Well. Today started out pretty rough. It’s hard to work effectively with kids when you’re constantly being pulled out of the moment by suicidal ideation. It wasn’t like extreme, just enough to be annoying. And things that I would usually be able to ignore were suddenly triggering for me. For example, one little girl had two cute pigtails. They looked like I remember my little sister’s pigtails looking. I remember being so sad because my sister had cute pigtails because Mom loved her. I, on the other hand, had no pigtails because my mom routinely shaved my head because I was bad. I had the haircut of shame. I don’t know why this kind of thing is bothering me more this week than usual. I usually am pretty dissociated from emotions related to conscious memories of sad things. I can describe past events and it doesn’t bother me at all. I once accidentally made a usually-stoic therapist scream by relaying what I thought was a funny story. And now, all of a sudden, I’m feeling my feelings. Dr. X would say this is a good thing. I say it’s darned inconvenient.
All that aside, I was in a rotten mood when I was covering breaks. But fortunately my first break was in a room with a person who might technically be considered a friend. She’s always nice to me and we relate to each other well. So when things were calm, I told her that my living situation is still unstable, and my turtle is at the sitter until I get my apartment. I got an email that implied that he had been sick, and I was worried about him. Furthermore, my sister is usually the one immediate family member who I have contact with and usually she’s a good support, but right now she’s actively trying to recruit me back into the cult. (Everyone at work knows I grew up in a cult. I figured I could either explain why I’m weird or leave them to try to fill in the blanks themselves.) My friend validated that this was rough. Then I said that I was covering breaks again and I was pretty sure that the reason for that was that I had done something wrong. She explained that that’s how training works and I was fine. This was a huge relief. I hate covering breaks, but it’s much better doing it without feeling like it’s my punishment for not measuring up.
After that, I haven’t had suicidal ideation anymore. So it turns out that I was 100% correct over the weekend that what I needed was social connection. I’m happy that I figured out how to get it without having to share just how much emotional pain I was in.
