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whatampsydoing · 5 years

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Tuesday thoughts

On Being-in, Being-For, and Being-With by Carl Moustakas (1995)

Every time I feel alone and stepped on, I find myself with this book in my hands. If I had known what I wanted to do in terms of going into psychology a few years earlier, I might’ve been able to actually tell him how much his writing has meant to me. Instead, I engage with him in an imaginary dialogue, years after his death, desperately wanting to ask him, how did you do it?

How did you make it through all the abuse and the stomping boots and the cloud of insistence on conformity with your soul and essence still intact?

Trust the process, I imagine he might say, and trust yourself.

And just like that, I know he’s right. I know I scare people. Somehow more so, I think, than those who are more clearly different and nonconformist. It’s almost like those people are untouchable, and Heidegger’s They don’t even try. I on the other hand am just enough like them, and just enough not, that it upsets people, and drives them, deep down, to want to pull me into their throng.

I don’t think anyone actively wants to hurt me. I think I rather demonstrate to them on a very, very sub-conscious level that someone so like them could also be so very different, and humans fear what we do not understand.

It’s almost like my inherent duality (as both an “us” and a “them”) is so disturbing to some people that they find themselves trying to force me to pick one. I can either be just like them, or not like them at all. How dare I manage both? If they cannot pin “other” on me - as a small, white, intelligent, cis/het woman, there is very little “other” to be observed - I must, then, be like them. And then, I must be like them. I cannot challenge the norms. I cannot be a viable “us” if I seek to change the status quo; and one thing that “us” is very good at doing is determining the “shoulds” and “oughts.” And I should be a whole, authentic person -- but I ought not swear, or drink, or struggle with my own battle. I should be brave and seek knowledge -- but I ought not bare my soul in the process. Or bear my soul, come to think of it. My soul should stay within me; it ought not enter the therapy room.

I ask you, then, why bother at all? My soul is what makes me who I am. I’ve fought a long time against those who would tear me down, who have tried to do so, who have tried to make me choose either “us” or “them,” and the absolute fact is that I cannot choose. I am very much a two-sided person -- but I choose to face both sides to the front. Why should I hide part of me if I have the option not to?

Some prospective clients may not like that I’m vocal about my experience with intimate partner abuse. That’s just fine; I have other clients who broke down wordlessly and cried because I understood the things they could not verbalize. I had felt the horrors that were still waking them up at night. I still struggle with some very somatic pieces of my experience.

But that, too, has made me everything I am. I have lied to save my skin and told the truth when it would hurt me. My dissertation is the lived experience of pulling together a cohesive self after intimate partner abuse -- my lived experience.

I may be many things, but I cannot be a hypocrite. I choose to pour my essence into this dissertation, and into everything I touch. It’s why school has always been so hard for me, and why I feel so hurt and betrayed when I’m asked not to do so. This is the only way I know how to do things right. I am love and I am a healer, academic title aside. I won’t hide myself.

Researchers have been doing that far, far too long. It may not end with me, but I won’t help depersonalize psychological research. So off I go, fighting my battle, with all my selves facing forward.

One of these days I’ll learn to stand up for myself first and cower later, not the other way around.

#duality #personal babble #dissertation related #firebrand life #kinda sucks #clark moustakas #kind of #read if you like #don't if not

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whatampsydoing · 5 years

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Internship waffling

Maybe “waffling” is the wrong word. It’s not exactly that I’m flipping back and forth, it’s that nothing is really a good fit for me, I suppose. I wanted to work with college kids, so I applied to one college counseling center (CAPS). The other place I applied to was a Veteran’s Affairs medical/psychological... place (VA).

... It just occurred to me that the two places I applied to in earnest both interviewed me. The third was a throwaway that I went for literally because I needed to apply to nine tracks and it had several I could use as filler to up the number. I was all “Oh I only had two interviews,” completely forgetting that I only applied to two places. That “internship readiness class” was week after week of them telling me I wouldn’t get picked, telling me I wasn’t good enough, that I had to do things their way, blah blah blah...

Turns out, I did it my way, and got damn good results. That always works for me. Honestly. Because I’m an authentic person... until it doesn’t, I’m always told. But - I’m 31. I’m almost a doctor (of psychology (holy fuck)). I have yet to encounter a situation where it doesn’t work for me to be authentic.

Regardless... I don’t know what to do.

