A real-ish entry in Self-Improvement, 2018

I saw my therapist on Monday. I might not agree with her super religious background (which she didn’t even bring up on Monday - I think she got the hint) but she is really good at one thing: Pushing me, pushing me, pushing me. Which hopefully that means that she does that because she believes in me.

I brought up the football thing. About how they are willing to release me from my contract because of the injury/poor attendance the past 2-3 weeks. And how that basically knocked the wind out of my sails. Hopefully that’s a saying because I used those exact words to describe how I was feeling.

I expected her to get on my case about my participation, but that’s not what happened. She made a good..well more than a few good arguments for leaving the team. Legit arguments other than “Well everyone knows football is a dangerous sport any way.” Before I go into that list, I want to make it be know I did go to practice last night and I do intend on finishing up the season with the team, come hell or high water. This list is basically going to remind me that its okay not to play NEXT season.

Legit reasons not to play:

1. Time commitment leaves no room for anything else. The time commitment is worse this year because not only do we have practice 3 days a week, but we also have “Chalk Talks” (classroom sessions) at least one day a week, sometimes (like this week) twice a week. So, for instance this week: Tuesday - Practice 6:30-8:30pm, Wednesday - Defensive Chalk Talk 6-8pm, Thursday - Practice 6:30-8:30pm, Friday - Defensive Chalk Talk 6-8pm, Saturday - Practice 10am-1pm. This week football is 5 days a week. I also work full time 8:30am-5pm Monday through Friday. I literally go to practice straight after work. Sunday is my only “nothing” day if I were to attend EVERYTHING.

2. Its fueling my perfectionism tendencies. The coaches this year have only one thing in mind this season: Not only making the playoffs, but winning the championship in Atlanta. Hence all of the added Chalk Talks. During the past two seasons, we averaged one Chalk Talk and month and that was basically to cover what people weren’t understanding during practice on the field. Every time a mistake is made a practice, all hell breaks loose. And theres a difference between yelling to correct and yelling because you have anger ish and players legitimately wonder if you’re crazy. There is one coach I literally dread seeing at practice because I know that no matter what, I wont be able to please him and I will most definitely get yelled at. His favorite line: “Don’t be sorry. Be better.” We also concluded this doesn’t help my guilt and shame issues (tied in with perfectionism)

3. I put more into this team than I get out of it. We pay to play. We pay for players dues and all of our travel. And any medical expenses that result from any injuries. Until this season, the friendships I forged from this team was enough “payment” to want to keep playing. I have one really close friend on the team, but my therapist described the rest of what I consider to be “good friends” as more of “convenience friends” (another wind knocked out of my sails). By convenience friends, she described them as friends I hang out with after practice to go out to eat/drink with because were all conveniently in the same area. She pointed out the fact that while I would always go out to them to hang out (there’s a $5 toll bridge involved) very few would come out to me, knowing they had to pay that toll on the way back. I argued that there’s more entertainment in that area than where I live so it doesn’t make sense for any of them to come to me “just because”.

Those are the top three reasons. There are more, but there’s other things I want to write about, and I think you get the gist. She doesn’t want me to quit sports; she just wants me to find something more on the “recreational” level than the “semi-professional” level, which is what the football team is.

She also told me that I have a very pessimistic thought process. Initially, that pissed me off. I always thought of myself as a pretty positive thinker. Realist maybe. She referenced my most two recent instances. How I thought something bad would happen that would prevent me from moving into my apartment on time, and how I thought the hubby would blow up my phone the night he got served with the divorce papers. I told her that I’m always waiting for a bomb to drop with bad news. Her arguments were that I still moved in on time despite the injury and my mom having to fly here and save the day and the hubby did not text me until the following day and he didn’t sound psychotic in his texts and all of my worrying was for nothing. I def did not mention how much I drank that night while worrying obsessively.

She said those thought processes needed to stop. She also thinks I need to look for a new job because my job hasn’t given me joy during the entire time she’s seen me (on and off for a year). I explained how long and how many interviews I had to go through before I got this job because of my social anxiety and my mind’s tendency to go completely blank when put on the spot. She referenced companies like Microsoft, who supposedly seek out socially awkward people who can deliver results, not beauty pageants. I’m still not 100% buying her argument for this because all of the interviewers I’ve ever met (granted I’ve never interviewed at like, say, Microsoft) have had to at least wanted to be able to carry out a conversation with the interviewee.

But hey, there goes that pessimistic thinking again. Anyway, I’ll wrap things up. I def don’t expect anyone to have gotten this far into the entry. I suppose it was more for me anyway to get my thoughts out in words. Goal is to start slow with this positive thought process by listening to inspirational music, not my depressing, angry music. At least for one week.

Last updated March 08, 2018