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Last June, I posted a diary about testing inaccurate thoughts that define, what for me, had become a personal narrative that pointed to incompetence. I wished I hadn't posted it and felt it was my worst diary. I just reread it and now feel a little differently about it; it's actually an interesting study of working through anxiety as both a therapist and a patient.
I've been wanting to write about a young woman I've worked with because I was so moved by her sensitivity and sense of internal conflict that manifested in self harm behaviors. When I wrote the previous diary, I was certain I was a poor fit for those souls lost in the identity crisis years of teenage land. But, I was wrong. In fact, the voice I hear coming out of me, full of concern and respect, with a touch of maternal love and wisdom, is just what is needed. I continue in my awareness that there is so much I don't know, but at this point, there is more that I do know that is helpful. The internal fight within the anxious therapist treating the anxious and depressed kid is dissipating while the therapist who is a mother, daughter, friend, wife and writer is sitting rather comfortably in a cushy chair not having a secondary dialogue in her head about WTF she's doing in the cushy therapist's chair. Perhaps this integration process had been interrupted by cancer.
