The River ran dry
wow, I am shocked and dismayed that I could be more rattled now, after presenting my river, than I was last week digging it out. All the anxiety created last week as I dove into my past, recounting year by year, all that had happened in 41 short (and exceedingly long) years, just seemed like nothing tonight. At first I thought it was because I, once again, harshly criticized myself for not having the presentation I wanted to and not getting any questions from the audience. These facts seemed to judge me against others, but more importantly were fuel for my own fire. As I drove home from class tonight, I made myself think about what went wrong, why am I so dissatisfied? Did I want more of a response or acknowledgement from my classmates, from Carolyn? We are used to affirmation in our society, as a way to measure our successes. I felt so NOT successful, nor satisfied tonight. What was it?
For one, I did not mention everything I had wanted to mention; some of the events I forgot as I was going through my presentation while others were too personal. Personal enough, I felt that I would for sure be judged. But what really got to me afterwards was that while I had "listed" most of those pivotal moments and events in my life, I did not mention all the hidden feelings and "stuff" behind those events. I certainly was unable to talk about the feelings of inadequacy or rejection. Or pure disgust and utter despair. Nowhere in there was mention of 3 times on anti- depressants, including a serious bout of postpartum depression after Saunders was born. Or more recently, how I had decided to go off of them so that I would actually have a sex life, but how I do not think I can handle life without them. How inadequate am I now? I cannot even live without meds?
I hated that presentation now. I thought I was proud of it and only felt I needed to make some tweaks before tonight, but the mac technical gods had a different idea. The only thing I have been proud of about today is that I was able to get the presentation from keynote on my macbook to myiPad, which still did me no good for the actual presentation.
I feel awful and deflated. I feel like I could sleep in all day tomorrow and the next day and next day too. In fact, skipping the week sounds appealing. The thing is, I don;t want to be this person and I don't much like this person. But I am not sure what to do now.
For one, I did not mention everything I had wanted to mention; some of the events I forgot as I was going through my presentation while others were too personal. Personal enough, I felt that I would for sure be judged. But what really got to me afterwards was that while I had "listed" most of those pivotal moments and events in my life, I did not mention all the hidden feelings and "stuff" behind those events. I certainly was unable to talk about the feelings of inadequacy or rejection. Or pure disgust and utter despair. Nowhere in there was mention of 3 times on anti- depressants, including a serious bout of postpartum depression after Saunders was born. Or more recently, how I had decided to go off of them so that I would actually have a sex life, but how I do not think I can handle life without them. How inadequate am I now? I cannot even live without meds?
I hated that presentation now. I thought I was proud of it and only felt I needed to make some tweaks before tonight, but the mac technical gods had a different idea. The only thing I have been proud of about today is that I was able to get the presentation from keynote on my macbook to myiPad, which still did me no good for the actual presentation.
I feel awful and deflated. I feel like I could sleep in all day tomorrow and the next day and next day too. In fact, skipping the week sounds appealing. The thing is, I don;t want to be this person and I don't much like this person. But I am not sure what to do now.
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