Posted by Annabelle Smith on February 13, 2011, at 15:38:17
Whenever events occur that make me really upset, I imagine myself telling my therapist about it in the moment-- of these many, many events that I imagine telling him about, hardly any actually end up being shared. But these events happen so often-- and the only way to deal with them are to imagine sharing the rage and frustration with him, so he can make it better.
When these events happen, they ruin my entire day-- they make it so that I can't focus, and increasingly, I am overtaken by a nausea. Today, I went with a formal group of individuals to visit an Orthodox Church. I was really looking forward all week to this trip. But it was nothing like I had expected. It was a really long service, and my mind reverted back to the feelings of chaos, nausea, and despair induced around and within my last session. I began to just think about my therapist, and how I needed his presence, and about how empty I felt and all of the things I needed to share with him. This happens a lot. I have probably about 100+ conversations with my therapist each day-- in my head and out loud. But they are totally imaginative; he is not really here. And in each conversation, I am a different way-- a different self with a different mood and tone. It really f*cks it up during a session, because when is really there, I don't know how to be. And then I can't possibly share all with him in reality what I have already shared in my imagination.
But what happened today: I couldn't help but be drastically aware that all of the leaders of the service were men. I began to feel anger, hatred, then rage. I grew up in a very converservative Presbyterian denomination where women were never allowed to be pastors or even Sunday School teachers. Authority has always been male, and I really think that is a part of my problem today-- in how I act around male authority figures. But our group got to have a a Q&A session with the priest after the service was over, and one of the females in our group asked the priest to explain the role of women in the Orthodox Church and to tell why no women were participating in leadership.
He said: the priesthood is male (translated: authority is male). He said that women have a role to play, but they just can't do THIS role. He saida: the priesthood is male because Christ came as a male. At that point, I felt nauseous and had the simulaneous urge to cry, scream, and walk out of the church. But I sat there as tears filled my eyes-- but didn't cry.I just feel enraged-- at the system, at the oppression of it, at the fact because some groups are shrouded in "tradition" they therefore are seen as immune to critique. I feel enraged with all of the white, male, type-A personality pastors to whom I have given so much authority and whose approval I have sought so slavishly the past many years. What I am saying is not against men in general. Many men are not this way; and actually, there are many women who are patriarchy and feed into the system. For example, my therapist is male, but to me, in his attitude and way of being of his compassion, sincerity, honesty, and sensitivity exemplifies the exact opposite of patriarchy; not femininity, but total, compassionate humanity, that transcends gender stereotypes.
I just needed to share this-- because it enraged me so much.
The nausea is getting worse. It takes my appetite. It makes me feel perpeually spinning. It comes with rage. It comes with despair. It comes with chaos, with being too full of things to say, with loneliness, with hoplessness. It is always there. The nausea of my existence.
I really want my therapist right now. I think this everyday, but especially in moments of pain, like this.
poster:Annabelle Smith
thread:979199
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20110206/msgs/979199.html