What I Did on My Covid Vacation

This post is only tangentially about what I did during the Covid quarantine. We'll all be digging out of this in the next six months, processing the effects upon our children, parents, ourselves. But we're supposed to reflect this time of year, and we should reflect on the year gone by, or share our dreams for the future. An alternative post would be called, What I'd Like to Do When I'm Free to Move About the Cabin (when Covid is no longer a threat).

BALANCE BOARD, a metaphor? Nah

Hi FBI! 

Friends, I know that this is going to sound like I had a brief psychotic episode or symptoms of schizophrenia, you decide. It started about five years ago. 

Following someone's incarceration for a federal crime, a parent of this person, still positive that her kid would be freed one day, called me to chat. Not unusual, but as we're getting into it she says, "Oh, by the.way, the FBI is listening, just thought you should know. They tap all of our phones and because we're friends, they're tapping yours now, too!" 

We call that a snowball sample in research.

What do you say to that kind of news, that your conversations are now an open book? 

"Oh, good, no problem, no breach of HIPAA in that, me talking to patients fairly often. LOL." 

So every once in awhile we would pause and one of us would say, "Hi FBI! What's up?!! Everything good?  Great, now run along." 

Now. We've all watched enough television to know what that is like, how it works when the FBI is listening in. We're not talking some guy in a van and a bug planted in a telephone while you're out running an errand. We're talking two guys with headsets in a large room full of similar young men (never women) listening in on the conversations of every day Americans who might be planning a revolution to overthrow the government. Or they might be discussing the merits of buying the bedspread with the blue print over the one in white. 

I think the first time I saw the FBI listening in was on The Good Fight starring Christine Baranski, the sequel to The Good Wife, but it might have been The West Wing. The plot in The Good Fight took a dark turn and scared me, which isn't my thing, so I stopped watching and have no idea if they threw Christine into jail or what happened to the plot. Upset me, fine, like in Valley of Tears. But don't scare me.

Fast forward, we've learned quite recently, although the story has been scuttled to a large degree, that Russian intelligence has indeed hacked into all vital US governmental networks. I hope this isn't news to anyone reading. The upshot is that our identities are gone, our financial information is bare, and we should probably be learning Russian in our spare time. 

Why bring this up now? Because last night, reviewing all of the projects that I had time to work on these past ten months (not having to commute to work frees up a lot of time), I realized that although I had time to throw out old clothes, rearrange furniture, and indulge my hobbies, like buying a new aquarium and selling the old, I didn't do much writing. Except for scholarly stuff which is really difficult to finish because you're always sweating each sentence for a source. And then, in the process of looking things up, you find new things to learn and read about. So you could say that during the past ten months I learned, and learned, and learned, which is an accomplishment, but actually finishing anything to publish in an academic journal hasn't happened. Not that it won't, we're getting there; it just takes time. This is the reason so many begin their dissertations and never finish. 

But more than that, I wasn't in the mood to write for fun. Seven years ago when my mother passed away this blog took a downturn in content. I stopped writing, and now I get why. You need a certain flow in the serotonin to blog well. 

Meanwhile, and here's the exciting subplot, in 2017 it became clear that much traffic generated to this blog came here from Russia. That scared me out of blogging. Once you think somebody is reading your email, you get a little reluctant to use that account. There had always been a great deal of comfort in being an anonymous blogger, occasionally changing my so-called real name. Once the email address and feed were compromised, it simply felt dangerous to write and disseminate posts to those of you who subscribed.

Rationally, that's ridiculous. What in this blog is political? Nothing, nothing political, really, nothing subversive or anti-government. And believe me, the diagnosis of the 45th president of the United States did not escape this therapydoc from the get go. The Russians are not listening to us, we're not that important, or reading this blog. But in case they are, we can only hope they like whatever content is coming up this year. Because this year will be different from all others. The blog, and I say this in good faith, shall go on.

It could be about things that have happened, like two recent suicides in my community, or it could be about current events. But more likely I'll write about getting older, pretty sure, not that a lot of people will care. But getting older is shocking. You think back on the milestone birthdays like 16 (half of 32, a friend's mother told me way back when-- trying to get a reaction out of me at 16, which it did, turns out it's a snapshot memory). Forty and fifty are milestones, wrinkles, menopause, divorce, weddings, launching the kids. 

But you think to yourself, why did you stress about any of that, fifty being the new forty, blah, blah, blah. Then you round sixty and your senses change and the stress quadruples. You can't hear. You have to get hearing aids. You can't see, need cataract surgery. Your hair goes gray, seemingly over night. But you hate the smell of hair color, have distinct memories from your mother dyeing her hair and closing the bathroom door.

You become invisible except to others who are going through similar metamorphoses. You're strolling (with a mask, naturally) and you pass another silver-haired woman who is working on her lawn, raking, also wearing a mask. She's seemingly robust, and you silently nod to one another, acknowledging that the two of you could have been in high school together suggesting to the teacher that you would rather read anything by Jack Kerouac and Samuel Beckett than Silas Marner,* and now you're both thinking that the vision of getting the stinking virus is like looking death in the eye. You want to talk to her about that and ask, So how's it working for you, worrying about an early demise. But you nod and stroll on.

