Saturday, March 19, 2011
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Self Disclosure
Self disclosure and Alopecia and being a therapist. To tell the story or not to. Our class the other evening was about self disclosure as a therapist and it got me to thinking about how I self disclose and how much. I easily self disclose, and I realize that I want to be an advocate for change by using personal narrative but is it "change for community"? Or is it a need to voice who I am- to prove my "existence" and presence? As a future therapist I want to make sure I find appropriate self care as well as outlets to share my story. Tying in my story/ self disclosing with clients only when see fit that would benefit the clients work/ treatment. I have to remember that, I could see how easy it would be to have the client's story personally relate with yours- and want to shout excitedly back "oh me too! me too. I know how you feel!" But understanding and allowing the person to be in the room with what they are going through can be a beautiful process, sight, and testimony to mental/ emotional healing.
I have been thinking about thesis work as well. I have the words: Alopecia and art therapy bouncing in my head. I was discussing with my counselor about my concern for writing a thesis around Alopecia, would be A) Personal bias and B) Is it a need to do this to figure out something on my journey of healing? Or is this something of research towards change to affect positively on my community? And I guess the fact I am aware of personal bias in this is a good thing. But I want to remember if I write and research on Alopecia, find the personal meaning to it, cherish it- but don't let my personal journey of hair loss stop the possibility to help awareness, to change the system- that needs to be changed especially when it comes to medical care costs and Alopecia Areata.
Thirdly, I watched The King's Speech last night. AMAZING! I see why it won awards. It was so much more than a man with a speech impediment it was about something everyone must find: their voice. I loved it- I recommend it.
I have been thinking about thesis work as well. I have the words: Alopecia and art therapy bouncing in my head. I was discussing with my counselor about my concern for writing a thesis around Alopecia, would be A) Personal bias and B) Is it a need to do this to figure out something on my journey of healing? Or is this something of research towards change to affect positively on my community? And I guess the fact I am aware of personal bias in this is a good thing. But I want to remember if I write and research on Alopecia, find the personal meaning to it, cherish it- but don't let my personal journey of hair loss stop the possibility to help awareness, to change the system- that needs to be changed especially when it comes to medical care costs and Alopecia Areata.
Thirdly, I watched The King's Speech last night. AMAZING! I see why it won awards. It was so much more than a man with a speech impediment it was about something everyone must find: their voice. I loved it- I recommend it.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Wait for something better, wait for it Heather
Lyrics by Killers: This is your life....
"Wait for something better
No one behind you
Watching your shadows
You gotta be stronger than the story
Don't let it blind you
Rivers of shadow
This feeling wont go
And the sky is full of dreams
But you don't know how to fly
I don't have a simple answer
But I know that I could answer
Something better
This feeling won't go
Wait for it
Wait for it
Wait for it
Wait for it "
As I look up from my computer I look at my poster of Glide's Terms of Faith and Resistance...
1) Gain control over my life
2) Tell the World my Story
3) Stop lying
4) Be honest with myself
5) Accept who I am
6) Feel my real feelings
7) Feel my pain
8) Forgive myself
9) Practice rebirth: A new life
10) Live my spirituality
11) Support and love my brothers and sisters
How important it is to remember these things. As I was driving home from school, I listened to the Killers, "This is my life". And wow- WOW. "Wait for it [Heather] wait for it....You gotta be stronger than the story-Don't let it blind you." Ten years now passed with my hair loss and I look into these terms of faith and resistance and I realize how much I was tested/ I tested myself even in this past year. Ten Years and cheers to new beginnings, to letting the old go. I don't want to forget a thing about these past ten years and in that I want to remember those 11 things above. I realize that not only do I hold cultural judgments and ideologies of hair loss from society, but I have a negative self talk about my role in society. I realize that I hold a personal responsibility to break the story of stereotypes. I have to be stronger than the story. I have dreams, goals, and big ideas for something better for my community. For a while (off and on) I got/get caught up with "I am a bald woman" and "What's the bald woman to do". But I think my professor wrote it just right "you are learning how to transition from Heather the bald woman to Heather becoming Heather that also has hair loss." So many people have told me that prior to this but I feel like I am just hitting the tip of the ice berg of Heather standing in Heather's shoes not Heather as the bald woman.
