Perspective

For those of you who aren't in therapy, but should be, please don't let this scare you off, Dr. T does this because she knows it works with me. Sometimes her work is just saying to me "come on." I get myself in such a lather, and she helps me put things back into perspective.

When I said I have an addiction to male attention and that I just want to make out with boys as a drug fix, she reminded me to not be so dramatic. I guess I am a woman, with a sex drive, and who likes attention, like everybody else. Maybe I am a little lonlier than some people, not having a heathy parental relationship, but besides that I am just like anyone else, I want attention and affection and attention, I dont need to pathologize that.

I am seeing, more and more, that the unhealthiest thing about me is that I think I am so unhealthy. I turn every flaw and insecurity into a symptom of an illness. If anything can make you depressed, it's seeing being perfect as normal, and normal as sick.

I told her honestly that I felt that Alan dumping me was evidence that I had an annoying personality. She said I was beating myself up, making it about me, when what I was doing was having sex with a guy who didn't want a relationship. I could have argued that in the beginning he had suggested we might date "forever" and that he asked me how many kids I wanted, but then I could also mention that on our third date I turned into a sex fiend and probably scared the bejezus out of him, combine that with me kissing Alan the day before breaking up with Charles, and having marathon man come visit me made it hard for him to trust me enough to want to commit to me.

In the end she said I was doing very well. I do feel better having talked to her. It's so weird how having someone say "you aren't going off the deep end" makes you not go off the deep end. I said "I am afraid I will go into another depression" and she said "So what?, you will just come out of it again." She took a more gentle approach when I was sicker, but this approach she has now is really effective. I genuinely feel like a normal person with a health issue like diabetes, just coming in and being all dramatic and having her say "just because you like cookies does not mean you have a chocolate addiction and need rehab"