So yes, there's a lot to talk about. I feel like I could be back. I'm in a good mood, hoping for a vaccination, hoping to see people in real time, real space in a couple of months, maybe get on a plane. But even working on Zoom, there's much to talk about-- like how great it is to stand up while I'm working, stretch, balance on a balance board. You can't do that when you work in an office and a patient is sitting on the sofa across from you.

The Zoom blogging material is here. Like the patient who never stops telling me how she likes a blouse from decades ago, or how I look today or my haircut (naturally, my hair). The patient is a heterosexual female, not objectifying me in that way, but it bothers me. I've mentioned it to her but she can't help it. It's like people who always say that they are sorry when there's nothing to be sorry about, a hard habit to break. We could talk about that, that even the nicest people in the world can upset a therapist who gets impatient and has to call another therapist and vent. What the heck? But the patient has no idea that my sideline is sexual harassment prevention and objectification is a trigger.

Hey, FBI, we good?

therapydoc

*I'm ordering a copy from the library right now.

How to Cope When the Status Changes

If it had only been one patient, I would have thought it idiosyncratic. But people are finding out on Facebook that their ex's are married, or engaged to be married, sometimes only months after they broke up. It can be a more than a moment of reckoning.

Marshall and Lily Got Married

Not judging the announcements, especially the videos. Who wouldn't post an incredible engagement/proposal video on Facebook? Isn't that the purpose of the video? These are works of art. A sixty to ninety minute montage entirely composed of five or six How I Asked ___ to Marry Me's couldn't be dull. After all, she might say no if it is.

Hearing that someone you know recently changed relationship status to become engaged or married, can be upsetting, no matter how we find out. Marshall and Lily, the token couple to take the plunge in How I Met Your Mother illustrate that marriage can be intimate and passionate, if you do it right. And it need not herald the end of relationships with single friends. A bar in common below your apartment helps. 


But I'm only on Season 3 and skip through most episodes, and confess to not having even made it past the first few seasons of Orange is the New Black or West Wing, now that Scandal is on the radar and that is getting boring, too. For for all I know, by the end of Season 9, Lily and Marshall are divorced, fighting over who gets to keep the teddy bear, a favorite blanket, or a child. That would be sad, their break-up, so don't tell me, not on Facebook, not here. I may skip to Season 9 one day soon.

It is subtle, the sudden death, the moment a person hears about an ex settling down with someone else. It can be as simple as a "Like" to a comment about something random.  But the Liker has a new name.

Or in a vulnerable moment, you might actually look to see who Facebook suggests as new friends. There she is, your ex, with another name, or an additional name, and it isn't the name her parents gave her.

Or the new profile pic is one of her with another person in a loving embrace, beatific smiles.

And here I thought nobody changed their name anymore, but that's not so.

Discussing this at a kiddish (food and drinks after prayers if you're Jewish), someone who knows these things informed me that it's an in your face thing, bragging about the new status, the new name.  But that's paranoid, I think. The in your face part is paranoid, not the bragging, telling the world. People do tend to want to tell the world, although many use discretion, when they are connecting with another for whole-life, not buying a term policy. This feel good, for many, if not most, is the first real feel good in a long time, and it is often about security, being a couple. Power in numbers.

So when we're faced with being alone again, naturally, as Gilbert O'Sullivan croons so well, and panic ensues. It is the original abandonment anxiety, one that therapists refer to when talking of any loss, especially death. 

The new status marks the death of the relationship. Thoughts escalate, become irrational. A person begins to think that she is the oldest person on earth not attached legally to another, not in an intimate way, one that scores showers and parties, insurance. We begin to think we really are old, in our 30's or 40's, which is not old. We'll let you know when you're old.

You begin to think that you were at fault for the break up. It must have been your fault, because she has found someone who clearly finds her wonderful. Why couldn't you do that, find her wonderful?  She went ahead and took the advice of a rock star.  She made him put a ring on it. She couldn't make you. Yeah, you had issues.

This self-castigation gets worse, becomes an obsession. One begins to self-blame constantly, for what went wrong in the relationship, well beyond not having committed to it. For the first time, perhaps, there is a serious look deep down, not at her, where the blame once rested. And when we look at ourselves, our faults, our personality, our petty ways, for we all have them, we come up short.

You go to therapy and ask, "What is wrong with me?  Why couldn't I commit?  Or in the case of a previous self-initiated divorce, Why couldn't I stay?! Why couldn't I be that guy, or that girl, the one who gives, the one who gets the ring."  And you discuss fears of intimacy ad nauseum perhaps stretched out on one of those safe pieces of furniture, the therapist's sofa, a box of Kleenex to your left or right (we buy in bulk), discuss the fears of exposure, merger, suffocation,and yes, abandonment,all those fears brought to the dim light of day in that office. You don't leave out how badly your parents got along, how much trauma you yourself suffered in relationships in those short thirty or forty years that make you feel so old.

And the rational side comes out and you get your act together to defend yourself and ask the doc: "Why would I risk spending the rest of my life with someone who made me miserable and threatened to do so for the next fifty years? I am perfectly fine as is, now that you mention it, and did I tell you?  I like my space." Amen.

