Eatapuss Tex: Political Comments

I spent nearly 8 hours yesterday utterly engrossed by the filibuster taking place in the Texas senate, lead by Senator Wendy Davis.  I was impressed on many levels.  I was also thoroughly disgusted at times as well.  If you happen to have 3 hours to spare, I highly recommend watching the last three hours of the special session once it is posted online.  If my experience of watching the Senate was anything like the experience of people who enjoy sports watching a game, I think I get their...intensity.

Any situation that involves moving to ask the previous question on a motion to ask the previous question regarding raising a motion on a motion on an appeal of a ruling on parliamentary procedure is, most simply, insane.  Did you follow all that?  Yeah, it took almost an hour for them to sort it out too.  Bureaucracy at its best.  It would put a Vogon to shame.  The Senate majority decided to change the rules to accommodate themselves in order to put it to rest. They still failed to pass the bill.

In addition to the genuine enjoyment I got from watching the interaction of the Senate members, the comments posted on the live feed were absolutely hilarious at times.  I managed to collect a few of the more entertaining or interesting ones.  I did not change the screen  names, and I should point out it was a continuous feed of comments, updated approximately 75 at a time so there was no way to really follow any one person.

Chuck Bee:
sometimes i wonder what my children will learn about history, and then i remember our books come from texas

• Everything is bigger in Texas, including the omissions, revisions, and lies.

Tess Devlin: 
I love that everyone who isn't doing something is running around trying to look like they're more important than they probably are.

• Isn't that the definition of politics?  Not doing anything while trying to look important while not doing anything...?

Jorge Cruz: 
If abortion = killing babies, if I kill a baby can I say i had an abortion?

• Stunning logic, I'm impressed.  My "this works in theory" hat is off to you, Jorge Cruz.  

JeffGannon:
I like the part of the bible where Jesus forced everyone to bend to his will.

• Or, like, when "God" commanded that his followers slay all men and then take the women and children and cattle of the dead for their own and wage war against those who sin.  That's real respect for life.  Kill the people you disagree with, and then take all their stuff.  It's not only the American way, it's the Christian way.

ou42football: 
If you could actually control your own vagina... YOU WOULDN'T NEED TO MURDER BABIES!!!

• I feel like this premise deserves air time as a CW show involving a superheroine who fights crime with a...tight*...control of her vagina.  Or maybe a porno (note: don't google 'superhero vagina porno' at work unless you are using someone else's computer).   
• Totally right!  When men don't control our vaginas and instead women in the US have appropriate levels of control (i.e. rights) over their reproductive organs with stuff like abortion, we aren't "murdering babies" because abortion isn't illegal and it doesn't involve babies at all!  Of course, we could just start having sex with more women instead of men, that would fix the issue too.
•   * For more mind-blowingly awesome Cheap Trick songs about sex, prostitution, suicide, murder, or drugs please listen to any and all of the four studio albums from 1977-1979.

David Vargas:
This reminds me of this Star Trek Manga where they met a Klingon that enjoyed what he called, 'the combat of words'.

• This one gets a mention simply because anyone who can work Star Trek, Manga, and Klingon into a topic relating to a) women's reproductive rights, and b) politics in general deserves to be recognized.  If he had managed to make reference to the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition (aka, the Conservative's Handbook of Life), I would have made him my subject line.

Indubitably, however, the BEST two comments were the following:

TheLatinoWhisperer:
HE SHOULD KNOW BETTER THEN TO TANGLE WITH AN OLD KNARLY VAGINA! :)

• I'm pretty sure Don't Tangle with an Old Knarly Vagina is the 14th chapter of The Art of War.

Eatapuss Tex:
Ever wonder in the morning why your toilet bowl's gone dry? Republicans sneak in at night and slurp out all the water.

• This is hands down the absolute winner of the night.  Not only for the actual comment, but for the screen name (I swear I didn't alter it, and I wish I could claim I thought of it).   

Click, Click...: A Preview

The cops were milling about the house, most of them doing their best to look useful.  One of them was inspecting the mantel, covered in various bits of kitsch and personal mementos.  The blood spatter on the faces of a small collection of antique alarm clocks was a stark contrast to the smiling faces in photos of family and friends that surrounded them.  The unmoving, dead hands of each clock behind the unnaturally stained glass were an ironic reflection of their owner.  

