Tag Archives: reading

An Uneasy Dwelling – Delayed Reflections On Living In A Therapeutic Community

Posted by What It Takes To Be Me in Boundaries, Community, Diagnosis, Expressing Emotion, Family, Friends, Group Dynamics, Home, Illness, Psychotherapy, Reading and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

It’s been a year now since I moved out of the therapeutic community I used to live in. And I’m still processing it. The ups and the downs, pondering what I took from my time there, what more I could have got from it, what I’m glad to have left behind.

I can say without hesitation that I don’t regret moving in there. I can also say that it is the most stressful living situation I’ve every voluntarily put myself in. With three group meetings a week [on top of my individual therapy sessions outside of the house] it’s a pretty full on experience. Even though I often made the decision to stand on the sidelines, to keep myself at a distance, it was a pretty intense way of living.

Would I have got more out of living there, had I been more invested in it? I don’t know. Maybe. I don’t rule it out. Certainly it made a difference to the sense of community within the house that I chose to not engage as much as I could have, to not push for communal meals, to not easily join in with the household. Yet, at the same time, it just never made sense to me to bring my worries and desperation to the house meetings, to be looked at by people, who – although I liked many of them – didn’t feel particularly safe with. [This, incidentally, is solely a reflection on me, – not on them.] To me, it always seemed like the natural thing to do, to turn to my sisters and the friends I have always been fortunate to have when things got tough, to turn to them for extra support. And for the things I felt I couldn’t necessarily share with them [for whatever reason], well, I had my individual therapy with A. for that. Bringing it to the group sessions, it just seemed a bit odd.

That is not to say that I never shared anything in the meetings. I did. But not on a regular basis. It tended to be only when things were really really bad and I just couldn’t hold my tears back.

So, what was it that I found stressful? Well, in part what I have just written about; the expectation to involve myself, to engage and to share, and the feelings brought up by the fact that it was an expectation which I always felt I would never be able to live up to. Part of that was, as I said before, down to the fact that it didn’t quite make sense to me to share difficult things in a group of people I didn’t really know that well. But, of course, there were more deep rooted trust issues at work, holding me back. Other people, who may also have had friends and family they were close to, didn’t feel the same level of reluctance to take the plunge in the group meetings, and were much better able to let others see their vulnerability.

Another thing that was probably more stressful than I even realised at the time, was the constant stream of visitors to the house. Visitors who came to our meetings with a view to possibly join our household. This was a part of life in the house that I never got used to and always felt distinctly uncomfortable with. It was one of those things that made the place feel a lot less like it was my home as opposed to only being the place where I happened to be living.

People would come, share their story, share of themselves, [or in some cases not share] and we were, I suppose, meant to get a feel for whether or not this was a person who could fit into our house, who might benefit from moving in. It probably doesn’t sound particularly stressful, but it really was. Especially the decision making process, where – in theory – residents were said to have a big say in whether or not someone was invited to join, but which in reality often felt like a humongous and never-ending pressure to get new people in. Often at a time when all you really wanted was to find some headspace for yourself, to settle in the group you were already living with. I remember more than one meeting where one of the house therapists would say something along the lines of the process being about all of us reaching some sort of consensus about whether or not a person was suitable for our house, and in the next breath would not-so-casually mention how we needed to be X number of people living in the house for it to be financially viable. No pressure, right. :þ Also, I always took issue with the fact that the question “Is this someone I can live with?” seemed to be second priority to “Could this person gain something from moving in?”, which, it could be argued, sent the message that the gain of a person joining far outweighed the potential rise in stress level of those already in the house.

Clearly, there were times when the reluctance to accept new housemates were motivated less by worries about how a new person might impact the household negatively, and more about a strong wish to hold on to what was familiar. But, then, is that so strange? For a person to build a home, there arguably needs to be a level of familiarity and stability. A stream of new introductions allows little space for that.

