No Better Place Than Here

So I've really accepted that I'll never be a consistent blogger, but there are just times where I need to write some things and have them out in the world. I still write a bit, but most of it isn't for an audience....this feels different.

These past couple years have been transformational for me in way more ways than one. 

• I've found a job that is very settled and calm and I can accept as good for me right now. It's not so social worky, but that's more than okay right now.
• I've mostly let go of my constant striving to achieve more and more and am settling into who I am and what that means. I get small bursts of this now and again, but it settles quickly.
• Most of my anxiety has left me, and I've made peace with my understanding of any depressive tendencies that I might have. There's a few reasons for this that I'll offer later.
• My wife and I have a lovely home and are mostly settled. We do struggle with possibly wanting to move to a house again, but that might not happen.
• One of my parents passed recently and I've had to come to terms with what that means for me, as I have a mostly removed relationship with most of my family.

So the biggest catalyst for some of the work and personal changes started early last spring. That was when I re-discovered the research behind psychedelics and mental health. I remember studying in my undergrad how psychedelics were researched in the 60s and 70s, then shut down by government and it always stuck with me a little bit. A number of years ago, I had a call to pursue ayahuasca ceremony, but chose not to at this time.

So last spring, I started a string of interactions with psychedelics and related medicines that progressed from psilocybin microdosing to ketamine therapy to a bufo molecule experience and recently to an ayahuasca retreat. All this, in tandem with a lot of therapy and inner work, has been truly transformative in many ways.

I'm still formulating how I want to lay this all out and will probably just go chunk by chunk...possibly working backwards...but I do think it will be helpful with my integration process overall.

I look forward to sharing more.

Boundaries in the Workplace

From when I first started training as a social worker, all the way to now, I've always had a pull towards the importance of boundaries in my work, whether I mean in helping people with them, or working on them myself. As a social worker, boundaries are hugely important in so many ways. We work with people whose lives may be in shambles and we can't own that in any major way, or we're screwed. We're asked to do more than we can handle and if we give in a little, again, we're screwed. We have an obligation to have an awareness of our boundaries, as well as our own boundary issues.

I can't say the amount of times this has been a focus on my therapy with someone else, but for myself, it's an ongoing issue. Sometimes the boundary issues are very clear. Someone is rude and annoying and you set the boundary that you want them to retrain from speaking to you like that. Simple (haha, really?). Others are not so easy. For example, when someone is rude, they're rarely rude to just one person, right? So say I set my boundaries with this person, but my friend and co-worker, Fred, doesn't. My day after day, my friend is annoyed and offended by this person and who do they talk to about their annoyance? Their friend (me), of course. That is just simply a more difficult boundary to set, in my experience.

However, it must be done. Sigh.

Someone Needed to Say It....We All Do

Is it about gun control or mental illness...

Great article HERE

Obviously, the much bigger issue is that Liza Long is not Adam Lanza's mom. The similarity begins and ends with the having of mentally ill sons. That's all we know, and it's dangerous to assume more than that. We can't lump all people with mental illness together into one big "crazy" pot, it stigmatizes the ill and disconnects us, as a society, from their humanity.

Sometimes it's a chicken and the egg kind of thing, and this is definitely one of those areas. However, one of the ends really sticks out like a sore thumb on this one. The SIZE of the damage could have been much smaller.

Time Makes a Difference

I am doing better.
There are some changes that have really helped, but there is still a lot of work to do. Reading therapy related books and blogs only at work has really helped. I've discovered some great fiction and have done some fun things lately. I will occasionally check my work email, but try to avoid it at all cost. There's little I can't handle later.
I am still feeling somewhat lost in all of this. Why I have chosen to come to this place is a mystery, but I'm discovering more and more of how to get out of it. I've always wanted to know the why and still seek it, but what the hell. Doesn't it get to some point where you say fuck it?
It's interesting about some of the realizations that have come up for me that may be helpful in the future. My desire to write. My uncomfortableness around men. My laziness. My desire for freedom and escape. The one place I want to live in the future. My food issues. So much.
I still look over to that other chair while I am working and see myself way too much. While this isn't always a bad thing, it's hurting me right now. On the other side of the coin, it's also what makes me a good therapist.
Ok, enough stream of consciousness writing for now. It's interesting as I write this and think about wanting to write. It's always been somewhat of a struggle translating what is going on in my head to paper or keyboard. I wonder what THAT means... ;)