:) +

Today’s a funny day. My Wednesday teacher was hilarious in acting out her examples to the various concepts that make up the object relations approach to personality. Like mirroring. She said with the “mirroring” concept, she understood how it is that couples in love can spend hours just staring at each other without talking. It’s just like staring at yourself in the mirror. It can be terribly fascinating. For isn’t it that when you’re in love, you’re mirrored: “Here at last, is someone who sees me! And thinks my rabbit teeth are great!”

Anyway, it was interesting finding out about object relations – about how babies start to find/ lose security/ love/ warmth in their first objects (usually the mother’s breast) and how their reaction to this can start off emotional patterns that they can take to adulthood if unresolved. I kid you not, it’s not some far out sci-fi fantasy, it can actually all sound very possible. So much so that now I want to study more about this approach, and go into therapy myself (hehehehehe). Just to get clarified on some of my more destructive emotional habits :D Or maybe I really just want to talk some more about this stuff with a practicing therapist.

Especially after yesterday.

I was sat in class yesterday in depressed mode as I had been the entire morning, precisely wondering about my emotional dilemmas, and wondering what should be the lesson for me in this current impasse. It was such a repetitive and real situation, and tiring too, that it’s quite clear as day that I have to learn something from this. So I was sat there, half-listening to my Tuesday teacher, not meeting anyone’s eyes and thinking if there was something really wrong with how I was feeling about this certain emotional issue, and half-thinking that I should really go and talk to someone about it, just to get a perspective. (It gets tiring analyzing yourself, and putting it aside doesn't always work.)

So anyway, so many of the things that unknowing Tuesday teacher said spoke to me as I was sat there, facing him by the aisle at the very end of the room. We have been discussing the various stages of personality development, and have just gone past the part where it says daughters develop fascination for their dads, and sons get more attached to mothers. And Tuesday teacher was saying that a parent’s “abandonment” often has many traumatic effects on children, especially a dad’s leaving on daughters. I put abandonment in quotes because we’re not talking here about parental fault, but certain circumstances, and how a child chooses to react to these, and how sometimes this reaction carries over till adulthood as an emotional habit, or schema.

After the lecture, as has been our routine, teacher set aside some time for meditation. And this session he had us go back to the time when we were six. Immediately I was in the house that I grew up in when I six, I could not see myself but I could see inside the house with “my” eyes, as a six-year old. I was going around the house kitchen to dining to sala, back porch to aratilis tree to laundry area and some of the scenes from those times flashed thru my mind. One of this was of me sitting on my dad’s thigh, as kids will. At this point, I started getting weepy so in the middle of meditating, I kept wiping my eyes with my fingers (how embarrassing was this, right, in a semi-public situation), but as what happens when you start to cry, you can’t just stop. Especially when the scene became my mom and I listening to voice tapes from my dad when he spent six months in Japan around that time. And I remembered he used to send letters addressed to me when he was away then. Oh dear. I had to reach over into my bag for my pack of tissues for by this time I was crying complete with sipon.

Of course, Tuesday teacher NOTICED me by this time. He came over to me, and said, just go with it. And “you’re a good girl, you’re a good girl.” He ended the session by saying for everyone to look to him and smile.

Smile. It was a good experience despite the crying jag. I realized I have “abandonment” issues (nobody’s fault, ok these things happen) and I had joked about this to a loved one last week. IT WAS A JOKE when I said that. Hehehe. I can probably say that I do have abandonment issues from past lovers but this was the first time I learned of abandonment issues from childhood.

Anyway, earlier in the class someone had asked teacher what should be done about past traumas? And one of the things he said was about staying in the now, leaving the past, and dealing with the actual issue/crisis happening.

Time to deal :)

P.S. Incidentally, about ten years ago when my dad was leaving for another stint abroad, I spent hours on the phone with an ex, crying over it. Which was a bit strange considering that by that time I'd lived away from home for eight years already! Anyway. ;)) I'd always remembered that incident because ex was so pleased with me then (how strange that as well).