Theraped

It has been noted by several people in my life that "therapist" breaks out to "the rapist" with the single addition of a space. Although I do not personally believe therapy is the rape of the unconscious by the conscious, I do believe that there is an element of violation in the whole process.

As I prepare myself to be "theraped" today, I can't help but to think that, in order to be a successful counselor or therapist in my own right one day, I should probably be able to help myself right now.

Of course, what I'm doing right now could be construed as helping myself, as I'm deciding, at this moment, to take some charge and responsibility over my life and my ultimate dissappointment with it.

In any event, I look up therapy techniques on the net, including a wonderful little article about "7 types of therapy to help depression", or so the article claims, which is basically a rundown of the current therapy techniques, without too much actual discussion of how successful each type is for depression.

Am I depressed? I would guess "yes". I have been depressed before, and I recognize the hopelessness in it, and the frustration. For me, depression and anger have always been inextricable...in this way I guess I react more like a man than a woman. I experience pain, both physical and mental, and overwhelming sadness that life cannot be wonderful, or even tolerable, for large stretches of time. The bursts of rage are actually welcome, then, as they are better than the moments when I sit in my chair, after exhaling, waiting to die by virtue of not ever inhaling again, and closing my eyes and thinking "this is what death feels like".

This sounds hopelessly melodramatic, but depression is a melodramatic, and it is hopeless.

More than wanting to die, I want to die to this life, and can understand how people have deep religious conversions in order to die to this life. In the Appendix to Dune, Frank Herbert mentions religion and the need for a religion to address man wanting to be different than he is. . . that self-satisfaction has no place in religion. I can also understand why people mistake wanting to die to the current circumstances and wanting to die...you know...forever. Because there are times when you're really steeped in desperation, and you know, logically, that none of this will ever end (even if your limitations are illogical or self-imposed, or your assumptions are bad), and so the only remaining way "out" is six feet under. But, I think because of my past, I can see the need to re-invent as a better way to cope than to actually slit my wrists. After all, what happens if it's unsuccessful? Then I'm stuck unable to type or write with giant scars. . . No, re-invention and dying to this moment is better.

And one can argue (and I do argue, when I am trying to rally myself), the theory of "Positive Disintegration" for this state...that in order to change, the life that is here must die. To grow, the old shell must crumble. That in order to change, the me that is me at this moment must go. Perhaps this is why we "go" crazy.

So we give ourselves over to our inner crazy, and we see what emerges. It is the therapist, then, who comes in and rakes through and pours over our crazy mess, and tries to yank out that bit of sanity. Thinking over this, perhaps the term "therapist" is more accurate than I thought. :-)

So off I go to expose myself and allow someone to sift through my emotional scat, to determine my path through the game trails of existence.

When instead I could be reading books and watching movies, like the Blind Melon song "No Rain": "All I can do is read a book to stay awake/and it rips my life away but it's a great escape."

Movies have actually been better therapy for me recently.

I saw "Neverwas" yesterday. Man, did I bawl my eyes out and my kids looked at me like I was an alien and asked me why I was crying. But it was because I felt how lonesome and desperate it is to have that fantasy world ripped away, to lose your dreams, to wake up in the real world, not knowing how the Hell you got here, and wish you could close your eyes and let the dreams happen again.

But here we are, referring back to the Cherry Post...this blog is to help me in that journey to re-establish those dreams.