My experiences putting all of me together to cope with chronic illness, depression, anxiety in a constructive way.
On Being Constructive

This spiderweb is tiny. Those clover are maybe the size of my fingernails. Full size it's even more beautiful, I left it big enough that if you click on it you can see the dew droplets. They have to re-do this everytime the web is damaged or removed; maybe they do it every day anyway; or several times a day. Do they have feelings? Frustration, anger, purposelessness, hopelessness?
My point? It sounds a bit Sisyphus but they must eat and this is their livelihood. This beautiful work of art. This is their labor for sustenance. Constructive, beautiful, art. This is how I wish to see my life. That the things I must do could be viewed as constructive, beautiful, art instead of only seeing the destruction of my labor; or frustration, anger, purposelessness, or hoplessness. I am not of the mind that I have a great overarching purpose in the universe but I have continued to contemplate the idea of how important it is for each of us to do the best we can to make the world better even if the only thing we do is find peace within ourselves.
This tiny fragile, yet so amzingly strong, architectual wonder has always fascinated me. I have had ideas for a dreamcatcher woven with a web with spiders dropping down as a tattoo. There is some other background there relating to that first woman I fell in love with. I have concerns about the using the dreamcatcher, that it would be disrespectful to The People. The spiderweb, however, I feel even more strongly about that today.
I took this between 11am-12pm today in mom's back yard pacing the backyard whilst on the phone with My Therapist.
Had two calls with him this week. How long has this been a week and a half? two weeks? two weeks today I think. Anyway, for all the stress of the last two weeks I was able to manage better than even I expected. The fatigue was difficult and by Monday I did start feeling a bit overwhelmed so I called to see if he was good with phone sessions. He was so I had an extra and my normal Thursday.
Did I mentioned my son called as well? He is struggling with college. This is his third semester and he's not been able find his feet yet. He's coming here this weekend and his grandma, papa, and me are going to try to help him get a handle on what's left of this semester. Assuming that's possible. If not, we'll figure out a new strategy.
My Therapist says I'm doing well. It's okay that I'm keeping my boundaries as well as possible and I shouldn't feel guilty. He says he hears me worrying some in the same way between helping my dad and helping my son. Guilt that I might not do enough or be able to do enough, accounting for my own limitations, or the worry that my desire to help will be seen as a weakness to be taken advantage of.
He did give me a piece of guidance that he said he received when he first became a therapist:
(paraphrased because I don't remember exact words)
Don't work harder than your client
If you're exhausting yourself and the client isn't doing anything for themselves, you're working too hard. If you are exhausted, but your client is also doing their part and making great progress, that is fair and you are doing right.
That feels like a fair way to guage my situation when I'm feeling unsure. Knowing when my son is really trying can be difficult because he does tend to tell me what I want to hear and then do his own thing so there is still some challenge but eventually it shakes out.
Hope I didn't ramble too much.
<3



