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Monthly Archive for December, 2010

Don’t read unless you are infertile, childless not by choice and/or bitter, really-don’t

Published on December 22, 2010 in Childless Not By Choice and Quotidien. 81 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Okay, here is the truth…the real truth…the truth that I didn’t want to tell you. I wanted to be all ho-ho-ho and merry -merry and I tried, I really did, but I can’t. It hit me the other day. It hit me hard. I got it when we were walking through William-Sonoma and I was shopping for a coffee maker that I will NEVER-EVER-EVER have kids.I knew it and then all of a sudden I KNEW it.  This is something that will never be fixed. This will always be true. I saw people with children and prams and baby Bjorns and I just started sobbing. I lost my sh*t in the appliance section. I went from shopping mode to melt down mode faster than you can say Cuisinart Brew and Grind. He-weasel got me out of the store and herded me to my car in the pouring rain and I sobbed as I blindly walked, “It’s not fair. I want it to be fair. It’s not fair. Life should be FAIR!!! If we couldn’t have kids we should have at least been able to stay in Chicago.” That happened Sunday and ever since then I have been in the sob, cry, mourn, grieve and repeat mode.

I tried today to do a little Christmas shopping but then I saw all these men with their fucking babies and I had to push back the tears and then some little toddlers were pushing me when I was waiting in line to buy a candle and I was growing more and more irritated and I came this close to turning around and going off on this man for not being able to contain his kids and how they needed to stop pushing me and they needed to stop pushing me NOW!!!!!! But what I wanted to do is turn around and take all my rage and anger and outrage that I am childless and that I will always be so and that I live in L.A. and that I had a shit childhood and give it to this man that I have never met. I wanted to yell at this stranger and for him to hear my anger and for him or someone to make this right. The customer is always right. And maybe if I yelled loud enough the manager of William-Sonoma could fix what is broken in me or give me my money back or at least give me a free box of Holiday Bark Candy. A dear friend of mine ,who upon hearing about my near run in with a total stranger, suggested that I stay home tonight, cancel my dinner reservation and order dinner in less I give into my desire to rage publicly and end up needing her to bail me out of the big house.

So the truth is that I am in pieces. A million of them to be exact. And I don’t feel like Humpty Dumpty can be put back together again. I am not sure if I will be up to blogging over the holiday season. The truth is that I didn’t even plan on writing this. I was just going to put up a picture of Lily and wish you a happy holiday but if there is one thing this blog is it is authentic. And I am authentically feeling like shit. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t wish you a very happy Christmas, I do. Also, please, I implore you…no need to comment and try to cheer me up. Lily, He-weasel, Igor and assorted lovely friends are trying to cheer me up and yet at present I am uncheerable.

Ugh, now that I wrote this I feel like a Grinch or a Scrooge or like I have put a damper on your ho-ho-ho. But maybe my telling the truth about how shit I feel will help someone else. I hope it does.
p.s. You can’t say I didn’t warn you. It was there in the title. You didn’t have to read this. I did warn you.

Last night I dreamt of Lake Forest

Published on December 20, 2010 in Belette in Psychotherapy and Quotidien. 22 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

I was on the outside of my house. I was standing on the side of it. It was on an incline and I was looking up at it. It was a beautiful house( not my house, we didn’t live in Lake Forest and we didn’t live in a house as grand as the one I lived in). I was there looking at it. I was narrating. I was saying, “I wish I had known those last four weeks we were there that we were leaving. I wish I had spent more time in the city and in Libertyville Park.” I looked longingly at the house. The more I talked about it the more distant it felt.

The good news is that I didn’t wake crying. And even better that I didn’t dream about any babies. I hate baby dreams the most.

Continue reading ‘Last night I dreamt of Lake Forest’

Feeding Igor

Published on December 17, 2010 in Belette in Psychotherapy, Meaning Making, Psychology and Quotidien. 53 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

On the way to Igor’s yesterday I was overtaken by an impulse to bring him food. It was a strange fantasy as this is something  that has never occurred to me before. All the way there I thought about where I could stop and what I could bring him.  I considered a Croque Monsiur and a side salad from Le Pain Quotidien. I thought about going to Sprinkles and buying him a cupcake. Maybe a salad from Brighton Cafe? This impulse seemed ridiculous. What was I symbolically saying by wanting to feed him? What would this gesture be seen to mean about me? What was I trying to unconsciously act out by feeding my analyst? Was it an attempt to have him take in goodness from me the way I take in his good interpretations? Was there some attempt to be the good mother to Igor? Was I feeling some inequity that I was trying to balance? Or, could this desire to feed him be a way of defending against my feelings of some dependency? Or, was I just hungry and unable to feed myself what I really wanted and so was I perhaps projecting my hunger onto him?

I imagined the scenario of me bringing him the food. I imagined him being grateful and then not knowing what to do with what I brought him. He would ask me what it is that I brought. He would thank me for the food. He would tell me that he would eat it later. And then we would get down to the task of interpreting why I wanted to feed him, this is where the meat  of the session would be found.

