An exercise in... I don't even know what

Pre P.S.  I may come off looking not so good in this one.

So I went to grief therapy last week. Therapy is always interesting. Really everyone should go.  I don't remember exactly what I said but it was something along the lines of  "I hate it when people say I'm strong and brave etc. it's a bunch of crap, I'm not" and "people must be sick of me asking for help all the time, I really feel like I owe them"   To which she said something along the lines of "ya I know you really hate it when people say good stuff about you" We have had this conversation before in therapy, several times. I still hold that I am nothing special, I'm just trying to survive.

Then my therapist gets an idea, a great idea, an awful idea, it's really a matter of opinion. She says "I'm going to give you homework this week. When people say your strong, say thank you, when people say your brave, say thank you. When people give you a compliment, say thank you. And then just let it go. no buts, no no's, just thank you and let t go. Same for when they offer to help you. just let them help you and say thank you"

uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

She continues, "I know, I know, go home and blog about it. Let me know how it goes, k bye."


what the crappity crap crap crap. In case you haven't noticed I don't take praise very well, you can blame my Catholic up bringing if you want. I really don't take praise well when it comes to all this grief business.  Because my insides are ripped apart every single day. Just because I go about as usual does not mean anything. It's excruciating and theirs nothing courageous about it. Opps getting off my homework assignment.

So I do really like my therapist and most of the time think she knows what shes doing. So  I gave it a honest effort. I truly tried to say thank you and let it drop. Sometimes I failed. Most of the time I said thank you out loud and still said all the buts in my head. Nobody seemed to notice. But I also didn't tell anyone I was doing it either so they didn't know they were supposed to notice. So I didn't think it was very effective.

Then today I hung out with my friend who also happens to be a therapist by trade. She is also really really good at praising people. It's genuine, it's just what she does, it's who she is.  So after a couple failed attempts at saying thank you I said with girted teeth "Thank you, my therapist says I should say thank you" and I told her about my little homework assignment. Well then she was on it. I think every other sentence was her telling me I was awesome in one way or another.  And me responding with a "Thank you" If I forgot and tried to get out of her compliment she would say "no no no what are you supposed to say" At one point she even said "alright were you raised Catholic or Baptist, it has to be one of the two" That was funny.

She went to school with Dan so she was friends with him before she was friends with me. She said today "you know Dan would light up when he talked about you. He thought you were amazing. You could tell by his body language how wonderful he thought you were. And I was always like o ya I'm sure shes great. But I get it better know, Iget why he said you were amazing, because you are"

Thank You.

Lesson learned: work on seeing myself the way Dan saw me. Magic. Also work on realizing that perhaps he was not the only one that thought this.

That was the lesson right? Or did I miss something?

I wrote a book about my grief, you can read it here: Carry on Castle