pie charts and triangle graphs

if you don’t count the hustle and bustle of people moving furniture and stomping around on the floor above us, it was pretty much silent for more than half my session this week. it’s not even awkward anymore. i’m in a state.

so because i’m so confused and doggy paddling out in the middle of life’s ocean, in a moment of desperate search for some answers, i shelled out $90 dollars to take a personality test and meet with a career counselor. the personality test basically told me a lot of what i already know but puts my personality into charts and graphs. take a looksy…

i don’t know, untitled.

i re-started therapy two weeks ago but i havent written anything because i have no idea what to write. i have no idea what’s going on and no idea what to report. there’s a lot of that going on in my sessions as well, it’s a lot of silence and talking about the silence and not knowing about anything. i noticed i say “i dont know” a lot when i talk, i’m hoping to put an end to that.

i’m writing right now mostly because today, we were in a different room. the room was smaller but almost everything else inside it was the same (even that ugly rug!), so when i was laying on the couch, i felt bigger like in alice in wonderland when she starts growing and it seems like the room is getting smaller.

the only thing that was different about the new room was the framed print of a fine art painting and the wall it was hung on. also, this room didn’t have willy wonky walls. in the usual room, there’s a monet print with a red border with gold type; in the room today, there was a georgia o’keefe flower painting from the museum of fine arts in st. petersburg, white trim, black type (these are the kinds of things i remember). i’m curious about what other prints they have in the other rooms. on my way out after my session, the door to one of the other rooms was open and there was a miro print, i think.

i really just wish i would get a job already. i mailed out a check for $90 dollars today to take a career test. that’s how lost i feel.. take my money, provide me with guidance!  ill let you know how that goes.

baby steps?

while i’ve been wonderfully comfortable taking baby steps all this time, im wondering should i have been taking giant strides?

entanglement

i dont know who to tell things to since i figure most people don’t care. so even though the first 3 weeks of august is lacking in therapy, i have something to say!

i think i mentioned this in an earlier entry but i dont think i went into detail because i was too mad at myself to think about it. even though im a bad storyteller, still really mad at myself and still feel like the biggest asshole ever, its relevant to whatever dumb point im eventually going to try to make, i think. ok ready? sometime in may, after graduation, an art school friend gave me a painting she made that was based on a painting i made. she had to leave in a hurry after graduation to take a job in germany and left a bunch of supplies and the painting in her studio for me to pick up. so i go to her studio to get everything but the painting was as tall as me and there was a lot of other heavy things. there was no possible way i could carry this 5′x4′ painting with a milkcrate full of clay and resin back to my apartment by myself so i wrapped the painting in bubblewrap, got it all ready with plans of coming back for it. by the time i get back to get the painting, its gone, the studio is completely bare, and i feel like the biggest dumbass jerk that ever lived. and to this day, i still cant face my friend who’s in germany and tell her what happened. even retelling this story now brings back the creepycrud asshole feelings i felt when i first realized im an idiot for not getting the painting sooner.

but anyway, i digress, the point is this happened in may and ive been trying not to think about it because all it does is make me feel horrible. this morning im having breakfast with a high school friend, telling her about the painting and our friend who painted it, shuddering at all those creepycrud asshole feelings that come flooding back.

later that day…

i get an incoming call from the number 0000123456. i guess i expected it to be some jokester trying to mess with me because i answer the phone with a sing-song “heeelllllllllllllooooooooo?” oh! guess who it is! “hey, im in new york! i had problems with my german visa and i’m back in new york for 2 weeks!”

ahhhh!!!!!!!! djf;klaj0-w;fwwwhhhaaaaat???!!

it was just one of those UNIVERSE! YOU’VE DONE IT AGAIN! days. and apparently, that has a name! This is what Wikipedia has to say about entanglement theory.

Quantum entanglement is a quantum mechanical phenomenon in which the quantum states of two or more objects are linked together so that one object can no longer be adequately described without full mention of its counterpart — even though the individual objects may be spatially separated.

i’m pretty sure i have no idea what im talking about when it comes to physics but basically, the example i was taught with is if we’re having a conversation about sea lions and later that day, i see a sea lion. but keep in mind that  this was explained to me during a 5-hour drive/hash smoking session so… you know. i wanna know more!

hiatus

im on a therapy hiatus until the 26th of august. im gonna use this time to fully take advantage of the last summer of my life. i have a sense of impending doom because as august draws to an end, i need to enter the workforce. which isnt that bad. im looking forward to having some sort of purpose in the world and something to do everyday, but having a job + responsibilities + financial independence + decision making= being a grown up =

this week, my therapist said something like, it seems you want to hold on to the magic of being a child. DUH! being a child is the best! kids rule!

story time

i dont know why i didnt write a post last week. i tried to! i started writing on a few occasions but realized i dont really know what to write so i stopped and deleted whatever i had written because it seemed dumb after awhile. i never know what to talk about or write anymore, especially knowing someones actually out there and listening. it makes it a lot more difficult for me to feel secure and validate my thoughts before expressing them.

