Bittersweet Goodbye

This week I said goodbye to my second client ever. It was surprisingly bittersweet. Of all of my clients she has pushed and challenged me the most. She has shocked me the most. She has scared me the most. Of all of my clients I understood her the least. Yet somehow the roller coaster ride she took me on made me grow the most of all. In the midst of it I wished she was not my client. But looking back I know she taught me the most. So to say goodbye was harder than I imagined. Perhaps because many times I had wished for it (and felt guilty for the thought). Yet when she told me on Monday that she was moving to her father's house on
Friday, I felt sad.

If it had to end, it ended at the best point. My client has had several months of positive mood, and relatively unconcerning behavior. So to say goodbye at this point was a relief, because I let her go at a good place. We talked about her journey in the last year, and her experience in therapy. I was surprised to learn that she looks forward to seeing me now, and that she has learned and grown a lot from therapy. It was a wonderful personal validation, and reminded me that I can impact even the most challenging clients.

While I have ended therapy with many clients, they have all been relatively short-term. This was my first taste of what will be a lifetime of bittersweet goodbyes. To know someone so intimately; for someone to be so vulnerable with me; it is hard to imagine that I will never know where their lives will go. I only have memories and the hope that they will live wonderful lives.

Thin

I remember it as far back as age seven or eight. I wouldn't wear a regular gymnastics leotard; it had to cover my theighs. I was a tiny little girl and I thought I was FAT. I remember looking in my grandmother's mirror at age ten in my two piece bathing suit. I didn't even have hips yet and all I saw was FAT. I remember the exact day I started an 11 year stint of food restriction. I was eleven years old and I often bought a pink cookie at lunch time. Then one day it occured to me that if I stopped eating those cookies...if I stopped eating fat, I could get skinny.



During middle school I didn't understand that calories are what cause weight gain, I thought it was all about fat grams. I would eat 20 grams of fat a day, and punish myself with eating only 5 if I went over one day. As my mom started to notice she got more controlling about what I ate. This only fueled my obsession. I threw away lunch items she sent with me, and supervised her cooking so she didn't add oil or butter to my food.



In high school I discovered calories and sugar, and my obsession grew. Friends noticed my odd food habits and commented frequently. I was "that girl." The one they called "anorexic," even though I wasn't. I was never quite sure if they were concerned or jealous. Their comments embarrassed me and made me proud at the same time. Embarassed at the attention, but proud I had the self control. Breaking my jaw came with the welcome side effect of not being able to eat solid food, so I lost weight. Working at the student store was another easy was to distract myself from eating lunch. Even my boyfriend breaking up with me was fuel for the fire. I was hurt and I thought the best revenge was to lose weight. If I could just be skinnier I would show how lovable I was. Even visiting my family was inspiration to lose weight...especially my dad. In my mind I would be more beautiful, more perfect, more lovable, if I was thin.



College brought a whole new world. Joining a sorority was amazing in many ways, but horrible for my already unhealthy relationship with food. Imagine living in a house with 100 pretty girls, all commenting on weight and striving to be thinner. Imagine the people you live with talking about disordered eating as if it was normal. I began to drink in college, but only shots of votka because then my stomach wouldn't expand much when I drank. I would restrict food all day if I was going to drink, to save the calories.



Dessert was a new temptation as well. I never had dessert in my home, so I certainly did not know how to eat it in moderation. I would try not to eat dessert when others were watching, but would sometimes go back to the kitchen and eat sweets when no one was around. Then I could avoid the shame of being so disgusting and out of control. At one point I was so disgusted that I had eaten several helpings of dessert that I tried to throw up. I only did this for a few months, and I was smart enough to know it wasn't going to get rid of the calories. But it was a challenge to myself that I had it in me to get the food out. But I also felt out of control and guilty that I couldn't restrict. I would way rather be anorexic than bulimic. Sticking your fingers down your throught is not as easy as I imagined...especially when you're trying to hide it from the women you live with. While I tried to hide it, I also heard other girls talk about throwing up, so I didn't think it was that bad.