There was a faint buzz in the air; the stereo was on, a record endlessly spinning on the platter.  The tonearm was patiently waiting in the last groove, hissing and popping.  A glance at the label would have told me April hadn't lost her sense of humor, side 2 of The Sounds of Silence.  Someone bumped the record player, managing to capture the attention of the whole house.  The needle skipped across the vinyl in a screech.  When it finally landed, Paul Simon lamented, "...s read: 'Richard Cory went home last night and put a bullet through his head..."   

I suppose it was a somewhat common scene for most of them.  A body, a gun, blood pooling as it flowed from what remained of a human head.  They were asking questions.  I wasn't in a place to give them direct answers.  I can't say if I was more shocked by the violent death or the fact that she actually succeeded.  Well, maybe it wasn't that shocking; April often found a way to make things work the way she wanted them to.  Her ingenuity and enterprising nature were two of her more dubious core strengths.  April's recent actions, however, lacked her general tactful, subtlety.  Then again, death may not have been her ultimate goal.  I can only imagine that her intended outcome was something beyond putting a 9mm round through her frontal lobe...     

        

I have a folder on my computer labeled "Premise Beach".  I have four stories outlined.  The last one reads:

Story Premise:

Grad student in Counseling Psychology fancies herself an actual writer in order to avoid writing her pre-dissertation.

It's a wacky premise.

Collector or Collected?

Counseling: Sunlight on Water

Myths about what happens in counseling abound, and are sadly inaccurate.  Like many processes, counseling loses its essence when reduced to individual steps in an attempt to convey its mechanics.  I don't read minds, although I am good at asking people in many different ways to read their own.  I don't tell clients what to do.  I don't "fix" people.  I don't give advice.  I don't provide absolution.  I don't give false hope.  I don't analyze people like they are a science project.  I don't play games.  I don't give you a label and send you on your way.  I don't tell clients what they want to hear, and sometimes I tell them things they very much do not want to hear, but I try to do it when they are ready to at least try.  More often and even better, clients end up telling themselves, I just provide the space.

My professional identity is founded on the notion that I am something akin to a purveyor of opportunity. When clients come for counseling, I see that as an opportunity (and a privilege for all involved). Some people do not have access to the opportunity that therapy provides, for example it is beyond their financial range perhaps or maybe they are simply not interested in it. However, when a person seizes the opportunity, I provide them with more. The client may not know where to go, or rather, they do not believe they know. I do not show him or her the path, I reflect many paths and illuminate different things. I do this by using the information he or she provides and the knowledge we develop together; the client chooses the avenue we explore. I envision therapy as being sunlight on water. Not the sun itself or the water but the interaction of the two. The sunlight warms the water, illuminates it, reflects upon it but remains stable while the water moves and flows. I also believe that therapy is more about growth or promoting growth than anything else. This frame helps respect the process of therapy and the work a client does.

The second layer of my professional foundation is the concept that therapy is most effective when there is a convergence of person, place, and time. I call this the "Confluence Theory of Counseling". This incorporates a person’s willingness to change, which stage of change he or she may be in, the therapeutic match between client and counselor, and a client’s life events and external factors among other things. I believe that growth can happen when these factors are misaligned but it is most effective when they meet. Given my clinical experience working with involuntary clients, I would say that sometimes the convergence takes place after a therapeutic relationship is established.

This layer of foundation is also mixed with my belief that everyone can grow. While everyone can grow, not everyone takes/can take advantage of the opportunity to grow. The reason a person might not grow at a certain time is because he or she has not experienced an overlap of factors yet. In addition to the belief that everyone can grow, I firmly believe that everyone deserves an opportunity to work toward mental health and growth. Inviting clients to grow by offering them an opportunity to share in a safe space is my short definition of counseling.  One of the other core beliefs I have regarding counseling is that mental health and mental illness are not dichotomous with each other.  It is entirely possible not to have a diagnosable  "mental illness" and still have poor mental health.  Conversely, it is completely possible to have a diagnosed "mental illness" and have impeccable mental health.  Just as physical health is comprised of a more global, general wellness, so is mental health.  The failure to recognize this distinction is one of the most limiting and harmful misconceptions about counseling and mental health.  