Stressful was also the particular mix of people in the house at any given time. Without going into detail about any one individual, the people staying in the house – at least for most of my stay there – could be broadly grouped into either dealing with depressive and/or anxiety related issues, or difficulties which fell somewhere along the more psychotic end of the mental health spectrum. And, as housemates were supposed to support one another [rather than relying on the house therapists – who only come to the house for the meetings – to sort things out] it at points felt very much like the first group was responsible for the latter group.

It isn’t easy walking through the door, never knowing what you might be walking in to. I’m not going to say that I was in any way the person who most often ended up keeping track of others – I wasn’t – but, there were absolutely times when I had to drop what I was doing in order to help settle a very agitated housemate or, once or twice, call the police because someone had taken off, stating they were going to kill themselves. And I think this way of always being on the ready to put fires out, to some degree stopped me from being able to explore my own issues more. [Not the only reason for this, of course, but one of them.]

One of the really invaluable, yet hard bought, lessons from my time in the house, was having to seriously think and feel through what boundaries meant to me. Which ones were important to me, which ones did I feel able to be more flexible about? I had to work at asserting myself, when I felt the boundaries were being stretched beyond what was OK for me. Regular readers will remember that my decisions to ultimately leave the community came down to – in part – feeling that I needed to make a stand for myself, to not just go along with boundaries being pushed, but to recognise that what I feel OK with, or not, is important and worth holding on to. But of course, this was an ongoing battle, this getting a feel for when it was important to hold on to my way of living my life, yet at the same time question my reasons and motivations for doing so. When was there a valid reason, and when was I simply being stubborn and resisting change? When was it a case of me being the rebellious teenager I never got to be in my own family, when was it the adult me refusing to see things from another person’s perspective?

While I was staying at the house, one of the house therapists published a book about the community houses run by the Philadelphia Association. I made the conscious decision at the time not to read it while I was still living there.

Having now lived away from the house for nearly a year, I have read it, and I have to say that it’s a book well worth reading. I found it very interesting to read about the history of the houses [which I had some idea of, even before moving in, but, again had chosen to not explore too extensively], and how the philosophy behind the houses has altered and varied at different points.

I think it’s an honest book, even though I at times found myself smiling at the discrepancy between the idea of the community houses and the reality of them. At least from my point of view.

Anyway, if you are interested in reading the book for yourself, click the link or picture below.

If you would like to read about my time in The House: entries written between January 2009 and July 2011 were written while I was staying in The House. The first post I wrote having moved in is called “On My Own – An Entry About Finding New Ways To Cope“.

xx

An Uneasy Dwelling by Paul Gordon

An Uneasy Dwelling
by Paul Gordon

Sisters, Study-Avoidance & Melting Crayons

Posted by What It Takes To Be Me in Creativity, Depression, Expression Through Art, Family, Flashbacks, Psychology, Psychotherapy Breaks, Psychotherapy with A, Reading, Studying, Writing and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

So I’m back from my trip to Sweden, and at the moment it feels like it has done me a world of good. It was simply great to spend a whole week with my sisters and their little families and just enjoy being alive. The weather was great and although we all took turns taking ill, all in all it was just really nice to hang out. We basically ate, watched my youngest nephew run around and ate some more. That is, that’s what my sisters and I did. The boys were busy digging in the garden, planting a hedge around it. And in between that we managed to watch a film, teach my sister’s dog to go on the slippery-dip and get my youngest sister and her man to understand how to solve the first two layers of the Rubik’s cube intuitively.

Oh, and my sisters and brothers-in-law gave me the super-awesomest prezzie ever; the new iPad [which I am, incidentally, using as we speak, in conjunction with my bluetooth keyboard].

I feel that this trip has really helped to reset my brain. I feel so much happier than I have in the past several months, and although I am still having flashbacks it’s nowhere near as bad as it was, pre-trip.

