Breaks: Needed and Not

So I said last time that I needed a break. At that instant in time I felt like I needed a break from everything and everyone - especially from therapy. Truly. I wanted to shut myself off from the world (except for work and running) for a little bit in the name of mental health.


Needing a break sounds completely sensible, and in some cases it truly is reasonable and possibly the perfect course of action to deal with a situation. Especially if becoming too involved in the world is allowing you to do everything except take care of yourself. (Kendra from VIR explains this really wonderfully here)

What if it's not though?

What if taking a break is actually the exact opposite of what you need to be doing? What if it's not actually in the name of mental health, but rather in the name (or spirit) of something else?

The reason I felt I needed a break was because I had a rough session with Laura where self injurious behavior was brought up. I won't go into details, because it's not necessary for me to make my point.

My point is that I think sometimes it's important to examine whether or not our perceived needs truly fit into that categorization or if there's more to it than that. If there's something going on that makes us want whatever it is to be a need (rather than just a desire).

If you asked me why I want to take a break or why I feel I need to, I honestly do not believe I could come up with a logical or rational response to the inquiry. I'm pretty much known for my ability to rationalize almost anything in a way that people have problems persuading me otherwise (as they cannot find great fault with my well thought out line of thinking) so that's saying a lot. I could probably, in fact, only tell you that I feel I need time off. That I feel I need to think about things... but isn't that what therapy's for anyways? thinking things through or talking things out? To discuss those feelings?

Now if it were about my therapist... that would be a different case. I think then taking a break to examine whether or not the relationship was the right fit would be a wise decision. It's not about that though. I trust Laura (which is a rare thing for me and I actually think that was part of why the session felt so rough) and I've told her more unspeakable things from my past than I have anyone else. Truly anyone. Some things that I don't think I could have ever told my past therapist (who I had a fairly good relationship with).

Since it's not about my therapist though... maybe I need to re-examine whether or not this need is actually a disordered desire. 

Especially since when I examine what I've done thus far on my break it hasn't exactly been progression of any sort. Something tells me running in the heat and working long hours (I wound up getting called in a lot this weekend) on hardly anything (thank you Paul from Companion Bakery for the extra sugar cookie or it would have been even worse) is not exactly the best way to start a "break" -- if it were for legit reasons. It's as though the break is giving me some sick sort of permission to do whatever I feel like doing.  Which is not what a needed break does or should do.


I feel like I'm stealing missmarymax's tagline, but maybe it's time to #reframe and figure out if I should either cancel my break or actually spend the break in a productive way that's in the true spirit of a needed break... to be honest it's looking like I'm going to be responding to an email I've been ignoring for more than a few days now. In fact, maybe I should before this is even scheduled to post... hmmm.. decisions.

p.s. Well, as of this morning it seems that scientists are tapping into the knowledge of those social psych principles that were outlined on Saturday.. now they're saying one of the reasons diets fail is due to starved brain cells - which goes along with the "urges" I mentioned and not being able to fight them off if you've been restricting.

fear.

When people will read this, it will be father's day... I'm a daddy's girl. There's no question about that. I rarely can bring myself to say anything negative about my father and when I do, I usually follow it up with an emotional meltdown to some degree. Sometimes even thinking ill of my father will turn me to shambles. Whether or not I let people know it tears me up inside is another story.

My father and I held a lot of secrets. Secrets that bonded us together... that cause me to maintain my allegiance (at least partially) to this day.

I had my Laura yesterday (I'm writing this on Saturday) and I read a couple of text messages in that session whose contents and the reintroduction of them (by me reading them again - and out loud) caused me to feel dejected by the time I had made it out to my car - it got worse as the night went - probably since after going home and changing I immediately headed to work. As a consequence of never being able to just unwind (and other things), this morning was not a good one... Resulting in me doing something that could have turned out really horridly.

What set this off? 

Fear.

In particular feelings that I've left unacknowledged... because they seem foreign and scary, that according to the show My Name is Earl, could use a hug.. or maybe just acceptance or validation

You're probably wondering what this has to do with my father - the past few paragraphs seeming quite dis-contiguous. Well, the text message contents reminded me of a few of the secrets I share with my father. There are all these realities based on these two topics, realities that have resulted in fears. Fears which sometimes become consuming and lead to maladaptive coping skills (whoa - IOP flashback). 

So what's the solution here? Something that I'm afraid of...  addressing those aforementioned feelings that are behind the fear. I can say with certainty that the solution is certainly not not scheduling an appointment for this coming week... which I must rather sheepishly admit was my gut reaction.. rather facing the fear.  Even if that means getting uncomfortable...

While I don't know if I can figure out that appointment situation, I do know that I am going to try to get the day off from work for my next session so that I have time to walk or do something centering afterward instead of rushing off to the next task at hand. I'm also truly going to try to be more open to talking about things. Try. Not just this, but also something else that scares me... a three letter acronym for a treatment method that starts with a D - I'm sure a lot of you can guess it. Why? Because it's important for me to acknowledge that uncomfortableness is a temporary feeling and that by chance the results will be worth it. Accomplishments usually don't happen by always staying within your comfort zones, right? Here's to hugging feelings... and maybe ourselves.

p.s. what are your goals for this new week?

the journey of cleaning

Eventually we'll be having either a Saturday poster or a Saturday guest poster... but until then you'll have a double dose of me each week... take it for what it is ;)


Anyway... this morning I was cleaning, I'm taking a break at the moment to write this and if you came into my lovely little Victorian apartment you would notice it looks like a disaster. It's currently in the state of deep cleaning where things appear worse than when you started... You know you've put in work at this point, but it's a little disheartening to look around and see that everything appears MORE out of control... makes you start to wonder if this was a good idea or not... if maybe the slight clutter and dust you had at the beginning was really all that bad.

However, it's this in between moment that is necessary to truly get a good clean. You have to take everything out to ensure you got it all.. and when you're done? That in-between state was worth it. When you look around and see everything clean and renewed looking, it's a feeling of accomplishment. You're able to live better in a way.

With things such as cleaning, we wouldn't just leave our homes in this state of half-clean. We don't abandon the project.. decide that it's not worth it, that what you had going on before wasn't actually that terrible... Why? Because it needs to be done and the process is part of it.

I think sometimes when we're dealing with problems or struggles though we tend to do abandon it mid-way... as that in-between stage can be uncomfortable emotionally - which actually means we've come a long way

We start to question if the end product is really that much better than what we started with (the issue/problem).  While that middle stage may have you wondering, remember other things in your life that have the same pattern. I mention cleaning as that happened to be applicable to me today but even things such as riding a bike. Learning to ride one is hard when you're little and frustrating... and you start to wonder if riding a bike is really that cool of a thing to do... but when you've learned it... it was worth it.

Don't lose sight of the fact that though the middle stage may seem worse or harder than the beginning ones, it's worth it... Since the ante is SO much higher for recovery, continuing on is that much more beautiful - the end product of living rather than existing is completely worth it.