Posts from — January 2008

I’m having one of those moments right now where it feels like the cumulative work I’ve done with Andrea, the thinking I’ve been doing, and the living I’ve been doing is working it’s magic on me and my best bet is to just kind of take it all in without understanding it.

There’s tons of stuff I’d like to do – clean house (the house is literally dirty) or work in the garden – but it feels like life and the universe just wants me to sit still and take in the goodness it wants to bestow on me.

Hmm. This is an interesting distinction for me. So many times I feel like it’s me that wants and needs to plug into the universe and now (and other times I’ve had this feeling) I can feel that the universe wants to plug into feel.

It feels good to have this awareness.

Today I am sick with a head cold, sore throat and mild cough.  It’s reminding me of days past when being sick was even more miserable than it had to be because I was terrified of the impact that my illness would have on my performance in the world.

In those days the only barometer I had of my sense of self-worth was based on how well I succeeded out in the world.  So when I got sick it was terrifying.  Everything about who I was felt like it was on the line. I had no enduring sense of myself that could transcend being sick.  

It was four years into therapy before I recognized this feeling. I was in my car talking with my therapist on my cell phone.  I was parked in a corner lot across from a gas station just blocks from my twenty story office building.  It was after 9 am.  I had gotten myself to work despite having a cold, but I’d headed home because my brain was not functioning.

I’d called my therapist in a panic.  I was so scared because I wouldn’t be there to do my job and I thought everything would crash down on me.  I was also feeling edgy and uncomfortable just at the thought of being sick.  It was untenable.  I had no place to go inside of me to feel comfort, and of course my failure to perform was also adding to the weight of the situation.

Andrea calmed me down and this was the first time that we started to talk about this feeling. The first three years of our relationship were filled with conversations about my failing marriage.  Most of the fourth year we were talking about the fall out from my divorce.  This was a rare moment when we had the luxury to focus exclusively on me without distraction.

After I spoke to her, I still felt miserable.  However, as I am writing this post, I can see that it was a key moment when I let Andrea really help me and reassure me.    I did feel better because she was there, because she still had respect for me even though I felt so useless, so unable to get any sense of esteem because I felt so broken.

This experience happened about six years ago.  It would be many more years before I could understand and access Andrea’s respect, love and guidance for me on a regular basis.   I’d like to think of myself as being a smart cookie, but when it came to this kind of stuff it took me a very long time to grasp that I did not have to live alone. I am still learning this.

So it’s remarkable to me that today I can be sick, allow myself to relax, and feel what I am feeling.  I used to be consumed with the fear that I’d never feel better. I couldn’t soothe myself through the healing process and remember that I could be well again. Now I can be with myself in the discomfort and know that one day I will be well.  This sickness does not define who I am entirely as a person.  And I can even enjoy the luxury of being angry that I can’t do what I would like to do because there’s no anxiety attached to the frustration. 

Starting today I’m going to start publicly sharing some of my experiences around my therapy as a way to share and have a conversation with others about developing a strong attachment relationship in adulthood.  

In my blog reading it has been so comforting to know that there are adoptive parents paying attention to the bond that they develop with their non-biological children.  However, I haven’t come across (yet) another blog that addresses attachment for adults – what it’s like to feel unattached, what feelings come up in therapy when the attachment works, when it doesn’t, what’s possible because of that relationship, and more.  

I’ve been in therapy for over ten years.  It was only last year that it began to gel, when I discovered what could be possible in therapy.  It could have been so helpful to read about another’s experience and find words with which to compare and contrast my own experience.