Since I’ve been back I’ve started a new course, and – true to form – I’ve excelled at the art of study-avoidance. I am feeling a bit unhappy about having chosen the course I have; a very basic psychology course about stuff I pretty much already know, but just want to get on paper that I do in fact know it. It’s very hard to motivate oneself to read material about stuff you already know, when the main focus ends up being trying to remember sources for future reference, rather than actually learning. That said, of course anything psychology related will always push your little grey cells into action, and you’ll realise you have thoughts and ideas you might not have had when you originally read about a specific study. In short; once I actually open the book, I do get quite into what I’m reading.. it’s just getting to that point of opening the book, which holds me back. There are always a million other things I feel I need to read; blogs, news, tweets, facebook updates.. You know how it goes.. And that’s before I’ve even got to the various iPlayer programs I simply must catch up on, not to mention the millions of YouTube clips I feel will enrich my life to no end..

I do slightly regret that I didn’t decide to do the course on the autistic spectrum which was also on offer. I would really have liked to have been reading that right now. But, I’m trying to use it as a carrot of sorts. If I manage to get through this course [ie find a way to utilise good days of fewer flashbacks, days when I have a reasonable level of concentration] then I’ll be allowed to do the autistic spectrum one after.

So, I suppose that’s all good. Especially the part where I am actually, actively, looking ahead, into the future. The last few months have been so rough, it’s been very hard to think like that, to imagine a time when things feel different, but right now things seems to have swung around for me a bit.

Also, since I’ve been back, I’ve been feeling a lot more creative. I have been working on my book, which is ever so slowly taking shape, and I find myself curious to find out where the characters will take me. And that’s always a good sign.

On top of that very specific writing, my sister and I also hatched an idea about setting up a collaborative writing site online, the idea being that you could go to the site, read something someone has posted and then take over the writing, or join in. I for one have several writing projects which I have started, but which are now mainly collecting dust on my harddrive. What you could do on this new site is to upload what you have written and invite others to complete it, or to co-write it with you. Or you might want to be someone else for a day [come on, we all have those days].. Well, you could go onto the site as a character and join in some playwriting, adding lines on behalf of your character. This is all still in its infancy, but, I only posted the idea late last night on another blog, and I’ve already had people contact me to say they would be interested in joining or starting writing projects.

Observant readers will have noticed that while I have written about how great it was to be with my sisters and how that’s really helped resetting the serotonin levels I’ve omitted to talk about seeing my father the first time in over two years. This is, of course, not by chance. In short, it was actually really lovely seeing him and his boyfriend, and spending time with them. But, knowing me, I tend to only begin processing these kind of encounters a while after getting back to the UK. So, keep an eye out and there will more than likely be an update on this particular part of my trip to Sweden.

In terms of not having therapy, well, there is no getting around it – that is still really hard. I miss my space to voice my thoughts. Of course I talk to my friends and I do my writing and all of that, but there just isn’t a substitute for therapy. Therapists definitely should not be allowed to have children! [..says the Therapist’s Daughter..] July – or whenever A. in reality decides to go back to work – feels very very far away indeed..

Anyway, me and my new iPad and bluetooth keyboard need to get to the library now, so I’ll leave you here for now.

Do be kind to yourself, and enjoy the utterly ESSENTIAL YouTube video below..

All the very best and more,

xx

I really need to try this, but maybe on a black or gray canvas, 
and just letting the crayons melt organically in the sun..

Being Wrong & Self-Elected Madness

Posted by What It Takes To Be Me in Being Alive, Expressing Emotion, Faith, Identity, Judaism, Psychology, Reading and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

No one likes to be wrong, right? Wrong.
Right now I’m ecstatic to have been proven wrong. As it turns out snowballs do have a chance in hell; Sweden just knocked the Czech Republic out of the Ice-Hockey World Championships and claimed their place in the battle for gold on Sunday evening. Can’t wait! Go Tre Kronor!