The two pieces of my foundation were distilled from reflection and experience. It was my work with sex offenders that prompted me to think about the necessity of a convergence of person, place, and time. Some of them take to therapy well, utilize it as much as they can and make an effort to grow. Conversely, some are cognizant of the fact that they need to change their lives and one way of doing that is through treatment but they resist it. It might be that they are in the right place geographically/physically (a treatment facility) and the right time developmentally but there is a personal reason that is keeping them from fully engaging. For individuals still imprisoned, they might be in the right place personally but the space and time are not conducive to growth. There are multiple possible combinations, and I have seen many of them.

I have found that almost everything that people come to counseling for, and one of the largest controllable factors that stops people from seeking counseling, is fear. Fear of failure, fear of exposure, fear of betrayal, fear of relationships, fear of confirmation (aka fear of rejection). The fear of confirmation is a more accurate descriptor of why rejection is painful, I think. When we are rejected, it confirms all of the insecurities and negative perceptions we hold about ourselves. A rejection confirms that we are stupid, unattractive, not good enough, damaged, unequal, inferior, a terrible person...crazy, weak etc.  One of the really nice things about counseling is that a person gets to explore these concepts and decide which ones are actually worth paying attention to.

It is important to note that while I strongly believe everyone can benefit from counseling, sometimes that benefit comes at an initially painful and challenging price that some people cannot move past.  In short, sometimes people feel worse in counseling before they start to feel better.  As a client typically has full decision making power over continuing in counseling, sometimes they stop before coming to the other side of distress.  We have psychological defenses for reasons.  If they are not examined carefully, with respect to the protection they provide, harm is possible.  To undergird the removal or restructuring of the defenses is an integral part of what a counselor does in session.  These concerns are also a large part of why Counseling Psychology has a code of ethics, and a central ethical duty of Psychologists is gatekeeping.

It can be intimidating and uncomfortable for many people to recognize the responsibility and power they have over their functioning. Many people fail to make this distinction regarding counseling. Counseling is not for the benefit of the therapist. Sometimes in an effort to "best" the therapist, some people manage to outwit themselves in counseling, not realizing that by being guarded and indirect they are only impeding their own progress. Someone with a cracked tooth would be ill-advised to visit the dentist and provide inaccurate information about their situation. A lack of openness with their dentist would likely result in a lower quality of care, and a lower quality of life as a result. It is no different with counseling. The most effective way of sabotaging the positive effects of counseling is by not engaging openly, or by being a less genuine form of oneself. Therapists don't "fix" people, a) because someone seeking counseling is not "broken", ever, and b) it's the client who makes or breaks the growth process.  Counselors attend to the client's empowerment, and their willingness to make changes.  Ethically, if someone seeks counseling but remains resistant to the process, a frank, and often powerful, discussion about reconsidering counseling at a different time in life should happen.

One of the most integral realizations from my professional life that has impacted my conceptualization of counseling is what function a therapist serves. Each practitioner has their own style, and theoretical orientation.  However, it has been my experience that people working in mental health are frequently labeled “helping professionals.” This is problematic for me in many ways, although I appreciate that the label is not meant to be, and is instead supposed to be representative of something positive. In my professional perspective, I am not a helper. Helper implies that someone is unable to do something and that he or she must have assistance. It also means that there is something fundamentally wrong that must be rectified; a helper helps the person fix him or herself. I also feel that “helper” debases the therapeutic relationship, i.e. it does not respect the profound nature of people connecting in such a way. For me it is a partnership and there is tremendous work, most of which is done by the client. To say that it is “helping” discounts that perspective. I am also not a guide necessarily, it is not my journey although I am a part of it. How could I guide someone on their path? It is not about me guiding them, it is about opportunity.

Saturday Night...a Rita Comic

Sometimes I think I would prefer Darth Vader from the planet Vulcan melting my brain with an Eddie Van Halen solo...surely that will be my density.  (At least I'm not living in my parent's basement...)

That Time I Lived with Vanilla Ice: A True Story

All of my posts, including this post, have been grounded in my own life.  The occurrences and events are part of my life history, and they are as accurately told as any one person can be objective in the telling of their own life.  My life has been unusual, certainly not typical, but undoubtedly not wholly unique in its, frankly, fucked up path.  However, today's post highlights one of the weirder experiences.