last week, we talked about the silence because there was a lot of it. we decided that we were exchanging stories this week; i told her about “The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat” this clinical story by a neurologist, Oliver Sacks, about a man with visual agnosia and she read me “The Girl Without Hands.” i dont really feel like writing about what we talked about the stories.. umm, im a visual person and pears are delicious, whatever.

she asked me how i wanted to acheive what i wanted through psychotherapy. this part of the session resonated the most with me because dude, i dont know. its pretty much impossible for me to completely let my guard down and tell Anyone about my deep dark thoughts. how do you get to that point with someone where you just trust them to listen to everything and anything you have to say? im way too guarded for that. i dont even know what most of my thoughts are because i spend so much time repressing them. im more comfortable and safe being superficial. i guess its sort of like a cut, a superficial wound doesnt hurt so much and you walk away pretty much unscathed but the deeper the wound, it hurts more and takes longer to heal; plus, it could get infected and you have to apply and reapply neosporin and mederma to prevent scarring.. wait, what was i talking about?

burnt like toast

so going to therapy on a ridiculously hot humid day after smoking is a bad idea. i was really exhausted and burnt and didnt even feel like talking. so i didnt! it was a pretty quiet session, i cant even think of a single thing we talked about that i think is worth writing about.

oh, my therapist has an accent??!! why didnt i know about this?? there’s something wrong with me and my ears, maybe i watch too much tv but i cant pick up on accents until its really thick or im expecting it. we were talking about how i ask her questions she never answers and how im not really supposed to know anything about her. which is fine with me, i like not knowing, i almost prefer it. she asked me if i wonder about her and where her accent is from, to which i responded with, “holy shit! you have an accent?!” how did i not pick up on that?! apparently, she’s somewhere from europe, which im not supposed to know but im fucking sneaky.

after our session, i started walking east but realized i was gonna head home to brooklyn so i backtracked to take the F downtown. as i was walking back, my therapist was leaving the psychoanalysis center so i was walking a couple of feet behind her for 3 blocks. that was weird. seeing my therapist outside the therapy room, like a real person. i almost wanted to change my route but i just walked really slow until i lost sight of her. thank god she didnt see me, that wouldve been even weirder and i wouldve been super awkward.

filling in the gaps

i thought i would have a lot to say this week because i went to tony’s 4th annual birthday bbq in heaven last sunday, quit smoking and moved out of my apartment and was surprisingly sad about it my first night in the new place. WRONG. i had very little to say and ended up sitting in silence most of the time until the end when i started babbling about weirdos, lion fish and angler fish. i always end up not talking about or only briefly mention the things that i think seem important and ramble on about things that aren’t, or at least don’t seem to be. but apparently, this is what psychoanalysis is all about- crazy rambles.

the more i try to understand myself and why i am the way i am and do the things i do, the more confused i get and the weirder i feel. for some reason, i feel like i’m lying a lot even though i’m pretty sure i’m not, like sometimes my perception is SO different from yours that what feels real to me, isn’t. like last week, my roommate kept insisting that this rug that we had was navy blue even though it looked completely brown to me. she made me feel like i was going crazy bananas! it was so frustrating and unsettling knowing that what i see, plain and simple in front of me, that is rug is brown, isn’t. i think i get different degrees of that same feeling when trying to figure out what’s going on with me. that plus the fact i feel really narcissistic during those sessions and these blogs makes me feel like a crazy self-involved asshole. i made some dumb joke about how the narcissism might make me drown and she laughed.. i like when people think im funny.

talking and not talking

when i first started my sessions, i felt really uncomfortable sitting silently in this anonymous, window-less room with its willy wonka wall and sorta cheesy monet print. not that monet is cheesy but it’s a crappy looking print with a red trim with CLAUDE MONET written in gold lettering, bordered in some cheap gold frame, hanging on the wall like it was put there without consideration.

it’s awkward to just start talking and trying to tell them all these important things without anything to prompt it. i never know what to start talking about when i first get in there after the initial ‘hi, how are you.’ i settle down on the couch, mentally scan all my memories of the past week since we last spoke and if i think anything is worth mentioning, i do. otherwise, i just lay there, twiddling my thumbs in silence.

i mentioned to her that starting july 1st, the day after i move into my new apartment, i am gonna quit smoking cigarettes, which i’m worried about because i enjoy smoking so much but i think its something i should do. i dont really wanna go into why or why i like it so much and i didnt want to so much with her either.

after we sat in silence for a little while after that, she brought up the 5 things psychoanalysis encourages you to talk about, even though i cant remember all five.

1. whatever pops into your head
2. sex…? thats it
3. things in the room
4. how you feel about your therapist, whether they be positive or negative. and they encourage the negative
5. i dont remember the fifth one because we talked about the fourth one for awhile. sorry. maybe ill remember to ask next time.

we talked about the news and why i talk about the news. we do that a lot; talk about something and then talk about why we’re talking about it.

surprise!

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