(Fair warning: this post is long as damn.)
Alright, so. Now's the time I tell everybody about how I'm crazy. (Every time I say that, Lee says, "You're not crazy," to the point that now every time I say it, even if he's not around, I hear his voice in my head saying, "You're not crazy." So, thanks a lot, Lee. I may not be crazy, but now I'm hearing voices.) I mentioned before that I've been seeing a Mental Health Professional, and I feel a need to elaborate on that for some reason. Partly just for the opportunity to be able to sort through things and look at it all from a different perspective. I think life is a lot easier if you can accept yourself, be honest about who you are, and laugh at yourself, so we'll consider this post an exercise in all of that.
My Mental Health Professional is actually a clinical psychologist. One of the hardest things about seeing a Mental Health Professional is the fact that it's hard to refer to her casually in conversation. My Mental Health Professional and I have had some good conversations, and she has often said things that I think might benefit other people I know. But, alas, I can't tell them, because I can't figure out that best way to refer to my Mental Health Professional, beyond the admittedly cumbersome phrase "Mental Health Professional." Talking about "my psychologist" makes it sound like I've been committed to a state hospital, I think. Other euphemisms I've considered are:
- 'counselor' (sounds too much like 'life coach' or 'person who helps you decide where to apply to college')
- 'therapist' (sounds too much like I lie on a couch and talk about how I wish I had a penis)
- 'shrink' (OK, I've never even actually considered this one, because I think it's actually kind of offensive to the MHP, and also doesn't make a lot of sense to me)
Ultimately, I decided just not to mention her at all. When I talk about her to Lee, I just call her by her name, which we will pretend is Cathy. Because I've been extensively educated about different types of mental health treatment and therapy and how effective it is and how it's a very good thing and not shameful in the least, I was honestly kind of surprised to find that I was sort of ... embarassed about it. I shouldn't have been surprised, I know, but I was. Which is another reason that I wanted to write about it. I've read a lot of things on the internet that left me feeling shocked and soothed by how similar they were to my own experiences, and if anyone feels that way after reading this, then I'll consider it worthwhile.
The real question is: why have I been seeing a MHP? I'm honestly not really all that crazy. I like to think of myself as Medium Crazy. I function well, I'm not a danger to myself or others, I don't need medication, hell, maybe I didn't even need therapy (or counseling or whateverthehell). But. I have this voice I hear sometimes. I guess you could call it 'insecurity' or 'anxiety,' but I prefer to think of it as Some Asshole Who is in My Head Without Permission. It's been there for as long as I can remember, and was probably exacerbated by a four-year tour in the great War of Dating a Mildly Emotionally Abusive Jerkface. But after I graduated from college and moved out on my own, the voice of the Asshole in My Head got really aggressive. It was particularly bad at night, and it would start telling me things like...
"You don't have any friends. What if you never make any more friends? What if you're always alone?"
"No one at work likes you, they only invite you along to be nice."
"Are your parents taking good enough care of themselves? What if they die? You'd be all alone. What would happen to your brother?"
"It's all your fault your ex treated you the way he did. Maybe if you had been a better girlfriend, things would have worked out."
"Lee probably wishes you were more like [insert random girl he knows]. You'd better figure out how to be more like that, or he's going to break up with you."
"You shouldn't have gotten into that argument with Lee, now he's going to think you're crazy/awful/a pain in the ass, and he's going to break up with you."
You know, the kinds of things that all happy, well-adjusted people think about.
It came to a head one day at earlier this year. It was Administrative Professionals' Day, and in the space of a few hours I: 1) accidentally went in and sat down on a meeting I wasn't supposed to be in, 2) realized I had forgotten to get a gift for our secretary, and that someone else had gotten her flowers, and 3) found out everyone was going out to lunch with our secretary to celebrate and I couldn't go because I had to interview a study participant. I left work to go to my appointment, and on the way I started crying, while the Asshole in my Head went on and on about what an idiot I was and how nobody at work liked me because they thought I was unfriendly and rude and not thoughtful.
Later that day (when I was calmer and more rational and the Asshole in my Head was out on a coffee break or something), I got to thinking... you know, I bet most people don't become inconsolably upset every other night about their family dying or their boyfriend leaving them. And possibly, it's not a normal occurrence for people to leave work in the middle of the day crying over, basically, nothing. If I remember correctly, it was at that point that the Asshole piped up and said, "Oh no, what if you're depressed? What if this is just the beginning of a long downward spiral into chronic depression, and you end up like those people you saw in the videos in Abnormal Psych, who are medicated and still can't ever be happy and make everyone around them miserable?" And that was when, for a change, my OWN voice spoke up against the Asshole and said, "ENOUGH. FUCK THIS."
Because, you know, it's not as if I haven't put a lot of effort over the years into trying to shut him up. I bargained with him in much the same way you'd talk to an embarrassing relative. "Just be quiet for a little while," I'd say. "Just stop talking to me when my boyfriend is around, and we'll talk later." "Please just lay off the weirdness for today." "Just don't let any of my friends see you." "What do I have to do to get you to act normally??" But the whole thing got overwhelming and I decided it was time to bring in an expert.
So. That's when I started seeing Cathy. And she's a very nice, intelligent woman in her 30s, and we talk things over, and mostly it's been all about recognizing when things are getting a little irrational and out of hand in my head. Cathy is the source of my recent interest in Buddhist psychology and meditation, because she suggested that maybe meditation would help with everything. And I think it does. I think part of the problem is that by just going on with life and trying to ignore the Asshole, I was implicitly accepting everything he said. Then, it would get entrenched in my mind and become a Belief and THEN eventually it becomes 'the Truth.' On the other hand, when I just sit down and listen to him and look at what he's saying objectively, without being distracted by everyday noise and busy-ness, it becomes much easier to see that the things he says are ridiculous. And I can confront him, and come right out and say, "You know, I highly doubt that it's true that everyone dislikes me, and that I'll never make another friend again. And even if you're right, so what, Asshole? Are they still making new episodes of House? Is the sunset still gorgeous from the hill behind my apartment? Can I still obtain Oreos at my local grocery store? If so, I think I'm gonna be all right."
And it's times like that when it becomes clear: It's not me that's crazy, it's the voice in my head.
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