I'm not quite sure how to even state this, so bear with me here. This is something that my therapist and I have been working on for a long time, and I'd like some more perspective here. In my life, there seems to exist a dichotomy in pretty much every aspect of it. Right or wrong, good or evil, success or failure, etc. There's no room for gray area in here. For example, take something that happened this weekend, I was organizing a group of LGBT folks to meet. We met at a local coffee shop, which didn't have enough room for us. I considered this to be a failure on my part, I should not have scheduled something at a location that was too busy to accommodate a massive influx of people. However, we moved on to a pool hall and proceeded to have a great time. All's well that ends well, right? Not so much, I'm still believing that it was a failure because of the fact that the original venue could not accommodate us. Today, I had a dental procedure scheduled. and I showed up a little late . Not a huge deal in and of itself, and probably wouldn't even bear mentioning except that I wouldn't allow the dentist to perform the procedure - my tooth was extremely sensitive, and whenever she started drilling, I started becoming very sensitive to that and requesting that she stop. Eventually, she just said "I've given you as much anesthesia as I can, we can't do this today. You'll need to come back and I'll give you a stronger anesthetic next time" and put a temporary filling in there. Now, I've had a number of fillings in the last month or two, and none of them have been this bad. I consider this a failure as well, because objectively speaking, the procedure that was to have been accomplished was not, and I wasted her time. These are but two examples of many, and I finally came to a breakthrough tonight that these feelings might not ever go away, and I'll have to learn to live with them. To me, to do that is tantamount to being in the closet - having feelings (of whatever kind) and not acting on them or displaying them. My therapist tells me that's not at all correct, because I'm acknowledging these feelings and they're out there in the open - I'm just choosing what to do or not do with them (or something like that). What do folks think?
It sounds like you are a lot like me because you like to live within extremes. You don't know how to feel "okay" or "normal" because everything in your life has been on one end of the spectrum and you've never really experienced neutrality. A good example of this is the fact that you said these feelings will never go away. Instead of saying that they will be hard to make go away, or you aren't sure how to make them go away, you insist that they will never go away. That is living in an extreme. I think it could very well be similar to being in the closet in the sense that you are still trying to find the balance within yourself. When in the closet, a big part that people struggle with is finding a way to express these suppressed feelings and indulge in this new community while still remaining true to the person you have presented over the years. I don't think that these feelings are forever. I think that the both of us need to heal that chaos within ourselves and learn how to simply be "okay". I have no idea how to do that, but I certainly think it's possible.
Pretty much forever. I'm a very driven, very Type A person. I have to be in the competitive world of corporate America. Perhaps my success is my unraveling at the same time....
If it has occurred as long as you say it has, it may or may not continue for the rest of your life. On one hand, it does seem like it won't stop. If it would help if it is something you don't like, try to plan things or try things differently? It could work. But your therapist might have better options. One the other hand, it could just be one long coincidence. If it is, you might as well just wait it out. But if you've already done this, ask your therapist for other options if you don't like this. But if you have to live with this, try to look on the bright side of things. You might as well, but it does help. I wish you the best of luck. (*hug*) *Also, this it totally unrelated, but this is my 600th Post, yay!