On my facebook, I set my status as "10 years, we've come a long way baby" It's funny to think I set my tone of 10 years of hair loss as a milestone, a golden mark, a set sail to new adventures, since for so long it was a death, a long cold winter, slowly showing bits and pieces of the spring. It is a steady relationship pushing me, sculpting me to try to have better confidence, self understanding, and self love. Let's celebrate in all trials and triumphs, today is a day to celebrate and to say Practice Rebirth: A New Life.
Let's bring change, let's take responsibility over life, let's be stronger than the story and look forward dancing. Get ready world here comes Heather.
"Wait for something better
No one behind you
Watching your shadows
You gotta be stronger than the story
Don't let it blind you
Rivers of shadow
This feeling wont go
And the sky is full of dreams
But you don't know how to fly
I don't have a simple answer
But I know that I could answer
Something better
This feeling won't go
Wait for it
Wait for it
Wait for it
Wait for it "
As I look up from my computer I look at my poster of Glide's Terms of Faith and Resistance...
1) Gain control over my life
2) Tell the World my Story
3) Stop lying
4) Be honest with myself
5) Accept who I am
6) Feel my real feelings
7) Feel my pain
8) Forgive myself
9) Practice rebirth: A new life
10) Live my spirituality
11) Support and love my brothers and sisters
How important it is to remember these things. As I was driving home from school, I listened to the Killers, "This is my life". And wow- WOW. "Wait for it [Heather] wait for it....You gotta be stronger than the story-Don't let it blind you." Ten years now passed with my hair loss and I look into these terms of faith and resistance and I realize how much I was tested/ I tested myself even in this past year. Ten Years and cheers to new beginnings, to letting the old go. I don't want to forget a thing about these past ten years and in that I want to remember those 11 things above. I realize that not only do I hold cultural judgments and ideologies of hair loss from society, but I have a negative self talk about my role in society. I realize that I hold a personal responsibility to break the story of stereotypes. I have to be stronger than the story. I have dreams, goals, and big ideas for something better for my community. For a while (off and on) I got/get caught up with "I am a bald woman" and "What's the bald woman to do". But I think my professor wrote it just right "you are learning how to transition from Heather the bald woman to Heather becoming Heather that also has hair loss." So many people have told me that prior to this but I feel like I am just hitting the tip of the ice berg of Heather standing in Heather's shoes not Heather as the bald woman.
On my facebook, I set my status as "10 years, we've come a long way baby" It's funny to think I set my tone of 10 years of hair loss as a milestone, a golden mark, a set sail to new adventures, since for so long it was a death, a long cold winter, slowly showing bits and pieces of the spring. It is a steady relationship pushing me, sculpting me to try to have better confidence, self understanding, and self love. Let's celebrate in all trials and triumphs, today is a day to celebrate and to say Practice Rebirth: A New Life.
Let's bring change, let's take responsibility over life, let's be stronger than the story and look forward dancing. Get ready world here comes Heather.
Friday, December 24, 2010
Letting go of the halfsies
Recently, I have been thinking: about ache and letting go of the past. I was rereading a journal I keep adding to. It is a journal created by Sabrina Ward Harrison. An awesome journal artist that collaborates wise words and space for you to vent, tell your story, etc. If interested here is her website, to me it's drool worthy...
http://www.sabrinawardharrison.com/ee/
Anyway- I have been having dreams about grief, loss, and ache... And I think it is about letting go. So here is the entry by Sabrina Ward Harrison that struck me tonight, yet again, like many times before...
"Ache
the toppling over, the feeling that something vital is disintegrating, the stuck in the muck feeling, seeping out at the edges- oh- I want to twist away from these loneliness. There seems to be no place for it in the swirling world around me. All this sadness and unexpressed parts. We can end up carrying all this sadness and unexpressed bits of ourselves if we don't speak up, spill open, and be truly as we are.
