Tuesday--another VERY long entry

I woke this morning, still sleepy and feeling lousy. But I was determined to eat and to run this morning. My neighbor was driving our kids to school today, so I rested and snoozed till around 8:30. I forced a protein shake down, then ran three miles. I'm pretty slow now. It took me nearly 35 minutes, but at least I did it, and I felt better the whole day because of it.

In my resting and snoozing time I was thinking. I realized that there are a number of things bothering me, most of them about my counselor:
1. I hate it when she drones on for hours about her personal life. There are two reasons I hate this. The first is because, I really don't care, and really don't want to hear it. I'm the type of person who, if a distraction is presented, I will use that to avoid working through my own problems--and a distraction is what she presents to me when she talks about her problems. Gives me a great excuse to not do what I'm supposed to be paying her to help me with. The second reason is that I feel it is totally unprofessional. And I don't find her experiences helpful in ANY way. So I leave my sessions feeling unhappy and miserable because we didn't cover half of my questions because she wasted so much of my time and money talking about herself. Also, I'm upset at myself for not being assertive and telling her how I feel about this.
2. I know she has helped me. I couldn't have come this far without her expertise. I fully acknowledge this and I am grateful. However, I feel that she is digging for things in my life that aren't there. For instance, she'll say something like, "Most victims of abuse have a difficult time with parenting. They aren't always able to control their anger or emotions." Then she waits for me to say something. So I tell her, "That's really not a problem for me. I've pretty much controlled every aspect of my life since I was 12. And no, I'm not abusing my kids." She'll drop the subject for about ten minutes, and then I find that we're right back to it again. I find this very aggravating. It's bothersome to keep answering the same questions over and over again, especially since the answer isn't going to change. I WOULD NEVER HURT MY CHILDREN OR MY HUSBAND. It's just not in my nature to do so. I love them. However, as time goes on, I'm finding it in my nature to want to tell my counselor where to go.

One of the reasons I write in this blog is because it seems to make things real. If I just write them down, and no one reads them, it's like I never said those things. But even if no one reads the words I post here, at least they're out there FOR someone to read. They're no longer secret, private. They're REAL.

I just need to TALK and LISTEN so I/we can move forward. I'm thinking, too, that I'm going to attend my next counseling session, and then take a break for awhile.

It was amazing. For the rest of the day I experienced such a sense of peace. I felt that an enormous weight had been lifted from me. I even ate a little lunch and had dinner with my family. It's going to take some time before everything returns to normal, but I think I'm on my way. I had a lovely surprise in the mail. My FAVORITE sister sent Darrin and I a package for our 20th anniversary. She lives in Germany, so of course, it was mostly full of wonderful chocolate, but it had other fun stuff, as well. She routinely sends things late (our anniversary was last month), so it's always an unexpected surprise.

Darrin, Jr. had a choir concert tonight, so we went to see him perform. He's way too cute--I'm such a MOM!! We got home around 9:00, and went to bed shortly after we arrived. Darrin was exhausted (maybe I'm wearing him out???), and I was pretty tired, as well. We talked for about 30 minutes about the things I discussed in the above paragraphs, then went to sleep.