Later tonight Finland and Russia go head to head over the other slot for the final. I’m rooting for Finland in this game. I probably shouldn’t, because Sweden-Finland games tend to be very hard on the old ticker. Lots of history there. But – the games are usually well worth watching. Maybe we should strike a deal with the Fins if they make it to the final; if they let us win the ice-hockey they can win the Eurovision Song Contest.

All this ice-hockey excitement aside, there is something to be said about sport on an international level. It boosts our national pride and strengthens our national identity: we get together and celebrate or commiserate. We’re united, a team. And in a world where we are becoming more and more detached, where even our next-door-neighbours are often faceless strangers, this is not to be underestimated.

Also, sport is an excellent opportunity to express emotions. To let both victorious jubilation and devastating disappointment out, to let it show on the outside, to not hold back. Complete and utter release. It’s good stuff!

So, to those of you who don’t see the point in playing or watching sport, it’s actually a pretty healthy thing to engage in. There’s even been books written about the psychology of it all. More than one, in fact. One which I particularly liked was Football Delirium by psychoanalyst Chris Oakley in which he argues that football offers us the possibility of manageable doses of self-elected madness. This guy gets sport. He is also self-electedly mad. In a good way.

Whether you’re into sport or not, I’d recommend it:

Anyway, soon be time for face-off in the second ice-hockey semi-final of the day, and I need to do some manic last minute pre-Shabbat prep. As much as I love ice-hockey, Shabbat comes first.

That’s just the way I roll.

Be good to yourselves,

xx

Creative Process – Writing Like You Read

Posted by What It Takes To Be Me in Creativity, Painting, Writing and tagged with , ,

Just got back from a very interesting reading / talk at Jewish Book Week, which is underway here in London at the moment. The author, Nicole Krauss, was there to talk about her latest offering; Great House. Having not read the book, nor her most well-known novel to date – The History of Love – I went to this event based on the blurb I read on the Jewish Book Weekwebsite, because something sparked an interest in me, and I was curious to hear the writer talk about her books and writing them.

Being a writer myself I am always interested to hear about other writers’ creative processes and how their particular novels / short stories / poetry come into being. I find it fascinating to find outall the different ways in which people go about their writing. Some seem to very purposefully decide on a topic to write on, do all the necessary research and then set our on their narrative journey. Others, like Ms Krauss, it seems, do it almost the other way around; the writing comes first, then they proof it, to make sure that non-fictious places tally with reality and work within the storyline. Others, still, do something in between, and I suppose that all of these variations, all these different methods, is stuff that falls within the definition of artistic licence.

Listening to Nicole Krauss and fellow author Naomi Alderman [Disobedience, The Lessons], who chaired this event, discussing their particular ways of relating to their writing and the worlds they create made me think about how I write.

One of the things I’ve always been very aware of is that I enjoy writing in much the same way I enjoy reading; the sense of taking a step out of my day-to-day life, into this parallel world which, although it exists in black and white in a very tangible way, for the most part is created somewhere in my mind, at the very moment of reading or writing.

In fact, I would say that I actually write in the same way that I read; I rarely know what will come next. I may have a general idea of the direction the plot may take me, what the essence is, what the message is, but it is not at all uncommon for one or more of the characters to wreak havoc with my plans by not acting or reacting in the way I had intended. I’ve spent more frustrating hours than I care to remember, trying to find a way around these curveballs, to get back on my track, only to – ultimately – scrap my original idea in favour of allowing the characters to remain true to who they are, to be congruently themselves, through and through, rather than force my own personal morals or thought patterns onto them.

One of the things both Krauss and Alderman seemed to agree on was that readers generally have a deep-seated wish to understand the various characters as aspects of the author, that they inevitably offer some insight into who the person who conjured them up is, and that they [the readers] somewhat stubbornly refuse to accept that the characters were, in fact, borne entirely out of the writer’s imagination, and are not necessarily semi-transparent carbon copies of the author’s own self.

