I’ve finally started meeting with the new therapist. I have to admit that this is a very hard transition. I was only with my first therapist for a year, but I became quite attached to her. I miss her and thinking about her makes me sad. When I’m walking to my new therapist’s office, I pass by Claudia’s empty office and I get sad knowing that she’s really gone and I will probably never see her again.
So far Diedra seems nice, but I imagine seeming nice is part of therapist training. I mean if they seemed like assholes it wouldn’t really work. I think she’s less nurturing than Claudia was and I have a feeling that’s why Claudia referred me to her. I’ve had two sessions with Diedra and I can already tell that this isn’t going to be classic “sit on the couch & tell me about your mother” therapy.
I wasn’t sure where to start. I didn’t want to start all over but I had no idea how to go forward so I just started with the most pressing issues, mainly my financial aid problem. She gave me the name of the director for the office of student retention. The week went by and exams & homework had put it out of my mind. Then yesterday 10 minutes before my second session I remembered, called and made an appointment. When I walked into session it was the first thing Diedra asked. It felt good to be able to say “yes I called her and I have an appointment tomorrow morning” instead of “I meant to but….”
In second session I talked about how hard it was for me to get things done and how I feel like lately I’ve just been such a bad student. I’m going from all A’s to B’s & C’s. It hurts! I said I felt like I was so busy & never had enough time but that I never really accomplish anything. So she told me to start writing down everything I do. I thought with my constant facebook/twitter updating this was something I already do. Then I realized that my updates are about what I’m wanting to do, need to do, of fixina do. Rarely are my updates about what I have done, because I rarely finish anything.
So I split the day in my planner in half. On one side are thing I need to do and on the other side are thing I’ve done. The whole point is trying to work on the problems I have with procrastinating & staying focused.
Today was my appointment with student retention. the lady was nice but when she asked me what my plans after graduation were I froze. Here I am about to ask the school for a considerable amount of money and I have no post-graduation plan!
The problem is that for me graduation is like a cliff. I have no idea what’s on the other side. I just know I’m going to be thrown over and it’s up to me to figure out how to apply what I’ve learned in order to survive. It’s a terrifying thought. So no I don’t have a plan for after I graduate because just getting to the graduation is taking everything I have. Were I still an honor student with a 3.8 GPA I might have more bargaining power. As it is I only have a 3.1 and chances of it increasing much between now and next spring are slim to none. So plan I must.
She told me to get a degree audit. Normally I would have said ok, wrote in my planner to get a degree audit and then kept pushing it around and putting it off. But I didn’t! I went straight to the registrar’s office and requested one. He said I needed to officially change my major from Economics to Mathematics and gave me a form to have the Chair of the Math department sign. Normally I would stuck it in my pocket and gone home. But I went to the math department. She wasn’t there so I stuck it in my pocket and went home =P
I guess the point to this long boring blog is that therapy works if you’re willing to do the work. My last year of therapy got me through the initial crisis. Now I have to take what I’ve learned about how my mind works and teach it to work differently. I’m still off the medication so this is an incredibly difficult process. I still have really dark moments of hopelessness and it’s still really difficult to pull out of them.
But I’m trying.
I know a lot of people say that and “try is another excuse not to do” but I really am trying to take all these fragments of my identity and make myself a whole person.
thistlesandweeds 