I don’t like to go to healthcare providers of any kind. My
biggest concern, when I go in to the doctor for a simple checkup or to get a
prescription for a known difficulty, is that they will tell me that I am sick.
I worry that, feeling relatively healthy, or feeling a bit of sniffles, the
doctor will say something like “you have two months to live” or “you have heart
disease” or worst of all “no more chocolate for you.” I guess I’d prefer to be
blissfully unaware of any medical difficulties I have. Of course, I always feel
better leaving the doctor’s office having NOT heard these things. I feel like a
weight has lifted. I guess some part of my mind always thinks that I am
probably about to die, and I’d really rather not know.
I suppose it that a similar fear kept me out of a therapist’s
office for years. I’d always had this sneaking suspicion that I was nuts. Certainly
I didn’t feel nuts, but what greater evidence could one have? Honestly, I had
other evidence as well. I’d had a home study when I’d hoped to adopt and the
social worker had not approved us because I had experienced trauma that she
felt I had not dealt with. My wife likes to read books about various
psychological difficulties and has pointed out on a number of instances
situations where I meet some of the criteria for some mental disorder or
something. And, once in a while, I do something or think something that in
retrospect I can see as crazy.
It was one of these instances that finally got me into a
therapists’ office. I had an outburst of anger back in March that was so
powerful that it scared me. I decided, I might really be crazy. I got so angry during
a situation that I completely lost my cool. I decided I’d better go in. I fully
expected that I would go in to the appointment and be sent away in a white coat
to an institution where they would feed me powerful sedatives and hook me up to
machines that would keep me in a state of constant electroshock. I figured I’d be told that I am a danger to
myself and others and that I should probably be locked up, permanently. I
figured they’d at the very least tell me that I couldn’t have guns anymore, which
made me sad, because I like guns. They make loud noises and gunpowder is one of
my top five favorite smells.
Well, just like every single time I’ve ever been to a
doctor, nothing terrible like that happened. In fact, there’s nothing wrong
with me. I am not crazy at all. I do not have any type of mental disorder
whatsoever, not even a mild one. The trauma the social worker believed I’d not
dealt with is something that is there, and it does affect me, but it is not
debilitating. I am sane: perfectly and entirely without mental defect.
And going to therapy for the last month has been really
wonderful for me. I understand so much better what is going on in different
aspects of my life. I recognize that my stress levels come from one specific
source, the fact that I have never really learned to set boundaries. I have
never really learned to say “no” when people ask me to do things. The reason is
that I always do legitimately WANT to do everything people ask me to.
Unfortunately, I can’t. I have limits. So, I am learning. I am learning that
except in extreme circumstances, no one actually has the right to make any
demands on me. People can make requests, and I can look at my priorities and I
can say “no.”
This is really is hard because people get upset when others
tell them “no.” The first response most people feel when told “no” is anger. I
need to learn that just because someone is angry does not mean I should give in
to them. When I’ve reached a point where I’ve done all I feel I can do, I need
to say “no.” At this point this is still really hard for me because I hate
having people mad at me. So, that is the next step. Learning to live with other
people’s disappointment, and even my own, that I can’t do everything that’s
asked of me.
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