Something about the CAPS interview triggered a trauma response and I spent the rest of the day and the day after at least partially dissociated. I don’t remember the interview, I don’t remember anything poignant about the program... I don’t remember what I said, I don’t remember what they told me or how they responded. I remember my cats interrupted me and I laughed it off and made them laugh, too, because I’m a performer and my entire life is basically being cool on my feet and rolling with the punches. But something about it was bad. Yes, this was the first interview; no, that doesn’t matter. I love interviews, they’re always my favorite part of hunting for a job/practicum/internship because I get to meet new people and, in fact, the people/person I’ll be working closely with for awhile. It’s hard to explain, but it’s fun for me. So. This place is 45 minutes to 1 hour away from the apartment.

The VA who interviewed me were just... fun. I enjoyed the conversation and I enjoyed the people. They liked the questions I asked, and I loved getting to know them a little. I agree with the way that they practice and I’d get to do so much more, including neuropsych, assessment, health psych, pain management, work with other professionals in other fields, and... it’s just fun. Not to mention trauma is kind of my thing. Which... really, if I’m after trauma treatment experience, a VA is ideal. This place is 1h15min to 1h30min from the apartment.

So... do I even rank the CAPS site on my list of preferences? I don’t have to. If I do rank it and I somehow get placed there, I would be bound to go. If I don’t rank it, I don’t have a chance. Of course, there’s always the possibility that I won’t get into the VA, but... well, if they don’t fill all their spots and I don’t get in anywhere, there’s nothing saying I can’t apply again. I mean yes it’s probably frowned upon, but I’ve done ballsier things.

... And as I’m writing it’s becoming clear to me that I want to go to the VA. I really wish I wanted to go to CAPS because it’s so, so much closer. Yes, the 3ish hours of driving - or 2.5 - would really suck, probably. Would I have trouble getting myself to do the stupid thing on days when I want to cry and curl up in a ball? Yes. Would I enjoy it, learn a lot, and - assuming I pass their background check and drug test... There’s no reason for me not to, I’m under the care of a pain management specialist and I have prescriptions for everything I take... Just, knowing all that makes me feel... unworthy somehow. Y’know?

But then, as we established in the interview with the VA (I’m smiling as I write this), impostor syndrome is pretty pervasive in this field.

Okay, okay, fuck the CAPS program... But what if I’m being a complete moron saying that?

... But what if I’m not really all that interested in 20somethings. What if I really want to be the one who sits with an old vet - or a young vet - and teaches them about trauma for the first time, or helps them... lost that thought. Regardless... I think... I don’t know. It would be great to understand why I feel obligated to rank CAPS even though I clearly don’t want to go there. This post is getting long, maybe I’ll make another one to explore that.

#personal babble #grad school #doc school #psychology #internship #if anyone has the urge to read this #those tags pretty much sum it up

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whatampsydoing · 5 years

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Schooly-type babble

Because in the end, as it turns out, as much as I would prefer to abandon tumblr on principle, for some reason this is a good platform for me to freewrite and just sort of spill my brain somewhere. I may end up using pieces of things I babble here in my dissertation, even.

Turns out I’m doing an “intuitive inquiry” style dissertation. Which, of course, is the model I know the LEAST about and am the least comfortable with. But, it stands to reason that the things I resist the hardest are often the things I need to do. This topic has chased me, and I originally wanted to do a heuristic/phenomenological blend... which this is, evidently. But somehow it feels so, so much more overwhelming. How the fuck do I explain “lenses”? How do I identify mine?

At least I know what I’m doing. How to gather the people, though... I’m exploring the lived experience of bringing together a cohesive/integrated self after surviving intimate partner violence during emerging adulthood.... Cohesive. Not integrated. Integrated suggests a disintegration as a given, which... isn’t necessarily wrong, but I think diffused/fused/cohesive fits better. It’s also slightly less suggestive of pathology. While there is absolutely pathology in the experience of self/personality-diffusion, it’s less extreme than the idea of self-disintegration. Yes. Okay. Also, “integrated” suggests that the process is finished, which I’m not sure is ever the case so long as we are alive and learning. So we’re keeping emerging adulthood, intimate partner... I’d prefer to use “abuse,” but more articles reference “violence,” and include emotional abuse in the violence. I’d prefer to focus on psychological abuse. I mean, it is my dissertation and my verbiage is gonna win...

And with that, I got a “please have your to-do list for therapy notes completed by tomorrow evening” text from my supervisor. We’re gonna go work on that now... *Sigh* Why do I always want to do exactly everything except what I should be doing?