Now, while I kind of get that – not every character has the characteristics of its creator, I must also concede that in myparticular case, most of my characters do carry a fair bit of me inside of them. It’s something that shines through somewhere between the words and the commas and the semi-colons. That is not to say that they are all me to the same degree, but they do have a certain something about them, that absolutely comesfrom me. Even when I write characters who are, on paper, [no pun intended] as different to me as day is to night, when I read back, often years later, I will discover that they trigger a memory of the person I was at the time, traits of my personality that I may not particularly wish to admit to having, but nonetheless it is plain to see that I possess.

Anyway, it’s getting late and I’m rambling – an unfortunate side-effect of writing like I read; I tend to not edit myself in the moment, but just write whatever comes to mind, in rather an insequential manner..

Thus, I must stop here, or I may never stop..

I leave you with a painting I made earlier today. Another illustration of my creative process: the painting is called “Fire” and is about feeling destructive, and so, my way of painting this was to paint in layers.. so, even thought you can’t see it in this the final version of the picture there was actually a night sky and a green luminous tree in the background – before I “set fire” to it..

Be good to yourselves,

xx


PS. I have already packed both Krauss’ The History of Love and Alderman’s Disobedience and I hope to be able to read them over the next few days, when I’m in Gothenborg.

Blogs I Read

Posted by What It Takes To Be Me in Community, Reading and tagged with ,

I love reading.

In addition to that I like hearing other people’s thoughts. So, as a consequence, I read a lot of blogs. Masses of them. In fact I spend a ridiculous amount of time reading various blogs. Some sporadically, admittedly, and some which I check for updates on a daily basis. [Yes, yes – I know of the RSS feature, but I find it much more exciting to actually go to a blog and find it’s been updated]. I would list all of them on here, but it would be a bit of a chore, so instead I’ve added a section to the right, appropriately called “The Blogs I Read”. They’re basically the blogs I would not miss a single update of, because they’re simply that good. Listed alphabetically, for fairness.. :)

Now, if you know me, and know that I read and love your blog and feel somewhat offended at not having made The List.. well.. it’s all been done in the interest of relative internet anonymity. Both for you and for me. Best intentions, and so on. You know me well enough to know I’m in no way dissing your blog offerings. I still love your blogs nearly as much as I love you.

Anway, good friends and other random internet wanderers: time to get a move on. Or at least, at a leisurely tempo, get myself in the shower..

What? Too much information?

Bah!
:)

Be good to yourselves,

xx

PS. Can I just point out that it took me nearly an hour and a half to get the heading for S’s Blog Reading List to stop linking to Kellevision? My web design skills are getting rusty..

PS2. If you’re using Firefox, iExplorer or Safari, could you let me know if the right hand menu looks ok? I’m a Google Chrome girl myself, and a lazy one at that.. Can’t be bothered downloading the other main browsers to find out for myself..

Who Is It That Can Tell Me Who I Am? – An Entry About Search For Truth

Posted by What It Takes To Be Me in Reading and tagged with , , , , , ,

By virtue of being a self-proclaimed writer I also spend an awful lot of time reading, getting a feel for other people’s ways of expressing themselves. Also, reading has always been an obvious form of escapism for me, especially when suffering from the inevitable writer’s blocks that every writer encounters at one time or another.

Ever since I was very young I devoured books as were they the very essence of life. Food for thought, but also, nourishment for a starving soul. I had, and to a degree still have, the idea that within those pages of black on white there was truth to be found. Hints to the mystery of life.

I am a slow reader; painfully slow, if you ask some – but for good reason. I need to take my time because reading is for me not only reading, but it’s a combined experience of taking in what someone else is trying to say and figuring things out for myself, sometimes even applying new ideas to my own sense of reality and identity.

I have a tendency to read more than one book at any one time, partly because not every book fits every mood, but also so as to ensure that I don’t get too locked into one set view.

