My therapist is away for four weeks now and in the meantime I’m supposed to do something to address my isolation. Specifically, I’m supposed to do some voluntary work. One of the nice things about having developed a pretty good relationship with my therapist is the ability to admit that I was talking bollocks the previous week. I came up with lots of excuses why I can’t do this stuff. And I realised that’s what they were. So we had a talk about what I’d figured out during the week about that and what to do about it.
The unhelpful thought I laid to rest was the one that went: “I never really learned how to be social, therefore I’m clueless about making friends, which is why I don’t.” Sure, I had problems with being social when I was a kid, but I’m not a social cripple in that way.
So now we have a slightly more helpful thought: “I’m OK at social stuff, but I’m not able to take relationships past a certain point because I keep people at a distance. I don’t know how to stop doing that yet.”
I have to work out what kind of voluntary work I want to do. It needs to be something I don’t have to commit to very fully. I don’t know how it’ll work out, so I don’t want to use up some organisation’s training time if I’m not going to be around that long. A few hours one day a week is about enough for me at the moment.
We also talked a bit about how my scars affect how people see me. I’ve pretty much made the decision that I’m not interested in hiding them now. It’s still kind of intimidating thinking about having them visible to people who I’ll be around on an ongoing basis. It’s a bit of a Catch 22 situation. Hide them and there’s this big secret I’m not talking about. Show them and there’s this big issue nobody’s talking about. Talk about them and there’s this uncomfortable topic I’ve inflicted on people. Still, I think that me appearing comfortable with them will go some way to making other people OK with them. I think I’ll be OK dealing with any questions that are raised.
My therapist is away for four weeks now and in the meantime I’m supposed to do something to address my isolation. Specifically, I’m supposed to do some voluntary work. One of the nice things about having developed a pretty good relationship with my therapist is the ability to admit that I was talking bollocks the previous week. I came up with lots of excuses why I can’t do this stuff. And I realised that’s what they were. So we had a talk about what I’d figured out during the week about that and what to do about it.
The unhelpful thought I laid to rest was the one that went: “I never really learned how to be social, therefore I’m clueless about making friends, which is why I don’t.” Sure, I had problems with being social when I was a kid, but I’m not a social cripple in that way.
So now we have a slightly more helpful thought: “I’m OK at social stuff, but I’m not able to take relationships past a certain point because I keep people at a distance. I don’t know how to stop doing that yet.”
I have to work out what kind of voluntary work I want to do. It needs to be something I don’t have to commit to very fully. I don’t know how it’ll work out, so I don’t want to use up some organisation’s training time if I’m not going to be around that long. A few hours one day a week is about enough for me at the moment.
We also talked a bit about how my scars affect how people see me. I’ve pretty much made the decision that I’m not interested in hiding them now. It’s still kind of intimidating thinking about having them visible to people who I’ll be around on an ongoing basis. It’s a bit of a Catch 22 situation. Hide them and there’s this big secret I’m not talking about. Show them and there’s this big issue nobody’s talking about. Talk about them and there’s this uncomfortable topic I’ve inflicted on people. Still, I think that me appearing comfortable with them will go some way to making other people OK with them. I think I’ll be OK dealing with any questions that are raised.