Surprises

Surprises abound today...yesterday...whatever (yeah, it's after 1 am again). Talked to the ex and he has agreed to give me the money I requested from his tax refunds. He's also going to give me $50 a week in child support. That's less than the state would require him to pay, but it's better than the nothing I've been receiving so I'm not going to complain, at least not yet. Of course him saying he'll do something and having it actually materialize are often two different things, so I'm not getting my hopes up.

Another surprise was that my therapist wasn't upset that I didn't do the homework. In fact when she looked at it, she was just as confused as to what she wanted me to do with it as well. Of course I got new homework for this week, joy. While this time I fully understand what she wants me to do, it'll be extremely difficult because it requires me to do something I don't do...dream. Dream of a different life, one not controlled by mental illness.

We got to talking about what I need from therapy. What I think is wrong with me. Guess she did pick up on the fact that I've managed to steer our sessions away from my personal issues to talk about my ex and my daughter instead. I'm not going into details of the conversation because I don't have time right now and I'm sure I've mentioned a plethora of things I think are wrong with me over the years I've been blogging. But mainly I told her I felt defective and explained what that meant.

So my homework is to "pretend" one of two options will work, since I told her I believe for the most part I'm damaged beyond repair for life. We can either concentrate on fixing the defect or on finding ways to live with it without having it control me. I have to decide which one might be doable, even if I believe neither will, and write how I might be willing to go about working towards either. She said we needed to have a direction, a goal, which is odd because I thought we'd written up a treatment plan for that express purpose.

Guess I basically need to get creative and try to imagine what life would be like sans the defect or pushing the defect off to the deep recesses of my mind. Both sound like complete fantasies and I've never been one to fantasize about anything. It's too similar to hoping or wishing, and I learned long ago that trying to do either only causes more pain.