I finished reading a book a couple of weeks ago, Who Is It That Can Tell Me Who I Am? by Jane Haynes. And there was something about it that really touched me in a most profound way. I don’t think I could ever exactly specify what about it it was that so moved me, but I think it was something about the utter honesty and human vulnerability with which it had been written that somehow connected with something inside of me. It’s an enormously beautifully and elegantly written book, but there was something much deeper than just the choice of word, the turn of phrase, that did something for me. I don’t think I’ve even quite fully comprehended what myself. At least not on a conscious level. It is more an instinctive understanding that this was an important book for me to read, than actually knowing what about it it was that made it so important.

So, that, dear friends, is what I intend to ponder on my next lap around the library. I’ll let you know if I come up with something which can be coherently shared.

All the very best and more,

xx

PS. I love the King Learian title of Haynes’s book. How anyone could not love Shakespeare is beyond me.

Stress, Random Thoughts & Specific Theories

Posted by What It Takes To Be Me in Counselling with D, Countertransference, Psychotherapy, Reading, Regression, Relationships, Separation, The Therapeutic Relationship, Transference and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Tomorrow is Friday. The first one back in the country since counselling finished at the end of December. And it does make a difference..

In the midst of dealing with the hang-over from spending Christmas in Sweden, packing up my stuff at the flat, trying to take it in that I won’t be living with Dev come next week, well, I reckon a session with D. would have been pretty perfect.
Someone who knows and understands the context of the thoughts flying around in my head, and who genuinely cares about what I do with them.

Don’t get me wrong, I am doing reasonably well. It’s just that I’m not entirely sure if that is because I’m holding back on more than I should, or because I simply haven’t begun processing all these things yet. Or maybe, just maybe, because I have actually become better at coping with things. Either way, a session with D. would quite possibly help me to at least understand which of the above guesses is more likely to be accurate. I’m not saying that it would necessarily change anything, but I do think that the clearer I am on what I’m actually dealing with, the better I can find the right balance, emotionally.

Apart from the above worries, I am also quite nervous about this new place I’m moving to. I mean, although I have lived in shared accommodation before this will be a completely new experience. Not only will I be living with people who I actually don’t know at all, but the whole set up is very different from what I have experienced before. I think it’s reasonable to assume that it will be quite a big change to deal with; house meetings with my house mates and two therapists three times a week – well, it’s not exactly the norm, is it? I expect I will struggle quite a lot to find my place in this new situation. Still, having said that, I do believe that it is the right place for me to be. I think that staying in a place where the focus is personal change/insight, and all the challenges that will present me with, I’m certain that I will gain a lot from it.

On to something different..
A book arrived in the post while a was away – Karen J. Maroda’s The Power of Countertransference – and now that I’ve finally been able to start reading it I’m finding it difficult to put it down for long enough to get any packing done.

Maroda’s take on analytic technique is one that I personally find very appealing. To a lay-person such as myself her ideas seem to make perfect sense.

I am, of course, well aware of the traditional stance in psychoanalytic thinking; that the therapist will hold back on his or her immediate thoughts and feelings, in order to allow the patient to use the therapist as a blank canvass and to not burden the patient with the feelings the he or she may have evoked in the therapist etc. This is, in essence, to avoid allowing the patient to repeat past habits and thereby reinforcing his or her set pathology. Maroda’s theory, on the other hand, is – and this is a very general and broad summary – that for real change to take place in a therapy situation the therapist must join the patient in the experience of regression, rather than merely observing it from a safe distance. In other words, the therapist needs to both be able and willing to give more of herself to the patient, so that not only the transference factor is being looked at in the sessions, but also the countertransference factor. This, naturally, means breaking off from the often authoritarian therapist-patient relationship that psychoanalytic thinking typically entails. Maroda highlights the fact that even Freud was not unknown to alter his theories when he found that his experiments didn’t pan out the way he had expected, and that as society has undergone such tremendous change in the past several decades since Freud first introduced his theories to the world, so too psychoanalytic technique needs to change. Needless to say, when Maroda’s book was first published back in 1990 it caused something of a stir amongst the practitioners in this particular field. She was not at all the first to point to what to me seem like obvious flaws in the ‘blank canvas’-approach, however, up until then any attempt to bring about change had been fairly limited and there was no structured concept, such as the one Maroda presents in her book.

