Saturday, October 28, 2006

10/28

Things that I've learned over the past week:

1) Never, ever, under any circumstances beyond self-flaggelation, take a laxative after spending the evening drinking beer. You will wake up every two hours with the worst pain you have ever felt outside of child birth and spend the rest of the next day pooping.

2) It's not that I thought that I couldn't cry anymore (after all, I sobbed when I ripped the passenger side mirror off my car in my parking garage), it's just that I thought I was more numb than I actually am. I've been on Z*oloft for three years now (since I returned from Mongolia). I cried almost everyday when I was pregnant. Immediately following Zac's birth, I cried at least three times a day until the horrendous hormonal change and intense fear tapered off, then the tears only came once or twice a month. Lately, I haven't cried at all, even when I've wanted to (don't ask - sometimes I just want to get it out, ya know?).

3) Within ten minutes of sitting across from my new therapist, I was sobbing in his office.

4) Literally sobbing and apologizing, then crying some more because I'm apologizing for having emotions in front of a stranger, which is ridiculous. If anything, I think that I should start releasing more of my emotions in front of strangers. At least they can't fight back.

5) If I was being "sensitive to myself", I would say that, "Therapy allows me the emotional space to cry," which makes me want to vomit alittle. Now I know why I don't say things like that. I prefer to say, "Therapists make me cry," because it puts the blame on them.

6) Leaving my apartment for four days to go and stay with my parents, without planning ahead or even thinking that I would be gone that long, makes my apartment stink up with a combination of banana peels, rotten diapers and soured milk. I opened the door and understood where the phrase, "the smell of death," came from. I can replicate that smell with four days of neglect.

7) Zac turns a frightening shade of green when he has an upset stomach and his temperature reaches 104 degrees. It also turns out that an oral thermometer can go up my kid's bumhole when an after-hours nurse forces me to put it there. My Mom just kept saying, "I'm going to have to buy another thermometer."

3 comments:

mynewshoes said...

I just had one of those moments reading your blog when I thought, no wonder we're friends. You're great. I hope you're feeling ok these days.
Also:
-I like to try to make my therapists cry...turning the tables on them can be entertaining.
-Be careful where and when you use the phrase "smell of death" because every once in a while, especially on a hot august afternoon on the 12th floor of a building in New York City the smell might actually BE death.

annab said...

it is my opinion that if you can't cry with your therapist, you are not getting your money's worth. if you don't cry, you should get a reduced rate. why should you pay someone to sit there with you while you try and act normal? you can get that for free. i wish i could cry, the best i can get is a big sign sometimes.

ss said...

mine recently said to me, "you know, i've never seen you cry. even when we've talked about really painful stuff you don't get emotional." i then proceeded to confess that sometimes, the only thing that works for my dry ducts is really sad movies.

maybe i should look into that reduced rate.