What I didn't intend to do was use this blog as a support network. I have my real-life friends for that; they may not always understand perfectly but we're close and they care about me. What I wanted to do here was record things that happened in my gay life, so that others could enjoy the stories, or maybe even learn from them, but I've been trying to mostly write about things after the fact, and avoid turning this into an emotionally-charged journal.
With that said...
I went to see a psychologist last week. Some things had happened that left me feeling pretty depressed and directionless, and after talking to a couple people I realized I had no idea what to do and needed some help. So I went to school and went to the counseling center to meet with someone.
The funny thing is, I don't mind telling my real-life friends this, but I almost want to hide it from you on this blog. I feel like I've just started this blog and now I'm talking about how I'm getting counseling, surely it must make it look like I'm much more screwed up than I am. Whereas my real-life friends know that I'm normally quite well-adjusted, I've just been having a hard time with some of these gay things.
Anyway, the counselor said they will probably suggest group therapy. I'm not really comfortable with that idea, but intellectually I know it's probably exactly what I need and so I'll give it a try. (Ironically, the fact that I'm not comfortable lumping myself with a group of gay grad students sort of proves that I belong in the group.)
I'm not really sure what to do with this blog now. I'm sort of putting dating and hooking up on hold for now, since I've sort of realized that I'm not quite prepared to go about it on my own yet. I don't know if I should blog about what I learn from group therapy. Maybe there are people there who could really be helped by hearing it, but since I currently have 11 people following this blog I have a hard time judging what they would want to hear. And more to the point, anyone who's helped by hearing what I'm going through in therapy probably should consider being in therapy themselves, so I'm really not sure what the point would be. I wasn't planning on using this blog for working out my issues.
I wouldn't have expected a therapy group to be exclusively of gay grad students, but I suppose there is some benefit to it.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I found group therapy useful for dealing with my feelings of constant rejection. As I recall, I was the only gay guy in the group. So I think it can definitely be helpful in dealing with some personal problems.
It seems to me that if you want to keep the blog going, you may get some insights into what makes you tick that you'd like to share anonymously and that could be useful to some of your readers. Obviously, the blog will no longer be the only place where you can share thoughts that you don't feel comfortable talking to your friends about.
I guess I'd make my standard recommendation — don't make a hasty decision. See how it works for a while, and you'll have a better idea what you want to do with/about the blog.
naturgesetz makes total sense, take your time, if you feel comfortable writing about your sessions write about them, if you feel better talking about your day and the weather you should write about that, I'm pretty sure people that follow you (like me) just want you to be fine. We all have our problems and even though you don't realize now, your blog is a sort of group session where we all read and write about your problems and your achievements and in turn you read other peoples and post a comment, so believe you me the transition will be a smooth one, and if you want to talk about what you've found out about yourself and other people go right ahead :)
ReplyDeleteNow, I've coordinated group sessions and they are really powerful, you learn things from everyone that contribute sometimes to your own life, and you realize that problems you might have are not yours alone, tons of people have them everyday, regarding the nature of your current problems I don't know them nor I think you should talk about them but in group session, but believe me, when you think you're alone problems seem 100 times worse than they actually are, and if you get desperate the seem like surmountable mountains.
So try to keep your head cool, listen, everyone has problems dating and is OK if you can't trust a person or get nervous about going out, it's bound to happen and not just with gay relationships believe you me, but if you are scared of being hurt the person doing all the damage to you is you yourself, try to let go of your fears, if you listen to a little voice that tells you that everything can go wrong don't listen to it, at least you've tried and that makes you a stronger person, because life is riddled with disappointments and deception, but it is also filled with love and laughter and people who loves you. I wish you the very best, I'm eager to hear how it all went down.
i hope you are still around
ReplyDelete