Fearful Distance

I told my therapist I was disappointed with them and they said 3 times over the course of our session that they weren’t sure they wanted to keep working with me. They didn’t stop scheduling, but they did tell me to stop emailing them ¹I’m sort of unclear on the reason for this because they’ve literally never responded to any email I sent, and they wait until session to read them at all. But whatever. They’re afraid and text makes it worse somehow so I guess no written communication., and they’re taking next week off.

Or maybe it was the part where I said I could tell they were afraid of me. Or maybe it was the part where I insisted their colonial model of development was harmful to people like me and that I wouldn’t use it anymore.

You could frame everything I offered as growth and self-discovery and self-actualization, things psychology imagines as goals, but what I got back was protective distancing because I wasn’t conforming to the model. What I got was the insistence that their non-understanding was better than my understanding, and that I must adopt theirs to work with them.

I have decided to be a person who simply insists on better care from my providers. We’ll see if they can keep up. But I’m super done with letting them assume they know an answer when it contradicts my ongoing experience. Outside of survival situations I shouldn’t engage with that sort of negotiation – the one where I give up myself for access to “help”.

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The rest of my day was better. I’m mostly recovered from my travel day – bus, train, plane, plane, train, dragging a suitcase across the streets of Seattle because I didn’t want to wait for the bus. I also got to do one of the planes at night, which is somewhat eaiser on me than the daystar version. But it’s still pretty hard on me, and worse with the pandemic.

So today I slept and woke and slept again and laid about and got high. Tomorrow I’ll do some screen arts during HA4H, and maybe build that into an actual screen over the weekend. And I’m going to spend some time writing to You, a thing I have had trouble with but have been inspired to do after an exciting trip to Cleveland (and after a couple of months off work).

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Recently I found a way into late-undergrad me, a person I haven’t seen in a while. I’m not sure if they’re different than Person with Job. Or maybe they’re the person who ran Cynic? I’m not sure yet how they fit in but I’m happy to have access to another piece of myself, even though I know it will require some pain to know them again.

It’s the sort of thing you might want a therapist to help with, but we’ll have to see how that works out. I am confident I could have another therapist. I am not confident I can have one that’s any better for me. I am not convinced that any of them will do anything but label me non-compliant.

ZiB

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Sent from a phone.

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