#personal babble #dissertation braining #freewriting #this is for me really

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whatampsydoing · 5 years

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New username!

Calivinett --> WhatAmPsyDoing

It’s a play on “what am I doing” and “PsyD” and also impostor syndrome, because... fucking doc school, dude.

I still think they hit the wrong button accepting me and I’m in my 3rd year. Of 4, ideally. if I ever get around to writing my goddamn dissertation...

#babble #hello t'world #I'm back #kind of

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whatampsydoing · 5 years

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Rehab for writing injuries

You’ve heard of “making writing a habit,” and you’ve tried, but the pressure to write fills you with horrible pain and dread. You spend all your time wishing you could write but somehow never writing. The “make it a habit” approach doesn’t work for you. But you still want to write, maybe even regularly. Is there nothing you can do?

Here is an alternative approach to try. A rehab program, as it were, for writers with a psychological “writing injury” that has destroyed their desire to write and replaced it with shame, anxiety and dread.

If you have a writing injury, you probably acquired it by being cruel to yourself, by internalizing some intensely critical voice or set of rules that crushes your will to write under the boot-heel of “you should.” “You should be writing better after all the years of experience you’ve had.” “You should be writing more hours a day, you’ll never get published at this rate.” “You should write more like [Hilton Als/Jeffrey Eugenides/Octavia Butler/Terry Pratchett/etc.].” “You should write faster/more/better/etc./etc.”

You know what, though? Fuck all that. Self-abuse may have featured heavily in the cool twentieth-century writer’s lifestyle, but we are going to treat ourselves differently. Because 1) it’s nicer, and 2) frankly, it gets better results. My plan here is to help you take the radical step of caring for yourself.

1) First of all: ask yourself why you aren’t writing.

Not with the goal of fixing the problem, but…just to understand. For a moment, dial down all of the “goddammit, why can’t I just write?” blaring in your head and be curious about yourself. Clearly, you have a reason for not writing. Humans don’t do anything for no reason. Try to discover what it is. And be compassionate; don’t reject anything you discover as “not a good enough excuse.” Your reasons are your reasons.

For me, writing was painful because I wanted it to solve all my problems. I wanted it to make me happy and whole. I hated myself and hoped writing would transform me into a totally different person. When it failed to do that, as it always did, I felt like shit.

Maybe writing hurts because you’ve loaded it with similarly unfair expectations. Or maybe you’re a victim of low expectations. Maybe people have told you you’re stupid or untalented or not fluent enough in the language you write in. Maybe writing has become associated with painful events in your life. Maybe you’ve just been forced to write so many times that you can no longer write without feeling like someone’s making you do it. Writing-related pain and anxiety can come from so many different places.

2) Once you have some idea of why you’re not writing…just sit with that.

Don’t go into problem-solving mode. Just nod to yourself and say, “yes, that’s a good reason. If I were me, I wouldn’t want to write either.” Have some sympathy for yourself and the pain you’re in.

3) Now…keep sitting with it. That’s it, for the moment. No clever solutions. Just sympathize. And, most importantly, grant yourself permission to not write, for a while.

It’s okay. You are good and valuable and worthy of love, even when you aren’t writing. There are still beautiful, true things inside of you.

Here’s the thing: it’s very hard for humans to do things if they don’t have permission not to do them. It’s especially hard if those things are also painful. We hate feeling trapped or compelled, and we hate having our feelings disregarded. It shuts us down in every possible way. You will feel more desire to write, therefore, if you believe you are free not to write, and if you believe it’s okay not to do what causes you pain.

(By the way: not having permission isn’t the same as knowing there will be negative consequences. “If I don’t write, I won’t make my deadline” is different from “I’m not allowed not to write, even if it hurts.” One is just awareness of cause and effect; the other is a kind of slavery.)

4) For at least a week, take an enforced vacation from writing, and from any demands that you write. During this time, you are not permitted to write or give yourself grief for not writing.

This may or may not be reverse psychology. But it’s more than that.

Think of it as a period of convalescence. You’re keeping your weight off an injury so it can heal, and what’s broken is your desire to write. Pitilessly forcing yourself to write when it’s painful, plus the shame you feel when you don’t write, is what broke that desire. So, for a week (or a month, or a year, or however long you need) tell yourself you are taking a doctor-prescribed break from writing.

