Doctor Doctor

I think I've mentioned here once or twice before that I see a doctor on a fairly regular basis, a doctor who helps me make some sense of what goes on in my life, my heart, my mind. Speaking in general, he's a mental health professional. Professionally, he's a psychologist. Literally, he's the calm voice of still waters in what is oftentimes the storm of my emotional life.

Never have I been a blue calm sea; his task is no small one.

When I first started seeing him, it was because my self-esteem was in the dirt, or, to be honest, completely missing altogether. I had re-introduced myself to a bad pattern on my behavioral menu options from younger days -- self-abuse -- and that's a dangerous thing at any time but especially, I believed, when I was at an age where, if I was not healthy, I had to take it upon myself to stand up and find a way to get there. No one was going to do it for me and I was real tired of not trusting that woman staring back at me in the mirror. So I reached out. At the beginning, I was given homework, a book to read. A book that I went after with a pink highlighter in such oh-my-gosh-this-is-me recognition that more pages than not were covered in my pink reflection. The book and the sessions helped me understand not only where my lack of self-esteem came from but also understand and address the issues that were uniquely my own.

That was the beginning of this journey.

As we went on, other issues revealed themselves. Issues like my believing I could and therefore trying to reach the goal of doing it all, being it all. My roles. My responsibilities. My battles. My trying to be everything to every one who shares the same last name, and juggling that with the heart-wrenching awareness of all my Father took care of that, even though I thought I was aware of when he was alive, I was discovering I only had the slightest clue. Mix into that the slow unraveling of my mother's physical and mental health, the needs of those two younger family members who count on me, and the full-on demands of my job. The realization that unfolded from those sessions was enormous. Though it sounds simple, I had to adjust to the basic fact that I could not do it all. And I had to not only accept that but make peace with it, really be okay with it. Meaning, I had to let go the guilt and set realistic boundaries, I had to cease translating the pressure and inability to do it all into meaning I was flawed, and -- here's the circle of it all -- taking that out on myself.

Six months ago I could not have written those sentences. I did not know what was going on inside of me well enough, could not decipher the meaning, only feel the pressure. I did think that I was dealing with it all, until it caught up with me. Six months ago, I could not have imagined seeing the other side of that thinking.

I've been seeing this doctor since mid-September, sometimes weekly, sometimes every other week. I can tell you that I think he is worth his weight in shares of real estate in Dubai, gold bars, and ExxonMobil, CocaCola and Harley Davidson stock put together.

I've learned through the process that when I reach a plateau of self-awareness and comprehension, unexpected emotions, or emotions that I hadn't previously allowed, can bubble up. From low self esteem and self-abusive behavior, we're now looking at my oh-so-recently-discovered anger. Anger is a tricky one for me. I've never been comfortable with it, not even been sure I had a right to it, much less known how to express it. I've even prided myself with what I thought was good work at keeping anger away when in reality was the poor choice to shove it down into silence. My role in this world, decided I, was to be understanding, patient, flexible, to say nothing. I took a certain comfort at not being the other half of the disagreement. Which is an acceptable goal, one I still have, but not to the degree that I took it. Anger did not fit into my picture, so too it followed did standing up for myself.

Come to find out, self-esteem, guilt and anger are braided together in a dysfunctional way of thinking inside my head. Separating them has been hard and focused work. Feeling anger that I do not twist back onto myself is as if I'm walking on new legs. New as in trying to speak a completely different language that I've never studied but am asking myself to speak nonetheless. Like so many other changes I want in my life, this will take a considerable amount of time and focus on my part to trudge through and get to a place where I have acceptance, and peace of mind.

Right now, my anger is circular and I crave it to be linear, to give it a voice and an outlet, one that doesn't involve my past pattern of taking it out on myself, although my subconscious mutilates me nightly with dreams and nightmares that leave me baffled, confused and exhausted when I awake. I am told by my doctor that this is normal, that the past six months, combined with the events and loss of the past month, have unearthed a multitude of emotions and challenged positive patterns that we've been working to put in place. I'm told that the dust must settle before I can fully make sense of what I feel.

Are you exhausted yet by reading this? I am too. But I'm not quite finished yet. Have heart, I'm almost there.

I learned tonight that my allowing myself to feel anger is part of that settling dust, a step that will take time for me to sift through and understand, but one necessary for me to give voice to so that I can move forward in my thinking, my behavior, my life. I have mentioned, have I not, that this is hard work? The important thing is that I am taking the step. And that step is progress.

Do you know how incredible this path is? Do you know how fortifying this awareness is? I've been told countless times throughout my life, and in particular the past two years, how strong I am, and though I knew on the outside it appeared to be that way, I've never believed it because I knew what was going on inside, what it was costing me, that the price of pretending was increasingly getting to too high for me to pay. But now, now I believe it. Bit by bit, step by step, I'm learning and I'm changing. If for now the stranger of anger is going to be my dance partner, then so be it. Because strength is at the spine of these steps I'm taking. And that woman I see looking back at me in the mirror these days? I'm starting to trust her. And like her.