Hi Kevin!
something a little different: i'm writing to you at the start of my day instead of at the very end. literally-- i'm typing this as i'm waiting for my first client of the day to show up. my office is right next to the foyer with the elevator, so i can hear it "ding" when someone is coming up. speaking of which, i heard it just go off now, and i'm going to assume it's my client so i'll be ready to put this away in a couple of minutes.
it's both a good and a bad thing that i started writing these letters on here. good because i love writing letters-- i remember being 9 years old and being gifted with two sets of hello kitty stationary and treating them like they were absolute treasures. once i realized that it would probably be better to actually use them instead of hoard them, i finally started sending letters to my friends, complete with little stickers and drawings to go with them. whoa, that actually just unlocked a very strong and fond memory. i haven't thought about that in... years.
(ah, i just poked my head out into the waiting room and no one was there. so, elevator "ding" was not my client. more writing time for me!)
i'm actually surprised that i'm writing right now because i'd usually like to spend this time mentally preparing for my schedule today. but my mind has been really full these days, so i guess i'm not surprised that my body's preferring to type it all out rather than rereading my progress notes. making more room in my brain, i guess.
(this is gonna be all over the place, so forgive me.)
anyways, back to it being a good thing: yeah, i love writing letters. so much so that ever since i wrote the first one, my brain went "ooh! back into letter-writing mode!" and now whenever i walk around and my mind is going, it's spinning its wheels and formulating its thoughts in a letter format. it’s a fun way of living my life, like a constant narration of a story i get to tell someone.
‼️🗣️💭 [pause for session] 🗣️💭‼️
sorry for the break in my train of thought! halfway through my day now- i'm spending the rest of my lunch break writing more of my thoughts. i can feel myself feeling different today haha, but two of my afternoon clients are kids so hopefully that'll break me out of whatever solemnity i'm fighting right now. i'd like to talk more about my therapist brain, but i'm feeling a little reluctant to actually make that known so i think i'll follow that instinct and hold off for now. just, therapy's tough sometimes… which might be a bit of an obvious statement to make!
‼️🗣️💭 [pause for session] 🗣️💭‼️
okay, tough brain day. luckily i was able to bring more energy for my kids, but it was kind of an unexpectedly heavy day? i usually don’t bring my work home with me, a skill that i’ve been really grateful for having locked in pretty tight, but there was just a theme of helplessness that lingered with me even until i was winding down tonight.
before i started this job, i worked as a therapist at a high school for a year and learned that i couldn’t work with kids because i cared about them too much. which sounds like a super bonkers thing to say, but hear me out: i can’t love and support these kids like i want to. when my adult clients tell me about a bad situation for them, i can help with exploring and empowering them to leave it. when my child clients tell me, sometimes all i can do is just sit with them in all the ugliness and try and help them find ways to cope until they’re 18.
that’s devastating. we are so limited in what we’re allowed to do. i can’t drive them to school when their parents refuse to, i can’t take them in when their parents kick them out. it killed me, hearing these stories and knowing that even if i make a report, sometimes it doesn’t help, and sometimes even made it worse. i hated sitting in front of them and being able to do nothing more than feel the loss with them. sorry, is this too real? this might be too real. sorry, i totally went against my statement of not wanting to tap into my therapist life.
i’m so incredibly grateful that inside out 2 just came out— as you can imagine, it was super helpful in talking with my kids about emotions. my kid didn’t want to draw their current emotions, so we just talked about their favorite characters and they identified the reason why each character felt a certain way. personally, i think “jellusea” is a way cuter spelling and prefer that to the proper one. also: broklee 🥦
now it is once again a late night letter, so i’m 3 for 3 on the midnight (for me!) posts. i’m not sure if this approach of writing throughout the day was the way to go, but it was a good outlet for me to focus my scattered thoughts into a semi-cohesive state. i’m sorry if it felt like too much— and also, i hope you know you have all the freedom to stop reading at any point? like really, you never have to read any of my letters, i so admire that you do read what we write to you, but i just want to make sure you know that i also hope for you not to if you don’t want to. you don’t need my permission for that by any means, but i just want you to know you have my support.
anyways, from one human to another, thanks for being a someone i get to tell my story to. thank you for offering your curiosity to all the humans here to have the chance to be known.
sincerely,
Michele 🐚
oh, and this letter’s entry for “HEHARGSDLTAET” ! (heyeveryoneheresareallygoodsongdontlistentoanythingelsetoday):