I arrived at Igor’s office with no food offering. I did have a half-drank cup of chai tea latte, but that was for me. As soon as we both sat down in our respective chairs I told him about my food fantasies. Upon hearing my many menu options that I had considered for him, Igor answered, ” That’s so intuitive of you. You see I always bring my lunch and today I didn’t.  And I was hungry and had been wishing I had remembered to do so.”  It seems that I am a food psychic.  Weird, huh?

The next time I get the impulse to feed Igor I am going to listen to it. Sometimes a feeding fantasy is a deeply coded unconscious activity that needs to be interpreted. And sometimes a desire to buy someone a sandwich means that they are hungry.

*The picture featured in this post is not an actual representation of either Igor  or I.

Should I stay or should I go now?

Published on December 15, 2010 in Psychology. 69 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

I wish that the incident that I described in the last post was the only trouble I was having in the psychoanalytic psychotherapy class. It isn’t. I had another run in about a clinical issue. I recieved such a bad and unprofessional reaction to something that I presented that I came home and decided that I will not be doing any further prevsnting in the supervision group.

When I told Igor he described the incident as “sadisistic”. If I could tell you what it was you would agree with him. Igor encouraged me to tell the supervisor my feelings about the incident and I am so glad he did. Conversely, as Igor knows the players in this drama, he most definitely did not advise me to confront the memory-phobic instructors.  I did, however, call the chair of the program and tell her about the troubles I have had with the envious-amnesiacs. The chair was gracious and even apologetic—and she seemed eager for me to write all that I had shared with her in my course evaluation., “this is the kind of thing we want to know when planning for next year.”

When I contacted the supervisor  I initially chickened out and said via email: “Just FYI:, I will not be presenting in supervision anymore.” The instructor wrote back immediately and said , in essence, “Of course. You should only do what is best for you. That said, is there anything I should know about. Do you need to process anything that happened?” I wrote back and said, “Well now that you mention it…” and then I told him how much I had enjoyed the supervision and how I had valued what I had gotten out of learning about his theoretical lens of perspective but that something had happened( I’m not at liberty to share the details with you of what happened) but I did tell him what happened and why I would be doing no further presenting. As soon as I sent him the email I felt both terrified and liberated. Why terrified? I was afraid of getting in trouble. I thought he would be defensive and deny the incident. Minutes later I got back an email in which the supervisor took complete blame for the incident and he sincerely apologized. His reaction felt honest and sincere and I was wonderfully surprised and felt something close to vindicated and acknowledged. I love it when people are mature, responsible and accountable.
Continue reading ‘Should I stay or should I go now?’

I/eye emergency

Published on December 13, 2010 in Belette in Psychotherapy, Meaning Making, Psychology and Quotidien. 77 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

Here’s what happened-ish: So I was in my psychoanalytic psychotherapy class and one of the instructors started taking about something that happened with one of her patients. I, being a careful listener with a good memory and a person with a capacity to make intuitive links, thought that maybe the patient she was talking about was a patient she talked about a few weeks ago. So, I  naively asked her, “Is this the patient you were talking about before?” Even before she answered me I could feel from looking at her face that I had asked the wrong question. Once her eyes had returned to their sockets and her jaw had been lifted from the floor she was able to use her voice to express her shock. “Yes.” She said. But she didn’t say yes like you or I would. She said “yes” as if she was responding to an unwanted insight about the day of her death from a psychotic and smelly psychic.

Her co-teacher then said in accusing tones, as if to underscore their shared shock at my question,”You have a really good memory“. I can tell you that I never imagined someone could make that sound like an insult, but he managed to do so. I defended myself as I felt ashamed and disoriented by his accusation of me daring to have such a good memory, ” I have a therapeutic memory,” I said. And I didn’t say that in any inflated way. It is just the truth. Being a therapist has given me a MUCH better memory. I am able to remember details about my clinical work in a way that I can’t in other areas of my life. Going to a grocery store, I continue to require a list or at least a mnemonic device to remind me that I need milk, bread and coffee (the mnemonic for that is “The caffeinated money cow“).
Continue reading ‘I/eye emergency’

“A Rouge By Any Other Name”

Published on December 10, 2010 in Belette's Favorites and Quotidien. 72 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

I am so excited to share this with you!!!! I hope you enjoy the article half as much as I do.  This is so big for me. Truly, this is a life changer. Being in Forest and Bluff, I believe, is what gave me the courage to drop my anonymity. I also think that in some woo-woo kind of way that this article is what opened things for me to get the gig with Psychology Today. I cannot thank Eileen, at Forest and Bluff, enough for being so very nice to me. Her review of my blog could not be more glowing. Thank you, Eileen—you made my year!!!

Here is the link to the article. If you can’t open a PDF file I don’t have another way of getting the article to you, sorry.

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If you haven’t read my Rudolph piece please do. You don’t want to miss my first attempt at writing a Christmas carol. If I keep up this Christmas carol rewriting I might do a Christmas album next year( If you have you have ever heard my singing voice, you know what a joke that is).

