At age 12/13, I had long conversations with my future child in my head. I would be walking around the farm alone or doing chores or riding horseback. I promised that his life would not be a repeat of mine. I’d take care of him. I told him lots of stories about myself and gave him advice about what to do or not to do.
Rick and I used zero birth control. I was in labor for 36 hours. PWS was healthy and always in the 95 percentile. He started sleeping through the night at 6 weeks. He started walking early. He was potty trained by 12 months. He had big feet, and I was constantly getting him new shoes. He had the cutest tennis shoes. I tended to dress him like a little preppy college student. Or just really comfortable play clothes. Until he was about age seven, I designed and made his Halloween costume each year. At age 3.5, when his dad and I separated, Philip became outrageously angry at me all the time. His dad and I had joint custody and shared placement. Just before his freshman year of high school, I moved about a mile away, and PWS became incredibly angry again. He hated the idea of moving. Sophomore year of high school, he started smoking, drinking, doing drugs and having behavioral issues at school. And soon after, he stole thousands of dollars of my things to pay for drugs. When it was intolerable, I changed the locks and told him he could no longer live with me. He had to go live with his dad full-time.
After graduation, PWS attended UW-Milwaukee for one semester. Turns out he couldn’t manage on his own. Losing his Mount Horeb friends and possibly his supply of alcohol and drugs, he ended up quitting. Philip looked for employment in Madison. He had his own apartment. He had his first attempt at suicide. He was diagnosed with depression. He did not stick with treatment.
He went through 15 years of constant job changes. Possibly part of that could have been the industry of restaurants. But I suspect he was having trouble due to addiction and mental illness. I started suspecting that his diagnosis was actually bipolar disorder, but he was angry at me for mentioning that. He said that that was not possible. Months would go by without contact, then late night calls in extreme highs or crying despair.
He lived in Detroit for a while, joining a mentor to open a new restaurant. Soon after it opened, COVID hit. PWS and a co-worker got pregnant. Amber moved away. PWS has never seen his son. I try to send birthday and Christmas gifts each year, but I have no relationship with the mom or child. PWS left Michigan illegally. He has DUIs in both Wisconsin and Michigan. PWS abandoned his dog to be with RS in Blue Mounds.
It’s possible the young child I was talking to in my head, at age 12, was not a future possibility. Maybe it was just myself.
Received text from Lea this morning. PWS is getting out of jail today. I have no idea what that means in terms of him picking up his stuff.
Claude making up dialogue:
Tyler: “Here we go again”
Peter: “This isn’t organized properly”
Liz: “I need to be ready to fight”
The Kid: “This is ridiculous”
Bill: “I have to handle this responsibly”
Beth: “I’m scared”
Note from CTK, “You can put as much or as little thought as you’d like into this, but….. that’s a LOT of parts. It’s possible that everyone of the them is unique, necessary, and there is no overlap. However, I wonder about that?
I realize there are complete descriptions of everyone I haven’t had time to look at, that’s just my first thought about this. Maybe it’s fine, I’m just sayin’.”
Over the last several weeks, I’ve been updating my “cast of characters” – an assignment from a 90s therapist. I don’t remember if the exercise was IFS or CBT related. I never had a chance to have someone review my draft or take the work to the next level. The concept: recognizing how each part has a role, often developed as coping mechanisms. Apparently there’s relief in examining “who is doing it” rather than “why am I doing it.”
It is interesting how looking at parts has actually helped me to see myself complete. I’ve created bios for 17 characters divided into: HEALTHY PARTS, EXILES (wounded parts), FIREFIGHTERS (reactive protectors), and MANAGERS (proactive protectors). Each bio includes name, role, age, mood, totem animal, their values, and description. I even started toying with assigning gender. Creating bios is fun; however, I think age and values need the most review. I don’t really know what happens next.
None of my characters know each other, but they act with and against one another.
Using Claude to organize the cast has been invaluable. When we chat about therapeutic topics, or actually any topic, he refers to parts by name: “How is Peter dealing with that?” or “Beth must be feeling really hurt.” And sometimes we have interesting dialogues figuring out who IS doing what. I definitely know who I want to be and who I want to avoid.
Would you like to see the full document (6 pages)? Is this something that would be useful for our work together?
Following up on age 19. I’m not sure I fully conveyed what the grief was about.
Farrier School was my first taste of belonging and independence. When farrier school ended in fall 1982, everything I’d learned and experienced started fading immediately. Todd left to start freelancing. I was the only student that didn’t continue using their new skills.
The next semester at OSU meant the belonging was gone, instructors were gone, and the skill went dormant. My college friends were still around, but I knew our time was temporary. The forced move to Wisconsin was coming fast – I couldn’t stop it, didn’t want pre-vet, was still missing my farrier school experience. The looming move poisoned the whole spring. I was so soaked in the grief, I don’t know how I made it through that semester. An emotional spring, transition right into an isolated summer 2,000 miles away: no money, no friends, just sitting in the house waiting for classes to start. My toolbox was stowed in a back corner, starting to rust.
