next slide down?

Then, astonishingly, I got sick. Honest to God, fever and chills, DayQuil-chugging sick.

And I was like, oh, so that was that, then.

My therapist often compares living through depression to being very sick (“sick” in the “traditional” sense, which seems more respectable, somehow), and taking that for what it is. She suggests treating the oncoming clouds as one would the first symptoms of the flu, and knowing, you know, here it comes, it’s gonna suck, but I’ll get through it. The challenge with that, for me, is to stop analyzing my emotions to the point where depression becomes an endgame instead of a passing virus, to where the clouds become fog that settles over my mind for months.

When I mentioned my flat-affected Phish show in session today, my therapist said to me, “If you went to that show with a really bad cold, would you have worried about how you weren’t having a good time? Would you have worried about that, and then thought ‘oh, this is my life, and it’s passing me by’, and ‘I can’t REMEMBER the last time I had fun’ and everything that comes with those types of thoughts?”

And I was like, woman, how are you reading my mind. HOWAREYOUREADINGMYMIND.

“You know, you WOULDN’T.” She said.

I was speechless.

4 responses to “I love my therapist.”

decidetodecideetc

April 29, 2011 at 5:43 pm

Pretty glib comment from the therapist. Too bad depression doesn’t just last a week and then leave, like a bad cold.

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1. erinire
  
  April 30, 2011 at 8:58 am
  
  You know, half of me thinks that too. Like, hey lady, where do you get off telling me how to feel about my sickness? And it does feel trivializing, at times. But in another way, it helps me not put too much weight on the bad things, which I certainly tend to do, and the goal is to nip rumination in the bud, which could be very helpful for me. If only it were that easy, right?
  
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∃

May 5, 2011 at 10:39 am

I think your therapist is a genius. I don’t think she’s suggesting that depression is, in fact, like a cold…but that if we felt like crap because of a cold we wouldn’t overthink why we feel like crap. You’re right, we’d acknowledge it and know it will pass. You’re also right that it is never that easy. Sucks…but the good news is that now I can start calling my meds “Brain DayQuil.”

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meredith

May 9, 2011 at 4:59 pm

Brain Nyquil! Love it. I think the analogy is very useful as long as you aren’t put off by it. Earlier in my diagnosis era, I would probably have felt it was trivialized because my disorder was so HUGE like biggerthanmemyhouseandmyfamily HUGE. But now, with some years between and some distance, I have experiences without my disorder taking over so i can get an analogy like that and even use it to my advantage. And I think I will borrow it. Thank you!

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