The therapist confirms, probably, and brings things back to affirming that you are on track, thinking systems, staying rational, remembering the times she was so mean. Or the time she ignored what you had agreed upon, or so you thought. . .that was truly horrible. Yet you forgave, swept it to the pile with the rest of the disappointments, until it all got too difficult, too many tears, too little laughter, and you simply had to say: Enough is enough. We're over.

So why be upset when she moves on, right? Because it really is over now, no turning back. And although it feels like rejection, an in your face, and it feels like you'll never find someone now, for sure not, you can bet on it, you really don't wear a sign that shouts out: Damaged. You don't.

She wasn't the first, although now she might be the last to refuse to give you the job, and you are, now, an amazing candidate, better off without her. You knew that in your gut, you know.

So don't say, although you could, that she will probably never stay married, and that this guy is in for more than he bargained for. No sour grapes.

Be happy for her.

therapydoc

It's Going to Get Worse Before It Gets Better

In my defense, I was tired. I had been up since four on Labor Day, although I napped, and to prepare for an upcoming Jewish holiday threw together a few chalahs (those breads Jews make for the Sabbath and holy days, shiny and twisted), one carrot cake, two blueberry, and four sheets of chocolate chip cookies.  For a change, it all turned out well, not a burnt morsel, nobody fell.

West Wing on Mourning

FD and I colluded to tackle a closet and made considerable progress. You know what that means. You label what should go back in, and most importantly, throw a great deal away.

At 8 pm, paralyzed, the TV beckoned, I succumbed, chose vegging and watching to reading the new DSM 5. Nothing appealed on the tube so I turned to The West Wing on Netflix.

To me, it is new, although a well-respected patient had recommended it years ago when there was no time, no inclination, for television.  My luck, I pick a Christmas episode (In Excelsis Deo) in which Leo McGarry, White House Chief of Staff, is about to be outed for having had a Valium addiction when he was Secretary of Labor.

"It is going to get worse before it gets better," Josh Lyman, his young deputy tells him.

And maybe it will. I'm still in the first season reruns.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Landingham, the President's secretary, tells Toby Ziegler, Communications Director, that she's sad because on Christmas she thinks of her two sons, killed in combat in Viet Nam in 1970. A minute later Toby takes a call from the police. A homeless man found dead in the park has Toby's business card in a jacket pocket.

"Is he a friend of yours?" the detective asks Toby.

"No, but he's wearing a jacket I donated to the Vets.  My card must have been in a pocket. Sorry I can't help you."

Cleaning out that closet, one of the things I found was a bag of clothes put aside to give to the Vets. Irene from Purple Heart calls me at least six times a year to see if there's anything to give away. There is always something to give away.

Toby doesn't recognize the body but feels he must do something for the dead man wearing his jacket. There is a bond. He searches out the man's relatives, finds a brother-- "a little slow" -- and determines to see that the deceased has a military funeral. He oversteps his authority and uses President Bartlet's name to make it happen, but when the president hears about it, he is unhappy.

"Do you realize," President Bartlet chides Toby, "that when this gets out, every homeless Vet is going to want a military funeral?"

"I hope so," Toby replies.

The President thinks about it, nods, and lays a grateful hand on the aide's shoulder. He gets it.

The music on the West Wing is sinfully good, and between the children's choir and the Xmas pa-rum-pa-pum-pum continuing throughout the snowy funeral, and Mrs. Landingham (Kathryn Joosten, Mrs. McCluskey of Desperate Housewives) telling Toby to wait up, she wants to go to the funeral, too, I'm in a million tears and hunt down FD to tell him that I have stupidly booked my whole day tomorrow, between babysitting and really working, and Wednesday, too, because distraction helps, but now I want to go to the cemetery to see how my mom in doing instead. She's been there a little over a week, after all. She is surely upset with me.

Although she knows the trip out there is going to kill my back.

I'm worried, that this could get worse before it gets better.  Best to watch less TV, maybe. No, watch more! When television is best, it inspires us to be better people. That episode of West Wing, several that I've seen so far, moralized without ever using the word. A bit like my mother.

So the next night I watched a Sopranos episode from the third season, wouldn't you know, the one where Tony's mother dies. "Why is this happening???" I shout to FD, but make it through the show anyway. No idea what happened there except Tony's sister insists people say things about their mother at their family/friend get-together after the funeral and no one can think of anything nice to say.

In the comments to the last post, one of you mentioned that as I work my own program, that grief therapy I've been shoving down your throats for years,that I should talk about it here (or did I dream this).  At first I balked, thinking, the new DSM will prove far more interesting, and I just read The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield (amazing), and The Good Wife is starting on television at the end of the month.

They're saying, you know, that blogging is dead. But someone told me the other day, "It will make a comeback, for sure.  You'll see."

We're in the seventh year of Everyone Needs Therapy. Seven years!  Maybe it is time that I write more about myself, my life, my mom and dad, my brothers, handsome and strong, one here, one there. Something tells me that you won't mind.

therapydoc