So I haven’t written for a while .—at least since April of 2013. Now I feel the need to start again. I have been retired for almost two years. We’ve traveled to Ireland, Scotland, Great Britain and Wales. We recently came back from a month in France and it was all great.
However I need more structure and perhaps this will help. I have often had the fantasy of being able to write. I know the only way to become a good writer is to write regularly. So maybe I can push myself. We’ll see
This retirement thing is still strange. I really don’t want to work again. That time is done. I don’t think I could see 35-40 patients a week. The farther I am from it, the more I see how I literally was swallowed up. I went back to visit two or three times. People said it seemed like I had been gone longer than 2 years. When I questioned them they were surprised at how long they had been working at the clinic .
I think the routine of seeing large numbers of patients for therapy begins to distort time. You do pay a price in your personal life. Thankfully I have been able to reconnect. I really thank my wife for that.
One of my friends and his wife had a long relationship with a therapist. After she retired they continued the relationship as ‘friends’. This lasted until one time they disagreed with some of her “advice’. She then insulted them and basically discounted all the work they had done. I told him there are a lot of messed up therapists. A lot of time we go into the field to help work on our own issues. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. Too often we can get the impression that we are “always right” about other peoples lives—that, in fact, our advice is infallible. I think it comes from seeing too many people who don’t confront us about what we say and do.
I remember coming home one day when I was in graduate school. I think I was in counseling 101 or some other starter class. My wife had had a bad day at work and I tried to use some Rogerian techniques on her. She told me quite clearly to “leave that shit at work—I am not a patient, I’m your wife!!” I have never forgotten that. It s important to have people in your life that keep you grounded and I am grateful to those that were there for me