I see a therapist to help me achieve specific goals in my life. I am past the point in therapy where I want to talk about my daddy issues; I don’t need insight into my illness, I have it seeping out of my pores. What I need now are results. I know what’s broken; I am looking for tried and true approaches for achieving a higher level of function. I need to replace old coping mechanisms, or areas of my life where I have no coping mechanisms at all, with ideas and practices that work. I need an action plan!

One thing I have going for me is a willingness to do the work. I want a program and am willing to work my program. My sessions with my therapist are, therefore, generally very productive. I do have a tendency to wheel and reel when I talk, but the therapist does a good job of reigning me in when I fly too high. Each week I come in with an issue I want to work on, and sometimes I have some feedback on how my attempts to incorporate her advice into my behavior are working.

Over the last few weeks I have been discussing my reclusiveness with the therapist lady. How I have hermetic tendencies, particularly because I have a low thershold for rejection. I don’t like calling up neighbors on the phone or knocking on their door and asking if they want to have a cup of tea because I am afraid they will say no, they’re busy. However, withdrawing from people is on the list of Ways to Sabotage Your Support System, so I am working on not turning down opportunities to socialize and in particular, initiating social encounters.

This issue has become immediately relevant and important because my husband is getting ready to leave for 6-9 months on a job contract 1000 miles away. Without him at home with me 24/7, as he has been for the last three years, I will be responsible for the smooth running of all aspects of our household. I will need a support system to help me make it through this time. I can’t pretend that I can do it all and ignore the obvious toll it will take on my stress level and mental health.

So I have been working my program. I have been reaching out to people in my neighborhood and church, letting them know that lunasdad is leaving for a good long while, and accepting offers of help and support. My next door neighbor is going to have pizza night with us on Thursday nights and watch the boys for me after dinner so I can go to my choir practice. My neighbors with the mini-dachshund have offered to help us with our own dogs. Offers of babysitting and cooking have rolled in and I have graciously (I hope) accepted each offer and not pooh-poohed or argued that I would be alright.

The increased social interaction is not without side effects, though. Nothing in life ever goes as smoothly as that. With it will come the inevitable rescheduling, cancellations, and begging off that goes with the territory of being busy in a modern world. Other friends will have sick children, personal stresses, outside obligations. Plans will change, possibly several times. Activities won’t go as planned. Life will get in the way and it is still my job to go around each obstacle and come out the other side.

It’s that part of the problem where I struggle. Each kink in the road is a setback for me. Example, a friend invites me over for tea but forgets her daughter has gymnastics practice. What this means for me is that I have to remind myself that it’s nothing personal, we all forget and double-book plans sometimes. I did it just the other day with the dentist and therapist lady! What kind of hypocrite would I be if I held this against my friend? So, we reschedule for the next day. At the appointed time, I nervously present  myself at the front door with a new box of tea I want to try…only to discover my friend has forgotten our plans and isn’t home.

Here is where it gets hard, here is where you have to put your money where your mouth is. Negative self-talk screams at me “YOU SEE? YOU STUPID COW, PEOPLE ALWAYS LET YOU DOWN, WHEN WILL YOU LEARN?!” It’s like a histrionic Chicken Little battering the inside of my head with urgent messages about the status of the sky and it’s lack of support. My emotions go into angry, hurt overload and all systems start to shut down. I am embarrassed and rejected. I slink home with my stupid box of tea and I want to crawl into bed and not emerge until summer.

Yet, that is exactly what I am not supposed to do. Yes, this part is hard, it wouldn’t be work if it were easy. Here is where I have to turn thought into practice, I have to walk the walk and not just sit in a comfy chair with a mug of tea in my therapist’s safe, quiet office and say “Yeah, I should do that, you’re right.” It’s like a computer program with a bug, this is the part where I am supposed to upload a new patch to improve functionality, not continue to limp along with lame workarounds. It sucks having to wait and click and do a million small things to get the installation to work, but it’s worthwhile in the end to not have to hop on one foot and say a prayer every time I want to boot up.

Does it suck to get stood up? Yes. Did my friend forget me? Yes. Do I think she forgot me because I am a horrible person unworthy of love and affection? Chicken Little screams yes, but what does he know? He thinks the sky is falling. I have to remind myself that there are probably a million reasons why she forgot to come and meet me, none of which actually involve me. It is far more likely that the reason my friend forgot our plans is because she is completely overextended. She likes me enough to try to fit me into her life, despite the fact that she is spread very very thin right now. Our plans to (ironically) meet up and relax didn’t work out this time, and I am sure when she realized her error, no one kicked her harder than she kicked herself. I don’t think she did it because she didn’t want to see me; if she didn’t want to see me, she wouldn’t have invited me!

It isn’t easy to push away that initial hurt and explore the wound. It isn’t easy to come out the other side of even the smallest pains. It’s difficult to examine why I react the way I do and to give someone else the benefit of the doubt. When people reinforce your insecurities, (such as when a friend stands you up and you have abandonment issues) every instinct of self-preservation goes into overdrive, hyperdrive. It’s my job as a  high-functioning, responsible adult in training to stop adding fuel to the fire. You know what they say, when you’re holding a hammer, everything looks like a nail. It is in all of our best interest to put down the hammer.

This week was a long week; it was tiring and uncomfortable to question my ideas and assumptions, yet I felt like I made my first real strides as a responsible, functional adult. Instead of crawling into bed and letting my negative emotions play on loop inside of my mind, I confronted my insecurities head-on. I actively engaged a new tactic for fighting the screaming negativity in my head and helped turn my angst into understanding.

Consider this my official pat on the back of the week.