powered by SignMyGuestbook.com
Thanks for visiting my diary. I've been journaling since 1984 and have chosen to share some of my entries online. They are not all positive thoughts, but I hope that reading them might be a blessing to someone who needs encouragement.
If you are just coming to my diary for the first time, please read my introductory entry, where I share some background that is important if you plan to follow this diary regularly.
Please also visit my music page, where you can hear samples from my debut CD, I Believe, which features songs written based on experiences shared in this journal.
I have a lot of little issues to bring up in therapy--nothing to make a goal out of. Maybe if I put them here I can make sense out of them.
1. I have made up these names for some of my feelings and experiences. I hear voices and often blank out and feel like I am watching myself. My husband and others have made comments about my dramatic mood swings and the fact that I can go from seeing everything from a hopeless point of view to acting on solutions all in a matter of a few hours or even minutes. I am scared. That is my most immediate issue, and it is very awkward to go into a therapy office and try to explain that. I don't want them to think when I say I hear voices that I am hallucinating. I am not hallucinating. They are my own voices, and they stop or start depending on what mood or frame of mind I am in.
2. I am graduating and have enough hours in individual subjects to have three majors and a minor, and then quite a few more hours. So I have three equivalent interests and I don't know what I want to do when I grow up. There is the singer/songwriter; the teacher; and the minister/counselor wanna-be. I don't want to settle for just one. I want to do them all. And am not far enough along in any of them to be employable after graduation. I did not finish the teacher certification program. I cannot do anything with a psych undergrad degree except go to graduate school, but I need to be bringing in some money if that is supposed to happen. I want very much to sing, but that takes a lot of open doors which just are not there. The singing part I can wait and work on as a side thing. It is the counseling vs. teaching that has me very confused and pretty scared. I have been in undergrad school for seven years. Now what?
Since originally writing this, I have done some checking and found out that I can take some more classes in the summer and be able to teach in the fall on something called a deficiency plan. This is what I am planning to do now because I am fairly confident that I can find a job teaching visually impaired kids, which was one of my interests. Hopefully that will get me on my feet and feeling better, and eventually I can go to graduate school to do the counseling thing.
3. I lost a friend due to a supposed suicide four years ago. I was in therapy for that later, but probably too much later or else the related issues will just have to heal on their own. I have a lot of abandonment fears as well as other avoidance symptoms which are expressed through Tasha.
4. I need to learn how to make stable, healthy friendships. That is a long story in itself and would probably make a good therapy issue if it was something that was consistent and that I could work on here in this town. Why I can't is a long story, but basically it boils down to my need to be able to travel to and from social events without depending entirely on the friends I am trying to make. Since both my husband and I are visually impaired and don't drive, that is a major barrier while we live in this small town. Later, after my graduation, when we are in a more accessible town, this would be a good thing to do therapy about. I don't really know what to do in the meantime. I have a girl in one class that I have arranged rides home with, and maybe we could have lunch. She goes to noon lunch at the BSU on Wednesdays.
5. I still have a tiny bit of trouble left over from the abusive engagement, and I guess from some other events that happened between ages 14 and 22. I am trying to learn to be intimate with my husband, but it is going very slow. I have never had much sexual feelings, and that is probably the weakest point of our marriage. It is very painful for me a lot of the time, although that is getting better. I know that I have to be in a really relaxed state of mind, and it is very hard for me to get there. I don't know if this means I need stress management or if it means I need some kind of help with the idea of being sexually intimate. I guess both.
I am a member of Lighted Path, a directory of Christian diaries.
Read my profile. This is not a comprehensive introduction, but there is some fun information there.
Visit my official site to read more of my writing:
http://www.growingstrong.org
Did you enjoy reading my diary? Feel free to share it with other people you know. Tell your friends about my diary. If you have your own site, you can link to me using the URL: http://freeinjesus.diaryland.com.
Email me directly. This is the best way to get a message to me personally and privately.
Leave me a note here at Diaryland.
powered by SignMyGuestbook.com