Don't Take It Personally

unfinished post

So The Shrink is fond of telling me that emotions are not good or bad; they just are. It's what you do about those emotions that matters. Whenever I experience an emotion that I don't like (such as anger, jealousy, hurt feelings, etc) the first thing I typically do is look at what triggered them and try to decide if my emotional reaction is or is not justified (another shrink term). If it's not justified, I can normally talk myself out of it. If it feels justified, sometimes I will bounce it off other people for suggestions on how to feel better.

But sometimes I find out that it's not justified after all.

Last week, therapy felt like pretty much a wash. I knew it would be - I wasn't prepared for it. I tried to convey how this heavy, wet blanket of apathy that has settled over my mood isn't what I want to be feeling. I didn't succeed in making myself understood. The Shrink declared it a good thing since I am not hyper-irritated like I was several weeks ago. I ended up not getting anything useful out of the session. Of course, thanks to that same apathy, at least I wasn't frustrated or disappointed. With this apathy, only the strongest of feelings even register a change.

After therapy, The Shrink's office assistant told me we have a schedule conflict for this coming week. No big deal - Wednesdays are my "day off" and I am extremely flexible. Then she told me why. It seems she hadn't filled in my time slot for the month before he got a hold of the calendar. And he scheduled over my time slot. Now, I've been seeing him for three years. I have had the exact same time slot the entire time. Every Wednesday, at the same time, for three years... his assistant didn't write me in... and he forgot me.

I already have problems with feeling worthless and unimportant. I know that he is much more important to me than I would ever want to be to any of my doctors. And I struggle with feeling like I am nothing but a chart, a number, to them all. I accept that: I exist when I am in front of them and don't when I'm not. For the doctors I see frequently (like my GP) I hold onto the hope that he knows who I am when he sees me on the schedule, not just when he is reading my chart.

But I thought, after three years, that The Shrink would at least associate me with that Wednesday time slot. But apparently it didn't even occur to him. I wasn't on the schedule so I didn't exist. And my reaction to that information was to feel hurt, unimportant, worthless, and embarrassed. I looked at the trigger - he forgot me - and it still felt justified. When BFF asked me later that day how therapy went, I told her about the schedule change and the reason behind it. And I told her how it made me feel.

She told me not to take it personally. She forgets me all the time - that's the example she used. I tried to explain to her how much it bothers me when she does that as well. (It feels like I'm not worth taking into consideration when she is setting appointments, like I am furniture that should make myself available to her whenever she needs, that my time and schedule aren't worth remembering.) She told me I'm too sensitive. That it isn't personal. He probably forgot. I shouldn't let it bother me.

Okay. I didn't know quite what to make of it except that she has absolutely no respect for anyone's schedule ever. I know that and accept that as part of who she is. The same isn't true for The Shrink who just a few weeks ago was lamenting how he is always running late for my appointment because others run over and he worried that I would interpret that as him not caring enough to respect my time. (Which is so far from the way I feel that I literally laughed at him.) So I didn't put a lot of weight on her assessment.

A few days later, I related the same tale to Hubby. He also told me I was making too much of a big deal about it. He told me not to take it personally. He just forgot about me. He used the example of the kids' activities and how they have been in the same activities since September and he still has trouble remembering who is where when.