This will feel scary for some folks. You might feel like you’re giving up. You might worry that this break from writing feels too good, that your desire to write might never return. All I can say is, I’ve been there. I’ve had all those fears and feelings. And the desire to write did return. But you gotta treat it like a tiny crocus shoot and not stomp on it the second it pokes its little head up. Like so:

5) Once you feel an itch to write again—once you start to chafe against the doctor’s orders—you can write a tiny bit. Only five or ten minutes a day.

That’s it. I’m serious: set a timer, and stop writing when the time’s up. No cheating. (Well…maybe you can take an extra minute to finish your thought, if necessary.)

Remember: these rules are not like the old rules, the ones that said, “you must write or you suck.” These rules are a form of self-care. You are not imposing a cruel, arbitrary law, you are being gentle with yourself. Not “easy” or “soft”—any Olympic athlete will tell you that hard exercise when you’ve got an injury is stupid and pointless, not tough or virtuous. If you need an excuse to take care of yourself, that’s it: if you’re injured, you can’t perform well, and aggravating the injury could take you out of the competition permanently.

For the first few days, all of the writing you do should be freewriting. Later, you can do some tiny writing exercises. Don’t jump into an old project you stalled out on. Think small and exploratory, not big and goal-oriented. And whatever you do, don’t judge the output. If you have to, don’t even read what you write. This is exercise, not performance; this is you stretching your atrophied writing muscles, not you trying to write something good. At this stage, it literally doesn’t matter what you write, as long as you generate words. (Frankly, it would be kind of weird and unfair if your writing at this point was good.)

6) After a week, you can increase your time limit if you want. But only a little!

Spend a week limiting yourself to, say, twenty minutes a day instead of ten. When in doubt, set your limit for less than you think you’ll need. You want to end each writing session feeling like you could keep going, not like you’re crawling across the finish line.

Should you write every day? That’s up to you. Some people will find it helpful to put writing on their calendar at the same time each day. Others will be horribly stifled by that. You get to decide when and how often you write, but two things: 1) think about what you, personally, need when you make that decision, and 2) allow that decision to be flexible.

Remember, the only rule is, don’t go over your daily limit. You always have permission to write less.

And keep checking in with yourself. Remember how this program began? If something hurts, if your brain is sending you “I don’t wanna” signals, respect them. Investigate them, find out what their deal is. You might decide to (gently) encourage yourself to write in spite of them, but don’t ignore your pain. You are an athlete, and athletes listen to their bodies, especially when they’re recovering from an injury. If writing feels shitty one day, give yourself a reward for doing it. If working on a particular project ties your brain in knots, do a little freewriting to loosen up. And always be willing to take a break. You always have permission not to write.

7) Slowly increase your limit over time, but always have a limit.

And when you’re not writing, you’re not writing. You don’t get to berate yourself for not writing. If you find yourself regularly blazing past your limit, then increase your limit, but don’t set large aspirational limits in an effort to make yourself write more. In fact, be ready to adjust your limit lower.

When it comes to mental labor, after all, more is not always better. Apparently, the average human brain can only concentrate for about 45 minutes at a time, and it only has about four or so high-quality 45-minute sessions a day in it. That’s three hours. So if you set your daily limit for more than three hours, you may be working at reduced efficiency, when you’d be better off saving up your ideas and motivation for the next day. (Plus, health and other factors may in fact give you less than 3 good hours a day. That’s okay!)

Of course, if you’re a professional writer or a student, external pressures may force you to write when your brain is tired, but my point is more about attitude: constant work is not necessarily better work. So don’t make it into a moral ideal. We tend to think that working less is morally weak or wrong, and that’s bullshit. Taking care of yourself is practical. Pushing yourself too hard will just hurt you and your writing. Also, your feelings are real and they matter. If you ignore or abuse them, you’ll be like a runner trying to run on a broken ankle.

I know I’m going to get someone who says, “if you’re a pro, sometimes you gotta ignore your feelings and just get the work done!”

NO.

You can, of course, choose to work in spite of any pain you’re feeling. But ignore that pain at your peril. Instead, acknowledge the pain and be compassionate. Forgive yourself if pain slows you down. You are human, so don’t hold your feet to the fire for having human limitations. Maybe a deadline is forcing you to work anyway. But make yourself a cup of hot chocolate to get you through it, literally or metaphorically. Help yourself, don’t force yourself. If you’ve had a serious writing injury, that shift in attitude will make all the difference.

In short: treat yourself as someone whose feelings matter.

