project/note to self

deadline 18th, 6 hrs lecture/practicals on 17th

... I have pre-emptively spent forty quid on Really Nice Tea because godDAMN I deserve a treat for being so nearly here

you guys

you guys

... I could hand in what I have now and not fail

I CANNOT EVEN with how much of a change this is from last year

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Things I've learned from counselling

This is part one of an irregular series I've been meaning to write for a while: I keep promising people I'll talk about what my counselling is like, and then I don't. So now I am; while knowing this stuff doesn't always lead to gut-deep belief, one of the things that's really helped me is rearticulating ideas I've come across before - because sometimes they click and fit and lock in place, rather than sliding off into the corner with a small sad sproing. And so:

The ice cream is not a lie.

[Content note: discusses abuse.]

Like an awful lot of people, I'm very, very good at working myself up into a twisting, screaming state of panic over something apparently trivial - something where starting is well over 80% of the work.

Like an awful lot of people, for a very long time my reaction to this was to yell at myself: ramp up the self-criticism for being so [insert negative descriptor here] as to not even be able to do [SIMPLE THING IS SIMPLE AMIRITE].

I am pretty sure I know exactly when and where and how this reaction was trained into me. The details aren't important (many unhappy families are, after all, unhappy in very similar ways), but this bit is:

The way out of behaving like a panicked toddler is, for me, dissociating enough to split myself into "toddler" and "adult".

Sometimes this is easier than others; some days I can do an internal monologue, and sometimes I need to vocalise in order to make the words happen. (I have been known to make my way across the big local open spaces, well after dark, well into winter, giving myself an out-loud pep talk. This gets you odd looks, but whatever - it's worked. Think I'm gonna cry - don't know why/Think I'm gonna sing myself a lullaby/Feel free to listen/Feel free to stare...)

I'm good with kids and I'm good with animals. I'm a babysitter. Modelling myself and my reactions as a terrified five-year-old or a skittish foal shows me what tools I need to use to calm myself down: I need to make myself calm and open, I need to move slow, I need to speak softly, and I need to give myself space and love. Those skills are so routine to me that part-dissociated, my "adult" self can do them even when the vast majority of me is curled up under the metaphorical sofa screaming.

So that's what I do: because oddly enough, promises of love and acceptance and support work better to calm me down than screaming and threats of violence. They work much, much better when it comes to making the same stimulus less scary next time.

And the best bit about not actually being five? If what it takes to get my metaphorical toddler across the metaphorical rope bridge is the promise of ice cream, there is nothing that can stop me getting some.