Aww, thank you for telling me about Coraline! She sounds adorable. My pup's name is Esper (see icon). She's four years old, a Doberman, deeply bonded to me (and vice versa), suffers from separation anxiety, and loves nothing more than to curl herself up into a ball that seems impossibly tiny for her size and hide under a blanket.
When writing becomes therapy for you, how does that work, if I might inquire? What sort of things in your writing or in the act of writing are helpful to you, mental health wise.
It's a bit hard to explain, but I find my subconscious works things out through the characters before I even realize it's happening. Character arcs turn out to be allegorical to my own journey, in ways I hadn't thought of until I realized my brain was working things out through story. Which isn't a terribly helpful way to explain it, I realize, but it's truly the way it seems to work with me.
...finding a therapist has been TERRIFYING for me ... How did you choose your therapist, if I might ask?
I understand (insofar as anyone can understand another person's subjective experience, of course); my agoraphobia made finding a therapist pretty terrifying. I was lucky in that she came recommended. I did a fairly extensive interview over the phone to get at least a cursory feel for whether we might be a good match. I looked for someone who had experience with PTSD, and then over the phone I asked about that experience and how she goes about treating it. I also asked about her experience with folks on the autism spectrum, people with chronic illness, and queer folks, since these are central issues in my life.
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Date: 2012-06-20 04:24 am (UTC)When writing becomes therapy for you, how does that work, if I might inquire? What sort of things in your writing or in the act of writing are helpful to you, mental health wise.
It's a bit hard to explain, but I find my subconscious works things out through the characters before I even realize it's happening. Character arcs turn out to be allegorical to my own journey, in ways I hadn't thought of until I realized my brain was working things out through story. Which isn't a terribly helpful way to explain it, I realize, but it's truly the way it seems to work with me.
...finding a therapist has been TERRIFYING for me ... How did you choose your therapist, if I might ask?
I understand (insofar as anyone can understand another person's subjective experience, of course); my agoraphobia made finding a therapist pretty terrifying. I was lucky in that she came recommended. I did a fairly extensive interview over the phone to get at least a cursory feel for whether we might be a good match. I looked for someone who had experience with PTSD, and then over the phone I asked about that experience and how she goes about treating it. I also asked about her experience with folks on the autism spectrum, people with chronic illness, and queer folks, since these are central issues in my life.