In Conflict
Martha Crawford, of What a Shrink Thinks, hits another one out of the park (and once again engenders deep envy in me for her writing abilities and insight)! If you have ever struggled with anger (and who among us hasn’t? 🙂 ), read this article. I am incredibly grateful that this is the attitude that I have seen BN take about anger. I am amazed at how he invites me to express it and how welcoming he is (and excited! Therapists are weird!) when I manage to. Anger has always been a difficult emotion for me, full of fear, since I saw it almost always modeled simultaneously with violence. It has taken years, a lot of difficult work, and two patient therapists for me to see the creative, positive side of anger that Martha describes so beautifully here.
Why are you still reading this? Go read the article! 😀
Everyone Has Closets
I just finished watching Ash Beckham’s talk at TEDx and had to share it. I thought this was a wonderful, impassioned plea to treat both ourselves and others with compassion and empathy. I really appreciated how open and honest she was about all of her feelings and thoughts, and in a very self-deprecating manner. Even if you think this isn’t your cup of tea, please trust me and take a sip. You will not regret the time you spend.
A 4-Year-Old Girl Asked A Lesbian If She’s A Boy. She Responded The Awesomest Way Possible.
Peeking out of the Cave
Greetings Gentle Readers,
I have missed you all. This break has stretched longer than I anticipated. The situation that precipitated my hiatus is ongoing, but things are much more stable. Of course right about the time things got more stable, we hit the holidays. 😀 My husband is working a lot of overtime right now and some things are changing at my company that may require longer hours of me as well. I also have surgery for my carpal tunnel planned in January. So I am going to dip my toe back in here by sharing a few poems I found very moving. The first is an angry, passionate poem about rape which I found both very moving and very validating. The second link is Anis Mogjani’s Ted Talk, where he performs a number of his poems, all of which are both thought-provoking and life-affirming; I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.
Due to the schedule complications mentioned above, I am not sure how regularly I will return to posting and would appreciate your continued patience with my response times (or lack thereof 🙂 ), but I at least wanted to poke my head out of my cave and make it clear I was still here!
Hiatus
Greetings all,
I am currently facing a difficult family situation while also facing a looming deadline at work, so I will be absent for a bit. I’m not sure how long but hope it’s not longer than a few weeks. I will not be answering emails on my blog address for a bit also, so if you have written or decide to, I would very much appreciate your patience in getting a response. I need to focus my time and energy other places right now and hope everyone can understand. Take good care of yourselves and I’ll see you soon.
I’m two years old!!
Well, ok I’m not two years old, but Tales of a Boundary Ninja is (and don’t think I can’t hear you saying “but sometimes you act like a two year old.” :)) As you can see below, I’m getting a little more traffic then when I stared the blog. I have 153 blog followers at last count, all of whom I am very grateful for. (153 looks really impressive until you look at Crazy as a Coconut, What a Shrink Thinks, or Therapy Tales. So I try not to look too often. Content yes, follower count, no! :)). Actually, I am grateful to everyone who has come by to read what I have to say. I still find it a bit shocking that people want to read what I write (being a technical writer I am used to people NOT wanting to read what I write. :D). I am especially thankful for those of you comment. This community has been so welcoming and supportive. I deeply value our relationships and the support and insight you all provide. If you read regularly, but don’t comment, I would love to have you introduce yourself, if it feels safe and have a chance to get to know you. But either way, I am delighted that you spend some of your time with me.
Writing this blog has been an incredible experience and very fulfilling. I have so appreciated the encouragement I have received both in the comments and through email. You all help me to wrest meaning and purpose out of the abuse, and turn to good the evil that was done to me. It is a precious gift and one I cherish.
Coping with Grief and Abandonment Part II
This is the second post in a two-part series on Grief and Abandonment, see Coping with Grief and Abandonment Part I.
I’m sure it will not surprise any regular reader of this blog to realize that BN was a huge part of how I coped, even between appointments. BN has a very generous contact policy, I am allowed to call him 24/7 including when he is on vacation. If I leave an emergency message with his service, he calls back within an hour. If he is on vacation and doesn’t answer the service in a certain amount f time, his backup (a wonderful, warm, empathic man) calls back, but always offers to have BN also call; it’s just a longer wait than usual. (I have higher standards for contacting him when he is on vacation but have done it. Earliest I have ever called is 8 AM and the latest is 10:30 PM although BN has made it clear that 2 in the morning is ok if I need). We very rarely do any processing during phone calls but when the grief threatened to overwhelm me, or the fears that BN would also abandon me, would rise up, then  a short phone call would help to ground and reconnect me. Most of mine are under three minutes and it’s not unusual to keep it under one minute. BN once referred to my “patented one minute phone calls” when I was worried about calling too much. 🙂 Often it wasn’t what he said but just the sound of his voice and experiencing that he was there that would do the trick. Continue Reading
Coping with Grief and Abandonment Part I
GE asked the question below on the Ask AG page:
im wondering if you are wiling to share some of the strategies you used to cope with grief and abandonment feelings when things got rough during your recovery.
As I said in reply over there, this is an excellent question. Since I see grieving our losses as being at the heart of our healing, we should probably learn how to grieve, right? I have been grieving, one way or another, for a large part of my time in therapy, so this might turn out to be a bit of a laundry list, but I am hoping that everyone might find something that they can use in their own journey. Continue Reading
Therapist’s Self-Disclosure
Ran across a great article on the web by a therapist who specializes in training other therapist’s about self-disclosure in therapy and thought other people might find it interesting also: Think Before You Get Personal By Janine Roberts.
I am still working to catch up on answering all the wonderful, supportive comments I got through the recent disruption; I appreciate everyone’s patience. Work is ramping up for the next six weeks or so, so I may be a bit on the scarcer side. And GE, I have NOT forgotten about the post I owe you on coping with grief! Take care all. 🙂
Tales of a Boundary Ninja 
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