I was told I should post, so I am… captain’s orders.
Let’s see… Day 2 of therapy went ok. I felt like I was in school with my workbook and pencil. Well, I felt like an idiot mostly. My brain is broken in pretty much every way possible, so this whole teaching it new tricks thing is tough. More than one time I caught myself staring at the power outlet, listening to the clock tick. Completely zoning out and not listening to a god damn thing the woman was saying. I bet it was important stuff too… fuck it all to hell.
Anyways… the whole introduction to DBT session made my head spin. My brain felt all foggy and muddy trying to understand what she was saying… so trying to think back and remember things is not going well. What I DO remember is being asked to observe something in the room.
Me: “Uh… observe something?? Like what?”
Therapist: “Anything… just observe something and tell me about it.”
Ok, so I observed the power outlet with about 5 fucking cords sticking out of it. Then I thought what dumbass people they have here that would put that many cords in an outlet. Then I thought about how dangerous that outlet would be if there were little kids in the room. Then I thought about my own little kids at home. I thought about how I hope my baby didn’t wake up while I was gone because I didn’t leave any pumped milk for her to have. I started panicking thinking about my hungry baby crying because I wasn’t there to feed her.
So… Mindfulness!! I was only supposed to focus on that outlet. Observe how it looked, felt, smelt, sounded or tasted… nothing else. Well, shit… I failed my first test in therapy.
Homework for this week. Observe objects. Ok, I can do that. However, I can only think about that object and that object only. Anytime another thought pops into my head, I’m supposed to let it “slide out” of my mind and refocus. Not sure how I am going to focus on anything in this house for longer than 5 seconds without having to yell… “Get your brother out of the dryer!!”… but I’m going to try.