My big breakup in college had the bonus of making me so upset I didn't have an appetite. I thought, at least I am getting skinnier because of all this pain. Every few months after our second breakup my ex would call and want to get together. Even if I only had a week, I would restrict as much as I could before seeing him. If I was thin I was showing him.



I am not entirely sure what happened to bring me to where I am today. The summer after graduation I began to relax a bit more about what I ate, but the thoughts were still there. "How sick am I for eating nachos." Gradually during graduate school I began to uncover the many factors that added to my food issues. My mom, and two aunts had eating disorders. My family is CONSTANTLY talking about food and weight. My mom is a nazi about every aspect of food. No preservatives, food coloring, gluten, dairy, sugar, etc. Perhaps most of all I am a perfectionist. I am a perfectionist about most things, but especially about my appearance (perhaps a throwback to my Oklahoma roots). As my therapist has forced me to see, these are the rational explanations. There are a million other factors. There is a flood of emotions, completely irrational, that overwhelmed me for years. My body and food were something I could control myself, unlike most things in my life.



As I approach the end of graduate school I am at a place of peace. It wasn't there when I started school, but it is a part of me now. I have stopped writing down everything I eat. I let myself eat dessert without guilt. I can tell when I am hungry and full, and eat accordingly. I can usually look in the mirror and see a beautiful body. I now know my worth and how lovable I am does not depend on my weight. I am so much more.



I hope to take my years of struggle and turn them into something good. I want to help women like me. I like to think that I didn't spend half of my life consumed by the obsession to be thin in vain. I think it had a purpose in my life. That I can use it as a therapist to bring true compassion and empathy to my work. I like to think that everything happens for a reason.

Roller Coaster Ride

They make me think

They make me laugh

They make me want to cry

At times they make me angry

At times they make me crazy

At times they suck the life out of me

They touch me to the deepest core

They inspire me again and again

They surprise me with their profound words

At times they make me feel amatuer

At times they make me anxious

At times they make me wonder if I want to go on

They make me feel a million things, like a roller coaster ride

They let me in the most vulnerable, intimate spaces of their lives

They are complex, broken, fascinating people

They teach me more than I can imagine, about being a therapist, about people, about life

One Foot in One Foot Out

For a year and a half I have shut out the numerous negative comments about the job market. "No one is hiring," "Even people with graduate degrees can't get a job," "Everyone is getting laid off." I have told myself that it didn't matter because I am in school, and by the time I graduate there will be jobs. I have been so consumed with the stresses of graduate school, that life after graduate school was a rarely on my mind.

However, the last few months life after graduate school has increasingly consumed my thoughts. I have fantasized about the furniture I want to buy when I move in with my good friend J. I have dreamt of moving out of my mother's house, where I have been since beginning graduate school. But, I have also thought more and more about JOBS.

Sometimes I think positively, and imagine I can get the job of my dreams at an eating disorder clinic or college counseling center. Sometimes I think I would even be ecstatic to get a job at a local mental health agency. But as I think of all of the local graduate programs in psychology related fields, with fresh graduates, I am discouraged. I see few job postings for unlicensed therapists, and I worry that there is too much competition.

I am also noticing that as my anxiety and focus on jobs increases I am slowly checking out of graduate school. Just when the most pivotal moment of graduate school approaches (my final case presentation), I find I am less and less focused on school. I imagine this is a natural process, but it is uncomfortable for me. I like to focus on one thing at a time. But I feel like I am straddling two important aspects of my life: graduate school and my future career.

In terms of job searching I am going to attempt to stay positive. One of my supervisors calls this a "useful fiction," which has become one of my favorite terms. I realize I have a great deal of control in how I view things...and for the sake of my sanity I am going to believe that I will get a job. I am going to believe that I am marketable, even fresh out of graduate school. I am going to believe that my personal qualities and life experiences will augment my limited clinical experience. I am going to believe that my graduate program has made a wonderful name for itself in my community. Most of all I am going to believe that everything happens for a reason...the "useful fiction" I use for everything in life.