Rudolph the Depressed and Traumatized Reindeer

Published on December 8, 2010 in Psychology and Psychology Today. 33 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

When you think about how you want to spend your holidays, I imagine that activities like shopping, cocoa drinking, gift exchanging or ice skating come to mind. It is not my hunch that watching others be judged, shamed, publicly ridiculed and kicked out of their families for birth defects or job preferences signify happy holiday activities to you.

However, there is a part of my Christmas tradition that is a must: watching an innocent be tormented for what one might consider a birth defect. That is, watching  Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer. I have watched it ever since I was a child and never gave it up (even when I figured out that this is a highly abusive story line; however, less than the unwatchable Christmas Story. I know many people love that movie. I hate it. It is the therapist in me that cannot stand to watch actual children being emotionally abused. Young puppet reindeer abuse I can watch more easily as I know that no real reindeers were harmed in the making of this Christmas special). The emotional abuse of a tiny reindeer continues to be part of my annual Christmas tradition.

Let’s go through the entire show and look at all of the psychological issues that occur in its 52 minutes. (Click here for the rest of the story. Also, if you follow my link you will get a chance to read the first Christmas Carol I ever wrote. How’s that for a tease?)

I almost got another dog yesterday and other news of similar importance( the partially bilingual edition)

Published on December 6, 2010 in Lily, Meaning Making, Objects and Quotidien. 68 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

  1. Only the dog was a girl and Lily does not like girl dogs that are smaller than her. Lily can be a bit bitchy to them. I couldn’t stand her to be mean to this 4lbs. of chihuahua/doxie adorable mix. I did, however, fall in love. I mean, I have it bad. B-A-D. And let me tell you that she is MUCH cuter in person. My iPhone didn’t do justice to this beige-coloured beauty–and she is a BEAUTY. She has mottled fawn and white colour to her super-soft fur and her personality is perfection. Ugh! I hate that I can’t bring her home but Lily REALLY doesn’t like smaller girl dogs, so much so that I would fear for this beauties life. Lily is a cutey but if you saw how fierce she is when she plays with Mr. Monkey you would understand my fear.
  2. A Sephora and a William Sonoma store have just opened up within walking distance from my house. I am liking Valencia a smidgen more because of this. Access to skincare and a quality skillet makes me feel much more optimistic about this place. That said, I am not planning on becoming a member of the what is awesome about “Awesometown” club. They could put a JCrew in the lobby of my building and I still wouldn’t join that club (well, maybe if they put one in the lobby and they had free delivery and gave me a 20% discount AND offered free alterations).

    3. Continue reading ‘I almost got another dog yesterday and other news of similar importance( the partially bilingual edition)’

Cover Girl

Published on December 3, 2010 in Belette's Favorites, Dreams and Psychology. 47 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

My story made the cover. No, I am not a debutante of a bygone era. And I am also not a member of the Deer Path Girls’ Cross Country Team. I’ll let you figure out which story is mine.

Sorry, as of yet, there is no link to the actual article. I haven’t even seen it yet.  This is so surreal. Am I dreaming? Speaking of dreaming, I dreamt the other night that He-weasel and I bought a house back in Forest and Bluff. He had a job. Everything was settled. And then I woke up. As I told Igor, I think my dreams have become masochistic. If I dream tonight that I am getting published in the New Yorker I think I am going to give up on sleep.

Boys to Men: Ed Hardy Meets Ernest Becker

Published on December 1, 2010 in Meaning Making, Psychology and Psychology Today. 42 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

In my neighborhood in Southern California, the men mostly dress like children and it drives me cuckoo bird crazy. Wherever I go out in my southland suburb, I see men in their 30′s, 40′s, 50′s and beyond dressing like their kids and grandkids: Ed Hardy shirts (gasp), spiked hair and striped tee shirts. Shorts, the ultimate uniform of casualness, are worn in all their varieties: basketball shorts, board shorts, surf shorts. And if not shorts, then jeans. Suits, ties, or even trousers read as antiquated and old-timey in this Shangri-La of agelessness and immortality.

I interpret this trend as a sartorial denial of death. Yes, my thesis is that these 60-somethings in board shorts and backwards baseball caps might be attempting to hide their silver hair from the grim reaper. Ernest Becker writes in his classic The Denial of Death: “The idea of death, the fear of it, haunts the human animal like nothing else; it is a mainspring of human activity – designed largely to avoid the fatality of death, to overcome it by denying in some way that it is the final destiny of man.” The unconscious thinking in this age-inappropriate apparel is something right out of Becker’s book. I believe it is a defense against death and an attempt to overcome it. The clothing suggests: “If I look like a boy, I am a boy.”

To read the rest of this post please click here.

About Me

My name is Tracey, aka La Belette Rouge. I am a psychotherapist and the author of Freudian Sip @ Psychology Today. I blog about psychology, my therapy, dreams, writing, meaning making, home, longing, loss, infertility and other things that delight or inspire me. I try to make deep and elusive psychodynamic concepts accessible and funny. For more information, click here .

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