So, you all convinced me not to pursue the alternative medicine route with my daughter. I guess I’ll have to figure out how to navigate this ncertain journey on my own.
I did, however, reach out to a therapist a colleague at work recommended. The therapist I’ve been working with since before I embarked on TTC has moved offices and now there is a bridge between me and where she meets. I do not abide bridges–actually it’s the traffic before/on/after them that I take issue with–so I have been thinking about findindg someone else. And I have. And I called her. And I have an appointment for next Tuesday.
Mostly I want to work on some issuse in my marriage that continues coming up over and over again. I keep broaching them in the same ways and then getting frustrated when my efforts yield the same results. Meanwhile, every time I air a greivance and nothings changes, my resentment grows. It’s hard not to fall into the, “if he really loved me, or even cared, he would DO something about this already,” mindset, which I know is ultimately unproductive (and not at all an accurate interpretation of what is truly happening). Still, I perpetuate the thought-cycle and the resentment becomes more entrenched and I clearly need an unbiased third party to help me either change the way I think about these things or show me how to handle them productively–probably both.
Ultimately I would love to go to therapy with my husband, but he would NOT love that and at this point I recognize that many of these issues are my own to deal with for a little while. If , after some hard work on this stuff, I’m still struggling with the realities of our marriage, I will ask my husband to join me in therapy. I know he would come if I asked him to, but I also know that he’d rather not.
On the one hand, I’m eager to work on these issues because honestly, I am TIRED of them. They are boring and mundane. I want to let them go, but I can’t, which is FRUSTRATING. Many of them are subsets of common themes that wreak havoc on my happiness and general sense of well being. If I could really get to the heart of these destructive thought cycles and dessimate them once and for all, I could be a more joyful person who feels more fulfilled.
I’d also love to talk about work woes and my unmet career aspirations and that general sense of heaviness that descends when I think about my job.
So there is a lot to talk about, and I feel I can be focused enough to really put the time and money to good use (though I’m not quite sure where the money is going to come from, that must be determined this weekend, and it if I can’t come up with it I might be shit out of luck). At the same time, I’m so done working on myself, being stuck in a perpetual cycle of self-improvement. Most of the time I just want to watch British police dramas and forget the rest of my life is even happening. The fact that my husband never has to work on his shit causes a fair amount of resentment in and of itself. I wish I were the type of person that could just accept who I am, flaws and all. I also wish I had way less flaws. That would also make things easier.
So there is that. No naturopath but hopefully a therapist. And hopefully and end to destrucive thought processes that killing my chances at happiness. Oh, and hopefully being able to afford it.
I feel the need to clarify my comments on the last post. I don’t have personal experience with ND or homeopaths. homeopathy is total crap. natural medicine may be a real thing, I don’t know much about it, and am somewhat skeptical but I do believe there are ways to improve health with diet, so that part I am on board with. I prefer it when its integrated with western medicine, but like you said, its only now emerging so there aren’t too many providers.
What I do have experience with is seeing patients who are also being treated by ND-type providers. And in general, there seems to be a tendency to keep giving more and more supplements and restricting more and more foods. Now, that may be a biased sample I’ve seen, and its very likely that not all ND will keep recommending more & more treatment, but some certainly do. In general, these are patients with either chronic/incurable medical illnesses or psychiatric/behavior/developmental concerns. In some instances, the providers are definitely taking advantage of patients/family that have run out of options, and they sell them concoctions and have them come for frequent and $$$ visits, and sometimes give them blatantly false information and hope (you can cure your auto-immune diabetes with these supplements, e.g.).
I think you are putting a lot of energy and effort into her diet. And its working for you & her. I don’t want you spending more energy and MONEY to see a provider that may confuse the picture or cause more stress.
The therapy idea, I love. Because therapy with a good therapist is so so awesome. And, as you know, I identify 100% with everything you said about the marriage issues. Yes to this :
“Meanwhile, every time I air a greivance and nothings changes, my resentment grows. It’s hard not to fall into the, “if he really loved me, or even cared, he would DO something about this already,” mindset” and the whole next paragraph. EXACTLY where I am with marriage issues.
I haven’t seen my therapist in a couple of months and I did schedule an appt for late October. Its sort of been nice taking a break from talking about hte same old issues, TBH.
You go to therapy because your life isn’t working. Your husband’s life generally is working well other than your dis-satisfactions (which are yours not his). It really isn’t a fair comparison but really the plantation owner’s life worked far better than the slave’s did … . And, your husband really does live a traditionally approved male life style in our culture. He honestly doesn’t see what is wrong and has no idea how he could change because his expectations and his job’s expectations really coincide and to him adding more to his burden isn’t workable. As women we simply add it without considering it’s workability because we were raised to think we had to do it to be “good mothers” which is the goal for women before all else. The message still is girls grow up to be mothers and boys become a career…….. Blame media, disney whomever but the message is still clear.
Hi purple and rose! Do write a blog by chance?
What a nice thing to ask me. Thank you. You made me feel like I have something of value to share. I am not a writer and really only respond to what I see here, based on what I lived and have seen. I have so much respect for what Noemi and her readers are doing with children, jobs, spouses, a grim economy … and most of all a culture that is not supporting any equality for women. It is really really hard today for women. A constant uphill fight. What you all are saying is true and it is important that it is said. I thank you … you give me hope for your granddaughter’s generation.
Let’s see, I started making 65cents to man’s dollar, you all get 77cents… for your granddaughters it may be 90 cents… or, wishfully, a dollar and the right to control their own bodies. Please pay attention to raising your sons, we have made progress but it is a long road.
This is a very interesting perspective, and probably accurate. I don’t like to categorize men and women, but there is a lot of truth to what P&R says here. Men get to leave their family challenges (kids, house, wife) at home when they go to work, but we women take EVERYTHING with us WHEREVER we go… we even take our husbands troubles/stress with us. I’m proud that as women, we are strong and CAN take on more and more, but I do wish we could lighten our loads a bit.
Purple and Rose, if you had a blog, I’d read it! I always love your comments.
I am so glad to hear this decision. I didn’t have time to comment yesterday but I came to the blog today specifically to write a comment on how homeopathy is completely proven to be total quackery by double blind studies and also the basic theory behind it is in no way credible (which Ana covered nicely!) It’s unlikely to harm your daughter because all it is is water or possibly sugar water, but it certainly would not be good for your budget woes, because you’re paying for very expensive placebos.
I don’t know what to say about your career malaise, but I do know a lot of people feel that at about our age.
Finally, I am totally with other commenters from yesterday that you need to put your place out to rent for a fair market price. You can’t give actually “fair” prices to more than one tenant anyway, so you obviously can’t really affect the overall situation. And you need that money. If the new tenant can’t pay it they should be moving to a lower cost area, like most people in the Bay Area have had to do. Put it in your savings or use it to pay for the therapy you are considering.