Apology for Hiatus

Although I briefly check over the blog list, I have read virtually no postings for the last week. Worse than that - I have not responded to messages in my inbox. I know I don't have to apologize for the absence, but I did want my cyber friends to know that I am fine. (When someone is gone from the internet, I usually worry about them - just my nature :) I am just very busy at work. One of my partners is taking an unexpected medical leave for two months. That coupled with the usual holiday vacations makes for very short staffing. And people still get ill over the holidays - sometimes very ill, so the hospital is booming and everyone seems to want answers yesterday.

The holiday season is keeping me in a good mood. I'm enjoying the kids at home and am not stressed (at least not yet) about anything holiday related. I have a few days off next week and we will be travelling to visit family over the New Year.

Best wishes to all who read. :)
OLJ

How much time do you spend thinking about therapy?

Last night as I chopped ingredients for quesadillas, I was thinking about therapy - last week's session, what we might talk about this week, and of course thinking about therapist. It made me wonder if I obssess about it more than others. So I am putting the question out there. How much do you think about your process and is it -

• Processing a previous session
• Previewing/planning an upcoming session
• Just thinking about your therapist

Any therapists that might reply - how much time thinking (or should I say obssessing) about therapy is unhealthy. Makes me wonder how much therapists think about their patients and sessions between sessions. Replaying something said - wondering if your response was off base or not helpful in the situation.

As a follow up - I ended up not going to the holiday party that we were both invited to and spent most of last week talking about. At this point, it just didn't feel *right*.

Odd Pseudo Dream

Something quite odd happened to me last night. Before going to sleep, I picked up (yet another) book on abuse survivors (Secret Survivor) and was perusing it. I am starting to think about my lack of so many memories and wondering if they will surface. And if I want them to. And what I will do if they surface. At any rate, I was exhausted and fell into a deep sleep.

About an hour later, I "woke" up as my husband was coming to bed. I looked at him and saw him, but asked him "What are you doing here? What are you doing?" Although I was seeing his face, I'm thinking I was thinking he was my abuser. He was amused - "Uh - I'm getting ready for bed like I do every night. Putting my clothes in the hamper."

I'm sure I wasn't fully awake, although it registers in my mind that I *knew* he was my husband. And it only took a matter of minutes before I realized where I was. I don't remember any *dreams* before waking up. Odd and unsettling.

I had to go to work this morning while the family was still asleep. Will need to have that conversation to tell hubby that I am sure this was related to my past abuse.

Circuitous thinking and disclosuse

This post may not be coherent because my thinking is muddled about this. I've been thinking about disclosure a lot. I've been running down my list of friends - long term and shorter term - trying to decide which, if any, I might talk to about my past. The fact that I am spending time (aka ruminating about) with this tells me I will take the plunge soon. It's something I am working up to - like I worked up to -

• going to a therapist
• telling my therapist about my abuse
• telling my husband about my abuse
• asking my mother about my abuse
• telling one friend about my abuse (a safe one, that I don't see in person because she lives 3000 miles away, have known since college and who already suspected something)

I am stuck with feeling that if I tell a friend, I will feel like I've been a fraud all these years. I feel that my friends will view me differently. Which tells me that I still defining myself by what happened to me when I was a child. I am realizing that my thought process and reactions WERE formed during childhood - the circuits were laid down aberrantly. There are times when I've been sitting with a friend, chatting about this or that, when I've considered putting it out there. But I haven't. My T tells me that it will happen when I am ready. Seems like such a pat answer, but perhaps there is truth in it. I keep thinking about one friend who told me she couldn't deal with someone because there was "too much drama in her life" and she was "too high maintenance". The woman she is referring to went through a nasty divorce from someone with mental illness, has three children and is trying to make a go of it. My feeling is she deserves to be "high maintenance", but I don't want to become that person.

Perhaps part of my issue is the people I have shared with - at least hubby and mother - haven't persued it. My mother I can understand - she is self centered and it is a relief for her to have it out in the open and now she is done with it. My husband is more complicated - I have considered the following -

• he doesn't talk about it because he finds it awkward (the one time I brought it up he said he thought it was creepy)
• he doesn't talk about it because it hasn't changed how he thinks about me - I'm still the person he married and loves
• he doesn't talk about it because it has changed his thinking of me

I still am left with that fact that I withheld this information about myself from him for 25 years. It feels like I have cheated him.

So I am left with my muddled thinking. After a bizarre therapy session last night.