Try it out! And let me know how it goes!

Ask a question or send me feedback!

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whatampsydoing · 5 years

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In highschool I wrote a story about a middle-generation of stellar travelers. Their parents were born on earth and left as children, and the middle generation will not live long enough to see their destination. They live their entire lives on the ship and I wrote about them trying to find their place in everything. They will never know blue skies and warm beaches and open fields with warm breezes. They’ll never know birdsong or crickets or frogs. They’ll never hear the rain on the roof of a dreary day. I never could find the right way to end the story. I wanted it to be a happy ending, but I didn’t know how to do it.

I realize now that it was a book about me dealing with depression before I even knew it. Looking back at how blatant the projecting was, it’s obvious now. It wasn’t then.

In the story, the middle-generation people are lost. They’re apathetic. They’re just a placeholder. The only job they have is to keep the ship running, have kids, and die. As the middle generation of people began becoming adults, suicide rates were skyrocketing. Crime and drug rates were jumping. This generation was completely apathetic because they felt that they had no use.

In the story, a small group of people in the middle-generation create the Weather Project. They turn the ship into a terrarium. They make magnificent gardens and take the DNA of animals they took with them and recreate them and they make this cold, metal spaceship that they have to live their entire lives on into a home. They take what little they have and they break it and rearrange it into something beautiful. They take this radical idea and turn the ship into a wonderful jungle of trees and birds and sunshine.

And I realize now how much it reflects my state of mind as I transitioned from a child into an adult while dealing with depression. You always hear “it gets better” and “when you’re older things will be easier” and I was so sick of waiting for it to get better. I was in the middle-generation stage. And I was sick of it. I was so sick of waiting.

When I was in highschool I didn’t know how to end the story. I didn’t know how to have a happy ending. I didn’t have the life experience then to finish the story in a meaningful way. I didn’t know how to make it better for these middle-generation characters.

But now that I’m older, I’m learning. That if you sit and wait for things to get better, it never will. You have to take your life and break it apart and rearrange it into something beautiful. You have to make the cold metal ship into the garden that you deserve. You have to make your own meaning. You have to plant your own garden.

You have to teach yourself that being happy is not a radical idea.

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whatampsydoing · 6 years

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#Loki #thor ragnarok #omg #''you had one job.''#i'm dyign #also I haven't seen this movie yet #STILL #because I'm a boring boring-face #and I never go anywhere #So this might not actually be funny #but I laughed

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whatampsydoing · 6 years

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Babble

So, in a random discussion about the possibility of my guy and I getting married, my mom admits that she’d still really like me to have a Rabbi do the ceremony, and incorporate parts of the Jewish culture into the ceremony. The BF’s family is Catholic. And Albanian. I’m sure they’ll want a - what, priest? Pastor? Who does these things in Christian faiths? The last Catholic-type wedding I went to lasted a good few hours. I’m not opposed to having officiators from both family cultures, but... the funniest part is that he and I are both spiritual at best. At least we share the same values and beliefs about the connectedness of the universe. What I would have us do, ideally, is have a completely non-religious ceremony and leave “God,” “Yaweh,” and “Jesus” out of it. They certainly won’t show up in our vows (which I would like for US to write)... Or, skip the ceremony altogether. Which is beginning to look like a better "option.” Except for the fact that I want our families to come together as one. Like, that is, actually, important to me. Our individual families love us, they just haven’t met each other yet. Our mothers are very much alike in a way they won’t see at first, but my mom will pick up on it. She’ll love li’lsis. Our fathers, however, are very very different and I have no idea how my dad will feel about them.

My dad is a completely different issue, though... And I really hope he’s still around to walk me down the... and see, that’s another reason to have a ceremony. For how much I really hate all the pomp and circumstance (and I WILL throttle anyone who attempts to play that), I really kind of want it. I want the stupid expensive dress, I want to walk down the aisle and have my father give me away, and... I dunno, maybe it’s better to open my mind to a new vision of all that.

Or, maybe we’ll just elope and have an “oops we eloped!” party at some point.

But I’m getting way ahead of myself. He hasn’t even proposed officially yet... we’ve just been talking about this stuff lately. I haven’t been to an Albanian wedding, but at this rate, I may see a funeral first... Some not-so-good stuff going on with the family.

#personal babble #I don't feel like classes today #actually no #I feel like classes today #just not tomorrow #I don't like tomorrow's professor #too much work #too much group work #ugh

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