When I was 14/15 years old, my parents visited some friends in another part of the state for a week.  I was in charge of taking care of my sisters.  I recall having a very nice time while they were gone, my sisters spent a good portion of the week having sleep-overs with friends etc.  All in all, the week of my parent's absence was uneventful.  Their return, however, was quite another matter.

My sisters and I were hanging around the house, it was probably late afternoon.  Mom and Dad were supposed to get back sometime that evening. Eventually they arrived, and as they came into the house my father ushered in a young guy, probably in his early-mid 20s.  He was wearing a tattered baseball cap and a severely faded NFL starter jacket, probably from the late 90s.  This guy had a pretty big backpack and his head was shaved, which was especially apparent after he removed his hat.  He wore cheap wraparound sunglasses, and he was eerily quiet and detached.

I had no idea who this person was, however, sometimes my parents would invite friends to visit and I thought he might be their friend Doug.  We were all standing in the kitchen, and the silence was awkward so I asked, "Who's this?"  With a smile on his face, my dad replied, "We have no idea.  Picked him up just this side of Hayes."  We all laughed a bit, I thought my father was joking.  When he didn't clarify who the creepy guy in our kitchen actually was, I asked my mom in a serious tone, "Really, Mom, who is he?"  My mother gave me a somewhat frantic, helpless, and wide-eyed head shake accompanied by, "I really don't know.  He's a hitchhiker, your dad thought we should pick him up."

I should note that my father has a diagnosis of Bipolar Disorder I which he now manages with medication.  As I was growing up, there were numerous instances of both manic episodes and depressive episodes, and my father only self-medicated with alcohol at the time.  Impulsively choosing to pick up a hitchhiker over the protestations and concerns of my mother was a good indication of my father's (poor) functioning at the time mental-health wise.  He later came to realize this.    

The hitchhiker's name was Dennis...at least at first report, more on that in a bit.  My parents were/are generous people, even though we didn't have much they did what they could for other people.  They offered Dennis our couch, and some money in exchange for helping around our place.  Dennis "wanted to make some money to buy a bus ticket back home."  Ever the cautious-bordering-on-overprotective-and-paranoid person I am, I constantly grilled my parents about Dennis' departure date.  My mother was at the mercy of my father for most of my entire childhood.  She did not have any power, even in this situation.  My father told me he would only be staying at most a week.  Dennis lived with us for at least two months, possibly three.  Time has blurred together for my life from ages 14-16.  My sisters remember similar time frames, however, for this event.

It was obvious from our initial encounter that Dennis was not necessarily sociable.  He always seemed uncomfortable around people, and he was unbalanced in general.  The more you interacted with him, the more it became clear he was quite mentally ill.  Not all mentally ill people are dangerous, actually very few are.  Despite this, Dennis was discomfiting and all three of us (my sisters and I) plus my mother felt completely unsafe around him.  His gaze felt inappropriate most of the time, he had a very intense presence, he spent considerable time talking to himself/imaginary others, and he routinely carried a large knife with him.  Our house was in a pretty rural area, about 10 miles from town.  Our nearest neighbor at the time was about a mile away.  Last time I checked, those elements when mixed with the presence of a hitchhiker resulted in a Capote-esq tale of death.  I created a safety plan for my sisters, and we did our best to make sure that they weren't left alone with Dennis, although at one point or another we were all in that position.  We never left the house if it would leave Mom alone with him, however.  I started sleeping with a 6 inch fixed blade buck knife under my pillow following the second week of Dennis' stay; it remained there until a solid three weeks after he finally left.  We all functioned on a hypervigilant survival mode setting and rarely let our guards down over those few months.  Living in fear and perpetually feeling unsafe is taxing, even now my sisters and I become activated when the topic of Dennis comes up.

