What's this, an entry? in Das Book

I believe it has been numerous years but I don’t even want to go back and check. The last entry that I remember writing took place during my interview for grad school at Naropa, and now I’m sitting in a coffee shop in Oregon, procrastinating by writing this entry rather than working on my final presentation for that very grad school program.

I’m in the midst of applying for a job as a Wilderness Therapist. It’s been my dream to do this job since I was 21 years old and now that it is in my sights I am feeling pretty fucking ambivalent about it. I know I would much rather open my own private practice, but it feels like presumptuous/terrifying to just get right out and do that. Like working for this company that I’ve been interning for is the responsible thing to do, because it is a guaranteed paycheck right out of grad school, and I can more easily gain hours toward licensure, and I won’t have to pay $100/hour for supervision toward that licensure, and and and.

But there are pieces of the wilderness therapy model that bother me. A client I’m working with is really unwilling to engage in his therapeutic process right now. Says he’s only in treatment because his mom “always sends me away to get fixed”. Which is really heartbreaking. And also, he has undergone an immense amount of trauma in his life and hasn’t really dealt with it and it is wreaking havoc on his internal/external processes and relationships. So I find myself in this place of trying to align with him so that he will willingly participate in treatment. And it feels really disgusting to me. Feels like I am “forcing” him. Which my supervisor counters with, “He didn’t have to sign himself into treatment - he is 18 years old, so at least part of him wants to be here.” She also wants to know what part of me is being triggered by working with him. At first I thought about the fact that my parents sent me away when I was 17, against my will, and the idea of being complicit in forcing something like what I experienced on anyone is deeply unsettling to me. But I also just started thinking about how my dad relays his experience of being forced into addiction treatment several years ago. He was forced by the medical board at a family intervention gone wrong. And I know what he was like at that center, the therapist reported that he was “charming and manipulative” and we were all like yeah no shit sherlock. But I’m just understanding that trying to convince this client that he could benefit from treatment is a lot like trying to convince my dad that he could benefit from treatment/alcoholism recovery.

It just kind of feels like my dad is going to be exerting control over my life forever in some way.

And also, I’m getting married in September. We talked to Cody’s rabbi, who is going to marry us, and I am so excited. I didn’t have any kind of spiritual guide in my life growing up. This man is so wonderful, and knew Cody as a child, and clearly loves him and is proud of him, and is willing to fly from Cincinnati all the way out West to marry us, and I’m just so grateful.

I don’t know what else.

Maybe I’ll start writing here again.

As I’m on this crazy life precipice, graduating from grad school, starting my career, getting married, and I still feel like a child, it would be good to get thoughts out of my head consistently again.

**Edit

I went back to see when the last time I wrote was, and wow, it was the end of Alex and I, the beginning of me and Cody. And now we’re getting married. Yep.

Last updated April 07, 2017