Last night I had a visit to my therapist/counselor/head shrinker – whatever one calls professionals who help us maintain mental health. π I gotta say that I really like mine and that’s saying a lot since over the years I have not been able to find someone that I could be comfortable enough to share things with. Sometimes it’s like she reads my mind….
Anyway, I was having a random thought about why we call psychologists/psychiatrists ‘shrinks’. For me, Dr I definitely helps my head to shrink in that all the jumbling thoughts and feelings I have going on tend to calm down and become a manageable ball of yarn instead of a mess of threads spreading out all over the place. In this sense, I think it’s definitely not a rude term to say I go to a ‘shrink’.
The main thing is that I’ve been on a low trend lately. I noticed it clearly when all I want to wear is my pajamas and I am tired, but can’t sleep as much as I would like. Usually, when I am depressed I am tired, but never sleep…. So, I’ve been working on maintaining a healthy balance of exercise, pampering and trying to stay calm. It’s somewhat working, but it’s not yet under control.
Lately, I’ve had this trapped feeling that is starting to make feel a bit claustrophobic. Sometimes I just want to go away on my own. For example, a few weeks ago when I went to Paris on my own and I quite enjoyed it. Unfortunately, it was tainted by my work dramas, so I didn’t get to really take in the joy of being on my own, doing my own thing.
On a related, but side note, we have been watching the TV series “Homeland” and the main character played by Claire Danes is bipolar II. In one of the last episodes of the first season, she has a bit of a meltdown showing both the highs and lows. I could totally relate even though I do not have such manic extremes as that. When I’m on my high, my brain is going a mile a minute and I seem to ‘see’ things clearer and (what I think is) better than others. For me, it’s in organizing things and putting everything into a system where my brain works. I see how people and pieces fit together. I see how the behaviors of one can affect many. It’s all a bit eerie, but it is what I see and it is stronger when I’m on the ups. This allows me to be very productive and very active. On the other hand, when the lows come, the world is out to get me and I feel as if no one understands me. I start to feel very tired from all the energy I used up on the ups and I also realize just how much I overextend to the benefit of others, but not myself. It becomes very stressful to me to keep on giving and doing…. This is a hard extreme to handle when the ups are so high and the lows are so low. It’s not easy to manage the happy-medium in-between.
Most people cannot fully appreciate or understand. Most people don’t even know that this is a world I live in. Even those who are closest to me. I can share this easier on a distant blog, but not in person. It’s not healthy or right, so I’m working on making it more of a reality in my oral life. It will take some time.
For now, I’ve had a bit of a release by my visit to Dr I and shall see how I feel a month from now. π
-T π