One of the more amusing/genuinely sad interactions my sisters and I had with Dennis involved music.  We all took piano lessons starting at age 8.  When Dennis showed up, we had each been playing for a few years.  We had to practice regularly etc.  One day after we each took our turn practicing (Dennis was observing), he started asking us questions about music.  He then said, "You know, I could tell you who I really am but you wouldn't believe me."  Knowing it was going to be completely off the wall and untrue but dying to know who he "really" was, we assured him we would believe him and we would keep it a secret.  Dennis took a deep breath, looked down at the table, and said, "I'm Vanilla Ice."  He then demonstrated he was Vanilla Ice by rapping for us, doing the dance from the Ice Ice Baby video, and pulling a Vanilla Ice tape out of his pocket to show us his picture.

We managed to keep our laughter in check.  After that, though, my little sister called my brother who had just recently graduated from high school and was living in Wyoming.  My brother was...displeased...that my father had brought Dennis to our home.  He drove back home the next day and "explained to" (i.e. had a shouting match with) my father he needed to get Dennis back on the road.  My father did not listen to my brother, but my brother spoke with "us girls" and my mom to make sure we were ok.  He approved my safety plan, and he was actually the one who gave me the buck knife.  My brother also had a "talk" with Dennis about appropriate manners of house guests.  Dennis stayed for some time after the failed intervention, but my brother checked on us somewhat regularly.

After a while, my father started coming out of his manic state.  The more grounded he became, the more he saw the concerns we had.  He too began to feel uncomfortable with Vanilla Ice.  My parents bought Dennis a bus ticket home.  We drove him to the bus station, about an hour away.  I told my mom we couldn't leave until we saw the bus take off with Dennis on it.  We watched it pull away from the station, and we all smiled.  I called my brother to let him know Dennis was gone, but my sisters were still scared that he might come back.  My brother tried comforting them by explaining that Dennis had only been into town once since coming to the house, and it was unlikely he would remember how to get back after having only been up the road twice, especially because the county didn't use road signs so there wasn't a street name to remember.

My brother underestimated Dennis.  About a month after watching the bus drive away from the station, we all came home from school one day to find Dennis sitting on our deck.  My sisters and I started freaking out, by the time we made it into the house two of us were crying and one was hyperventilating.  My second youngest sister called my brother immediately, and he drove into the night to get home.  Luckily it was the weekend; I drove my sisters into town to spend the night with friends, and I stayed with my friend Cindy.  Dennis explained to my parents that his belongings and bus transfer were stolen when he was only partway through his journey home.  It had taken a month to hitchhike and find his way back to our place, which was shorter than hitching back to his home in Iowa.  My parents decided the best course of action was to have him leave as soon as possible and offered to buy him another bus ticket.  My brother explained in detail to Dennis that if Dennis returned again he would find himself at the bottom of an abandoned mine shaft, possibly in many pieces.

While nothing demonstrably traumatic happened while Dennis was staying with us, there was certainly a psychological toll.  I can definitely say thinking you might be brutally murdered in your sleep every night is something to be avoided if at all possible.  I've tried to keep up on where Dennis might be in the world since he left the second time, the advent of the internet has been very helpful.  I learned recently (today!) that he was just sentenced to 30 years in prison for a 2011 sexual assault on an elderly woman in Illinois.  I'm still processing this information and trying to put it in context with my own experience.  Overall, aside from simply being surreal, I think I just feel sad for everyone involved.      

Yo man, let's get out of here.  Word to your mother...                      



            

Shooting Stars Frozen in Time: 9 Year-Old Rita

Imagine a taller than average grubby 9 year-old girl with hazel-green eyes, almost waist length brown hair, and clumsy arms and legs.  That was me: dirty, clumsy, and shy.  It wasn't quite a 1000 yard stare, but I tended to look through things and people.  My main focus was occupied trying to project the images I had created in my mind onto the world.  In addition to my unkempt, gawky, and reserved nature, I possessed an extraordinary imagination.  To help with this, I was rarely ever without a book.  Books, I found, were useful in exercising my imagination and insulating me against the more troubled aspects of my life.

I learned early as a child that the consequences for damaging or dirtying "good clothes" were severe.  Consequently, I made sure to wear play clothes when I was going outside.  In the summer, this typically meant I was in cutoffs and some sort of t-shirt, a tattered windbreaker, canvas shoes, and occasionally matching socks.  I would generally lose the socks and shoes as fast as I could once I got away from the house.  My hair was always a mess, somewhere between stringy and dirty and knotted and dirty.  There were cuts and bruises all over my legs and arms, usually from playing in the woods.  I was constantly covered in a mixture of dirt, sweat, pitch, and sometimes coal dust depending on my adventures of the day. 