Anyway, if you happen to have a bit of spare time, I’d recommend this book. It’s probably one of the most accessible and readable texts around on practical implementation of counter-transference as an active part in the therapist-patient relationship, and a very interesting one at that!

xx

Nail Art & Goodbyes

Posted by What It Takes To Be Me in Counselling with D, Creativity, Painting, Psychotherapy, Reading, Relationships, Separation, The Therapeutic Relationship and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I’m not a girly-girl. Not really. I don’t think I ever was. I think altogether my make-up kit consists of one mascara and one lip gloss. Neither of which is in regular use. Having said that I do like doing my nail. It’s also something I do when I am feeling a bit too stressed out about something. I think it’s that balance between having to concentrate enough to be able to not think about anything else, and not being too demanding. The stress level goes up, and out comes my big bag of nail polishes.

At the moment my stress level is pretty manageable. Yes, there are a lot of things going on, but, I think I’m handling it fairly well. Still, I did go slightly nuts the other week and ordered myself this nail art set, and now I can’t help but to wonder if perhaps that is a sign that I am under more stress than I care to admit.

As you know Dev and I split up some time ago, but for a lot of complex reasons we have still been living together. But that’s coming to an end reasonably soon. I applied to go into supported accommodation, and last week I was told that they had decided to offer me a place. So, I’ll be moving at the beginning of January. It’s not very far from where I live now – in fact it’s ridiculously close – but it will be a huge change. Going from sharing a brand spanking new flat in a lovely complex with all mod cons, including a 24-hour concierge service, to a shared Victorian house filled with people who also struggle from emotional difficulties – well, it’s bound to take some getting used to. Don’t get me wrong, I am incredibly happy that I’ve been offered a place – but it will be a real challenge adjusting to living there.

Dev is going abroad next week, the day before I head back home for the holidays – and so these next few days are basically the last we will be living together, since although Dev is coming back for a few days between Christmas and New Year’s, he leaves again before I return. So that’s one thing that’s happening.

Tomorrow is my second to last session of counselling with D. I know I go on about it, but really, this is my blog, and it is a big deal for me. As I’ve said before, I’m not very good with endings, so this makes me quite nervous. Having said that, I am working on it – getting better at saying goodbye to people. I remember talking to P. at The Maytree just before leaving there, and she asked me if I’d be able to look her in the eye and say goodbye. And I couldn’t.

There was just something inside me that made it impossible to do. It’s like letting someone get inside the walls I’ve put up to protect myself. And that’s a hard thing to do.

I don’t think I’m the only one to be like that, though. I think it’s fairly common to find it difficult to say a proper goodbye. But, as I said, I’m working on it. Both with D. and with Dev.

Only a little over a week before going home now. And I am really really looking forward to it. I have no idea what it will be like, but I’m definitely excited about going. I was texting back and forth with my youngest sister today, and one thing we talked about doing is reading aloud from a book called Goodnight, Mister Tom (by Michelle Magorian). It’s a book I’ve probably read fifty times – in fact it was one of the very first books I ever read in English, back when I was nine or ten – and I still love it. So I reckon that will be a really nice thing to do. Snuggle up with lots of blankets and read to each other.

Anyway, little sis just came Elaine (online, Elaine – what’s the difference?) so I’m going to sign off now and talk to her for a bit.

Be good – I have a hotline to Father Christmas and I’m not afraid to use it!

xx