documentation

[adrienmundi]

Talking with new therapist today about the sheer frustration of people doing me unintentional harm by playing with the only tools they have at hand (work examples of being told what a great "man" I am and knowing it's warmly intended, but still feels like a stab deep inside by something long and sharp that draws deep arterial blood, an internal wound no one sees but me), she nodded and said:

"I can only imagine what that must feel like. You're such a smart guy..."

And I lost the latter part of her sentence as I started to run the internal test, check for damage, and try to decide to let it pass or say something. About five seconds into the process, I stopped and said

"Can we not use words like guy to describe me?"

She stopped, apologized for the mistake. While I didn't realize it at the time (focused on the words), she teared up a little, thanked me for correcting her, and said she'd try to be more conscious in the future. As we talked about it later, she said the reason she got emotional was not that her feelings were hurt, but that she suddenly had an idea of how often it was I experienced that, and how awful it had to be.

Comments

[subjective.livejournal.com]

Oh yikes. At least she didn't get all self-centered about it, though, I guess. Sometimes it feels just as draining to call things out as it does to let them pass...

Seems like things are particularly hard lately -- I'm sending you good thoughts.

[adrienmundi]

I took it as largely positive, though of course it would have been better had the teaching moment never come to pass.

Thanks for the thoughts. They help.