Dream a Little Dream

In continuation, I had yet another unpleasant dream last night:

I am at the agency I do my internship at, only it is a large house. I sign my name out on the name board as my supervisor comes down the stairs. I am stressed about something, and ready to get out of the building. As I walk out my supervisor says my friend J's boyfriend, M, called. She asks me to talk to him. Then suddenly J is there in the window, doing her hair. Then I am telling someone outside about M. I tell them that he is "quirky."

Whether this was part of the same dream, or after, or before, I do not know. Dreams are strange that way.

I get an e-mail from the dean of my university. It is about graduation. It says something about making sure your family and guests are cordial and do not create conflict. Then I am on campus calling my aunt L. I tell her I got an e-mail saying our families must get along. L gets defensive and tells me this may be impossible with aunt J there as well. I tell her aunt J is not coming anymore. She is still offended and says she can't guarantee she will get along with everyone. I am surprised at aunt L's reaction. She is usually the calm and reasonable one. She is a counselor. She tells me she doesn't think she will come to my graduation either. I am crying, walking around campus, with sunglasses on. I pass V and S from my program. They look at me in a concerned way, but say nothing as I pass them. I continue walking, thinking: my aunts aren't coming, my dad isn't coming. Only my mom will be at graduation. Then I wake up to my mom opening the front door and I realize it was all a dream.

What Dreams May Come

I promised myself I would keep up with this blog, not for the hundreds of followers (really just one), but for me. So I have a place to vent, a place to put to paper (or computer screen) what is in my head. When I thought of what I wanted to write today I could not think of anything profound, nor did I want to relive the stress and annoyance of my week. Somehow writing it out would simply be reliving it. I want to put it behind me and move forward. Instead, I want to write about a new phenomenon for me: DREAMS.

I know this may sound odd, that dreams are a new thing for me. But really they are. Not because I didn't have dreams before. Not because I didn't think about them. But because they never had much meaning to me. Since I began therapy I have put more thought into the less "rational" parts of myself. Dreams are certainly not rational. Yet I have been noticing them a lot lately. I have noticed them because they are frequent. I have noticed them because I remember them. I have noticed them because they involve major parts of my life. I have also noticed them because, more often than not, they are uncomfortable and unpleasant.

I told my therapist about dreaming about my clients, and that I wanted to get them out of my dreams. She said "what if you didn't have to get rid of them?" "What if they meant something?" As I told her about one of my dreams, I realized so much of it made sense. I dreamt of a teenage client of mine picking me up with a bunch of teenage boys in a car. Then I was in my sorority (although it was a different building in the dream). There were clothes thrown everywhere. The place was total chaos. My therapist said, "interesting, her life is chaotic and messy." Yes, that is totally true! So, no I'm not a dream reader (nor do I believe in them), but I do think it is interesting to think about what my dreams may be telling me.

So in continuation of my mother-aunt drama, here is my latest vivid dream:

I am getting married. I wake up in an empty room on the carpet floor. Then I realize I have no one to do my hair or makeup. A friend throws some bobby pins in my hair...but it is falling out and lopsided. Then I rush to throw makeup on in a time crunch. I try to pin my own hair back in the bathroom. Then, in my wedding dress, I decide to go pee. I dip the entire train in the toilet water. My pretty, strapless, mermaid, champagne dress soaked in toilet water, with no time to dry. Then I am in the room where the ceremony will happen...a food court. My aunt Jill is there fighting with my mom about something. I feel a rush of emotion. I want to cry.

I woke up anxious and tense. I knew immediately why my fighting family was in the dream. I could guess that my own up tightness was coming though in the makeup and hair fiasco. But I did not realize why I was having a wedding dream. Then I told my mom about the dream. She said, "well you told me that other than your wedding, graduation will be the most important event in your life." Wow, deep mom. I had told my mom that. That I wanted my family to suck it up and get along for the few momentous events of my life. Then I dreamt of my wedding day, disastrous in numerous ways. Perhaps dreams do mean something...