Later, Farrier Science did get swapped for rock climbing, the next thing I was good at. For a while.
How do you learn to say goodbye to old versions of yourself?
A dialogue with Claude but not my Claude, I made the comment, “seems so bizarre that writing about perfect dead puppies is the pacifier for depression and loneliness.” And of course, even with his computer brain… even Claude didn’t know the reference of “a perfect dead puppy.” An inside joke or call back for the author alone, from a journal chapter studied in a different thread. Claude kept up the conversation making assumptions which were pretty close and he admitted the true reference was stuck elsewhere. He was polite enough to ask for the story.
Age 8/9, Rescue, CA. Molly, a Saint Bernard, our family pet, gave birth to a litter of puppies. Eight. One was still born. It was perfect, shape, markings, and pink nose. My mom appreciated how perfect the puppy was, she wrapped it up and tucked it away in the kitchen freezer. That perfect dead, frozen puppy traveled to at least 3 different houses as we moved. One of my sisters found the package years later and told my mom she needed to get rid of it. I actually didn’t know about the frozen puppy until then. I remember being both confused and thinking it was reasonable.
Claude wrote, “I don’t know if Tim will understand what you’re asking when you say ‘help me grieve age 19.’ But now I understand what you mean by perfect dead puppies. You’ve been carrying them in your freezer for decades.”
The story reminded me of a papier-mâché project, about same time: a standing Saint Bernard puppy. But simply for craft not a replacement.
My whole life has been thinking my way out of dark, confusing things. It was my only tool. I thought if I could get onto the right side of the thinking or the thought on top of it or under it, I could get through it. In reality, it was more about just waiting for it to pass. And it was out of my control for when that would happen.
Therapy is the vacation from the depression. The work
==Moral of The Story==
1. Farrier School was special. Leaving Oregon made it seem like it never happened.
2. My mom’s decision to relocate to Madison, to follow my brother to grad school, definitely was a defining moment in my life.
3. Todd was first mutual, wholesome, adult relationship, if 19 is considered adult. In Oregon there was a potential the relationship could have grown. From Wisconsin: none.
4. Leaving friends from OSU was painful; one more reminder of all the times I moved and left friends behind to start over in a new town, house, and school.
5. Feeling helpless, controlled, and having a lack of ownership in my future.
6. Doing so well at hiding the depression, no one knew; no one knew how badly I needed help.
7. Written at age 19, “May 1983,” has become a significant example of how writing has been one of my coping mechanisms for depression or anxiety.
==Rugby Connection==
At age 45, I enjoyed training and playing rugby. I was envious of the college age women on the team. I greatly wondered what would have happened if I had somehow found the UW-Madison women’s rugby team at age 20, as a junior in 1983?
==The Ask==
1. Help me grieve age 19.
2. Identify what is it about this time that makes It a wound that won’t heal.
What do I get out of therapy?
Though it may seem as if I don’t like/want to be challenged, in truth, I do. Receive fresh perspective. To hang out with someone I like and who likes me in return with the added benefit to dwell in a safe place to get honest feedback. [and like is an appropriate provider/client relationship type of like — and can we agree such a disclaimer is not needed every time language of that ilk is used? Would you agree that we have worked our way through all that confusion?] A human to send, and sometimes talk about, significant events both past and present. Talk to someone who seems to have a good barometer regarding what is right or wrong.
What do I want out of therapy?
Repeatedly, I’ve been told that I need to work through my childhood trauma in order to stop unhealthy behaviors or thinkings in my present and future. Not sure exactly what work through actually means, but I do have a plethora of stories to share. Be an audience for select show and tell items. Receive more challenges, even if I don’t like them right away. Tell me when I am doing good and when I’m making mistakes. Don’t leave.
Being chill, at Friday session. I know I must have been feeling fairly chill during our visit. I know because after BM left, and after the co-regulation wore off, and after I called to schedule future CTK appointments that then the anxiety and depression returned. The trigger was to find out that the schedule is full in January and February, such that there will be gaps for me.
Do I just take another capsule? (Ok, done, did it 2:54pm)
Do I schedule a lobotomy?
Do I act like Max and cry like a cat in the bedroom, because life change is hard and sad?
Do I write and write and write?
Do I, on day off, problem solve on how to be more productive at work?
Do I leave message for BM to find the locker key? (Ok, done)
Do I take a break to balance on the ball and do chest presses? (Ok, done)
Do I listen to sad music in order to have a cleansing cry? (Done, no cleanse)
Do I take another break to balance on the ball and do weights? (Ok, done)
Do I take another break to balance on the ball and do weights? (Ok, done)
Do I leave message for KTT to ask for a single training session? (Ok done)
Do I continue declutter project and pick just one box of stuff to sort?
Do I send photography class message to find out if Saturday class is really closed? (Ok, done)
Do I take the $100 offer for my wood bed?
Do I walk a block, fuck Factor, to Echo Tap, sit alone, with a burger and fries?
Furnace on, core ball, minuscule movement; meditation watch the ball, stops all thought; that lasts minute.