I am learning that loving all the way can ache and sting but loving halfway doesn't keep us safe, it leaves us with a hope that could never live out loud. Let yourself pour forward and be a place for your ache to rest." (p 53, The True and the Questions)
So I am learning to love all the way and to not take halfsie love as sufficient. For self, partner, and community I wanna love and have love in return all the way. Release, let go... and time to pour forward.
http://www.sabrinawardharrison.com/ee/
Anyway- I have been having dreams about grief, loss, and ache... And I think it is about letting go. So here is the entry by Sabrina Ward Harrison that struck me tonight, yet again, like many times before...
"Ache
the toppling over, the feeling that something vital is disintegrating, the stuck in the muck feeling, seeping out at the edges- oh- I want to twist away from these loneliness. There seems to be no place for it in the swirling world around me. All this sadness and unexpressed parts. We can end up carrying all this sadness and unexpressed bits of ourselves if we don't speak up, spill open, and be truly as we are.
I am learning that loving all the way can ache and sting but loving halfway doesn't keep us safe, it leaves us with a hope that could never live out loud. Let yourself pour forward and be a place for your ache to rest." (p 53, The True and the Questions)
So I am learning to love all the way and to not take halfsie love as sufficient. For self, partner, and community I wanna love and have love in return all the way. Release, let go... and time to pour forward.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Thursday, November 18, 2010
What a week
Last night an interesting conversation came up at my support group meeting for Alopecia Areata. "Where are the psychological resources for this experience of hair loss". Really interesting input about Alopecian's experiences with psychologists and therapy in general. I was really excited to hear about the resources that the conference has to offer, as well as the every other month support group. But I left feeling- where are the specialists???... and not just in injections and the medical knowledge- but the counselors that someone with Alopecia can go to seek support and a space to be able to say the good, the bad, the light hearted, and the heavy emotions that arise.
I see this notion of a "specialist" in different ways. First, if the counselor/ psychologist does not have Alopecia- how can they at all relate? Secondly, the counselor can act as that refuge from the storm- which I think was closest to what I felt when I first lost my hair.
When I lost my hair- I didn't want to go and be in it. I wasn't ready to be in my community of Alopecia Areata. So I avoided the conference even though it was in San Francisco. I couldn't quite explain it to my peers in fear they would think of it as too scary or depressing. My family was too close to home. And that left me feeling very alone on the foggy coast. Now, I need to note when I say alone, I don't mean "oh woe- I am alone- so depressed- no one understands." I went to different people in my life for different sources of strength. I went to friends to try to retain normalcy at 16 (AKA awkward puberty, pranks and saying "I'm bored" and finding some random place to "go cruising"). I went to family to either try to remain a teen wanting to rebel, or appreciating my home/ farm as a place to express and go bare (bare- not meaning earthy woman gardening topless, bare meaning going bald). I went to my sister for a big sis that would listen to how I felt my baldness affected my relationships. I became close with my sister again after I lost my hair because she gave me a sense that I can preserver through this challenge. I remember my mom saying "this too shall pass- this too shall pass" At the time I thought "yeah fucking right mom- will it- will it?!?! And you know the baldness didn't pass but the insecurity, the loss of hope to rebuild my life, to feel fully human- it passed. This may sound a bit melodramatic- because I have heard from myself and so many others- "it's just hair" But in the long run- it changes you. It's not just hair. It is the experience. This bald experience pushed me to become something I did not know I had the strength to become.
But getting back to the point of therapists... there wasn't a space carved out in my social network or family that I could say, frankly, the fucked up thoughts that went through my head. I went to a counselor, because I had to talk it out in a safe space and I was so lucky that I had a therapist, although she did not have Alopecia, allowed me a safe space to talk, for myself. The fucked up thoughts didn't have to spin in circles in my head, they were out in a room- laid down on a table- and I was able to look at them, go over them, see the power they had over me, and let them go. So not as a hopeful one-day therapist but as an alopecian who had self doubt, who had self hate, and who had a low sense of self confidence- Counseling saved my life, and got me going where I needed to go.
