I stocked up on a lot of groceries yesterday -- I spent a lot more than I had intended, but I needed those things. I have been inspired to make some big changes to my diet -- more lean meats, veggies, fruits, legumes, beans, brown rice, non-fat dairy, and including egg whites. I'm also going to cut way back on my sodium intake. It's scary how much salt they pump into stuff.
I've also been working on my writing. I finished a short story I was working on when my power was out. Now I have three short stories to revise, as well as a novel that has been awaiting revision for months.
Today, I met with my C again. This session went really well (as they always seem to do), and we explored a lot of stuff. Here are some highlights:
--I asked her straight off: Did my "behavior" in the past sound like OCD to her? Yes, she said, I definitely did have it. "You could go right down the list and check them off," she said. It made me feel more at ease -- better the devil you know than the devil you don't.
--I said that I was having concerns that my OCD made me a bad person in that I hurt my W so much in dealing with it. She said no, I wasn't a bad person at all. I had done the best I could in that situation. She was honestly surprised that I didn't get professional help when these symptoms became a real problem.
--She said we both were responsible for the R's implosion, not just me. We were both young, and we had tried the best that we could, but we made a lot of errors because of our lack of experience and our own separate demons. Again, she was surprised that we hadn't looked into professional help like couples' counseling.
--I talked about the last convo I had with my W. She thought that my W's behavior was not only inappropriate and weird, she also seems to be "objectifying" me -- I'm something to have and control to her rather than a person of worth. I agreed with this assessment.
--We wrapped things up by discussing my doubt that I could ever resume an R with my W. I told her how I often felt cut off from the world around us during our R and how much power I constantly deferred to her in order to define myself. C said that it sounded like we had a "parental R" -- my W was the parent and I was the child who looked to her for everything. She thought that this long-standing dynamic would be the biggest deterrent to repairing the R; we're both going to become very different people than who we were.
--She said that I should spend this time dating casually (either alone or with a group), defining myself, and just generally being a twenty-something. I told her that many had suggested MeetUp.com, had she ever heard of it? Of course she has, she answered, she recommends it to all of her patients! (So I'm definitely going to do that in a big way.)
A lot to think about, but I came away very happy and felt better about myself and my life in general. I'm not just going to be okay -- I'll be better than I ever was before.
