Stillness

[aeolianchaos]

25,

Thank you for contributing your perspective to my situation. I truly appreciate it.

You will never regret behaving with strength and dignity in the face of such pain and loss.

Thanks.. I feel like its a new thing for me - consciously choosing to self-soothe in this way. But the value of it seems immeasurable. Especially if I want to effect change in my R w/ W - she can't keep focusing on my emotions if I'm taking care of them for myself.

"W, I am working on the lessons I learned. So now I want to live in the present & move forward...don't you, w?"

Wouldn't this be pursuing?

I suppose I still struggle with this aspect - when she says "I still have doubts" I tend to respond with "Well based on your actions, it seems clear to me what your intentions are." Thats a true statement, but in response to what she is saying, I think I'm negating something in her communication because I don't want to have false hope and I am deeply suspicious of why she says these things. I don't want to want to hurt her, but I'm also a little protective of my own heart right now.

any news on the job front? And are you seeing a c or t or are you on any meds?

I am still looking for work. Applying at a number of places and will be doing follow-up contact this week. The place I want to work at most, won't be hiring until Oct. (relocating to bigger offices) I'm looking at finding some more freelance work to tide me over, if I can get it. But there are other irons in the fire that might work out before that happens.

I am trying to work out how to more productively use my time in this area - looking at job listings is kind of wasteful past a certain point - so I think if I can apply myself better to the networking and skill development aspect, I may end up landing something better.

But it would be nice to have a little consistency in that area for once.

I will address the IC thing below.

Maybe you can let your present pain be a catalyst for change. Oddly, though you hit rock bottom early this year

Yes - I like to think about this in the sense that when I hit rock bottom, I actually fully acknowledged the pain I was in with my own life and the suffering that I was unnecessarily putting myself through in the process. While I've always been 'smart,' I've had a hell of a time understanding my own emotions and anxieties for most of my life.

When I hit rock bottom, I didn't know what was going on with me - I really felt like I was losing my mind. The first IC I saw suggested I might have OCD. The IC she referred me to said it was pretty severe Burnout, and it probably started about 10-12 years ago based on my history.

Given a clear sense of direction and the tools to reach those goals, I got myself back together relatively quickly - within about 6 weeks of very focused and intensive work on myself I felt more at peace and better about my life than I could remember feeling in a long time. I suppose in her own way, WAW did me a favor not telling me about the A until after that.

No meds - well, they gave me a valium when I got my wisdom teeth out earlier this summer.

So I am working with an IC still, although at this point she feels like I am handling everything very well. We talk more about my other issues than about my R stuff at this point. At this point it seems like the focus needs to be on self-confrontation and daring to be more of the person I want to be.