"Going outside" was the family phrase for leaving the house and roaming the woods.  I made going outside a priority on most days.  On this particular day, I decided I wanted to visit the junk pile on the hill.  Mom had gone to work, and Dad was taking a nap.  My siblings were somewhere doing something.  It was the perfect time to bolt.  I had my literary reprieve selected; a book from the Prydain Chronicles by Lloyd Alexander.  They were a few years below my reading level at the time. Despite that, they were well written and an interesting perspective on Welsh mythology, definitely worth escaping into.  I collected my shoes and jacket, trying desperately to be quiet on my way out.  In the event I woke Dad, it was likely I would be put to work.  This had to be avoided whenever possible.

Once safely outside, I scrambled up the hill next to the small garage.  There was a field of wild grass I waded through on my way up to the junk pile.  I always took time to run my hands across the blades, swishing them and creating a distinct whooshing sound.  If I did it just right, it sounded like waves rolling into shore.  On most occasions as I  moved through the grass, I imagined I was crossing a small river.  The junk pile was near the top of the hill on the other side of the river.  As I passed through the river, I entered into the pines.  Incredibly dry, old pine needles make a satisfying crunch when stepped on.  I always enjoyed crunching my way to the top of the hill.      

The junk pile consisted of mostly iron based objects; old engines, tire rims, drag chains, gears, a rusted out 40s era Studebaker with half a hood ornament.  The Studebaker was, in short, awesome for all things imagination related.  The dash nobs were still intact, as was the radio, the shifter, and the gigantic steering wheel.  This particular day, however, the Studebaker was not on the agenda for fun.  I had come across an object in the pile that lent itself to my imagination; a grate from an old gas burning furnace.  The grate was approximately two feet wide and a foot tall.  It was metal with a faux wood grain enamel coating.  I had decided the grate would make the perfect window in my outdoor reading room. 

Other people might consider it sort of unnecessary to have a "window" in a forest.  There were no walls or ceiling, the floor was the pine needle covered ground, and I could see everything around me as it was.  The point of the outdoor reading room was to have a safe space to read...outside.  For some reason, however, it made sense to me to have a window.  To get the window where I could see through while sitting on the ground, I had to wedge it between two very spindly oak trees.  The oaks were really almost shrubs, probably 8-10 feet high, only about 3 inches in diameter.  They bent and swayed easily, even for a clumsy 9 year-old.  Their branches and leaves provided a nice canopy for my little retreat.   

Of course, a window really needs a ledge or small shelf beneath it.  To further the decorative vision of my space, I pinned a beautifully weathered board in between the oaks as well.  Naturally, a shelf under a window needs a vase with flowers and a book.  In an effort to complete my vision, I re-purposed a rather large gear with equal amounts of flaking yellow paint and rust to function as a vase.  My vase held wild larkspur, which I was convinced were really tiny (literal) shooting stars in a pretty shade of purple that had been frozen in time.  My book fit very nicely on the shelf beneath the window, and it complemented the vase and shooting stars well.  My reading spot was complete.    

I read for hours in my space until I heard Mom's car driving up the road.  It would be dinner time soon, and it was a punishable offense to be late to the table.  I put the grate, gear, and board back where I found them.  I couldn't risk leaving my reading place intact.  If I did, chances were my siblings would wreck it to torment me.  I gathered the discarded shooting stars for Mom, I liked to give her pretty things, and I wandered back to the house.  I planned to return later, maybe tomorrow.

I did return to that place many times, for many years after I created it.  It was one of my favorite hiding spots.  I still love to read outside, although it has been some time since I created a reading place from junk in the middle of a national forest.  Not that it's beyond me, I just don't happen to have a national forest or a junk pile at the moment.  I'm amazed at the typical summer day of 9 year-old Rita compared to my current summer days.  There are shared elements, namely lots of books and reading in isolation away from the overbearing presence of other people.  I like not having to sneak out of the house, however, sometimes it feels like I have to sneak out of work.  I continue to love larkspur, but I haven't seen any since I moved away from the Hills which is quite sad.  I also continue to love the idea that they could be shooting stars frozen in time...