As for the Psychologist Alopecian specialist- it should exist- it needs to exist. But wow think of all of the possibilities to come. When I lost my hair 10 years ago, NAAF seemed smaller. Now look at it. Most importantly the friendships and the support from truely authentic individuals learning how to live like the rest of the world. Learning how to take steps and learning to "just breathe". I hope that with my vocational choice I can carve out a little room, not as a specialist- but as an art therapist to have the tools to give to others to help themselves and give a helping hand to someone else in need. A cyclical process each growing along and within each other. It's getting late- and I think I hit Maya Angelou status in metaphor and motivation with my writing. Here is something to chew over... it Alopecian's, friends of mine, or random encounter onto this space. Keep growing, keep walking, and utilize any resources that are possible for you to grow into, and embrace your beautiful bad ass self.
I see this notion of a "specialist" in different ways. First, if the counselor/ psychologist does not have Alopecia- how can they at all relate? Secondly, the counselor can act as that refuge from the storm- which I think was closest to what I felt when I first lost my hair.
When I lost my hair- I didn't want to go and be in it. I wasn't ready to be in my community of Alopecia Areata. So I avoided the conference even though it was in San Francisco. I couldn't quite explain it to my peers in fear they would think of it as too scary or depressing. My family was too close to home. And that left me feeling very alone on the foggy coast. Now, I need to note when I say alone, I don't mean "oh woe- I am alone- so depressed- no one understands." I went to different people in my life for different sources of strength. I went to friends to try to retain normalcy at 16 (AKA awkward puberty, pranks and saying "I'm bored" and finding some random place to "go cruising"). I went to family to either try to remain a teen wanting to rebel, or appreciating my home/ farm as a place to express and go bare (bare- not meaning earthy woman gardening topless, bare meaning going bald). I went to my sister for a big sis that would listen to how I felt my baldness affected my relationships. I became close with my sister again after I lost my hair because she gave me a sense that I can preserver through this challenge. I remember my mom saying "this too shall pass- this too shall pass" At the time I thought "yeah fucking right mom- will it- will it?!?! And you know the baldness didn't pass but the insecurity, the loss of hope to rebuild my life, to feel fully human- it passed. This may sound a bit melodramatic- because I have heard from myself and so many others- "it's just hair" But in the long run- it changes you. It's not just hair. It is the experience. This bald experience pushed me to become something I did not know I had the strength to become.
But getting back to the point of therapists... there wasn't a space carved out in my social network or family that I could say, frankly, the fucked up thoughts that went through my head. I went to a counselor, because I had to talk it out in a safe space and I was so lucky that I had a therapist, although she did not have Alopecia, allowed me a safe space to talk, for myself. The fucked up thoughts didn't have to spin in circles in my head, they were out in a room- laid down on a table- and I was able to look at them, go over them, see the power they had over me, and let them go. So not as a hopeful one-day therapist but as an alopecian who had self doubt, who had self hate, and who had a low sense of self confidence- Counseling saved my life, and got me going where I needed to go.
As for the Psychologist Alopecian specialist- it should exist- it needs to exist. But wow think of all of the possibilities to come. When I lost my hair 10 years ago, NAAF seemed smaller. Now look at it. Most importantly the friendships and the support from truely authentic individuals learning how to live like the rest of the world. Learning how to take steps and learning to "just breathe". I hope that with my vocational choice I can carve out a little room, not as a specialist- but as an art therapist to have the tools to give to others to help themselves and give a helping hand to someone else in need. A cyclical process each growing along and within each other. It's getting late- and I think I hit Maya Angelou status in metaphor and motivation with my writing. Here is something to chew over... it Alopecian's, friends of mine, or random encounter onto this space. Keep growing, keep walking, and utilize any resources that are possible for you to grow into, and embrace your beautiful bad ass self.
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