Breathing Space

It's funny, but I think I have a narrative going on in my psyche that says I should be doing better than this by now. Not actually funny at all, a major stressor being under that kind of pressure. The pressure to be alright by now. Of course, as soon as I see that in black and white I recognise it as one of the lessons of my childhood - you can be upset briefly, and receive comfort, but you will receive far more ongoing rewards for being happy, cheerful, able to offer solace to others. Early conditioning for being a therapist. Only of course a therapist needs also to be at home with her more difficult feelings. And relatively speaking, I am. Relative to many people, relative to my earlier self. But ever and again I see myself trying to wriggle out of engagement with discomfort, with disappointment, with loss and unhappiness.

Eighteen months ago, a dreadful thing happened to me, which shipwrecked my working life and left me entirely stranded, financially and professionally. The trauma sent shock waves through my whole being and rattled my never very steady confidence. There was damage which I am still repairing. I have three strands of work now, and all are well-paid and interesting. The school, the university, and private practice. But they are all very new still, and doing each for so little time makes it hard ever to settle in one place, get used to the people, the environment (except private practice where it's just me at home...) And the university job is now finished for a three-month summer, and my total work commitment is two half-days a week. In and out of modes I go, and at times straight back to 'unemployed' mode, feeling lost, adrift, structureless, demoralised. And here we go again, I have the feeling I should be feeling better by now. I read something yesterday in a therapy publication, in which someone mentioned that the worst thing that had ever happened to them was a nervous breakdown in their 40s, that had taken 'several months' to recover from... Comparing oneself with other people rarely helps, or not in a competitive way anyway. I very unconsciously understood this as a message that I am taking an unreasonably long time to recover from my -- what shall we even call it? -- disaster...

I'd like to get out from under this particular cosh. When I begin to bully and criticise myself, all that happens is that I compromise my recovery, feel worse, do less. Vicious circle beckons. I start to doubt that the work I am doing is ok, or that I'm able to do it, and off we go on another bareback ride on the wild horse of self-loathing. I hesitate to write that, but that is what it amounts to. And I don't, consciously at any rate, loathe myself, quite the reverse; but these are old and deeply worn ruts we unwittingly fall back into when the going gets rough. It's so hard to keep noticing, and intervene before the damage is done, to forgive myself when I realise I haven't noticed and damage has been done ('look what you've done again') and off we go again.

Today I am noticing. One thing that helped was Jean's comment about painful mental states and I thought 'yes, these are painful mental states, am I acknowledging this?' No, I had been just suffering them and somehow thinking I shouldn't be. The other thing that helped was a Feldenkrais lesson, which helped me become more aware of where I'm tightening, overworking parts of my body, and very gently, and without criticism, to explore these and to consider things that could help.