… I thought I would just seize the moment and post a few thoughts and pictures. I see that it’s been almost two months since I last posted. A lot has happened since then. I left the military and started my new job as a school psychologist. Baby F grew up some more and is now sweeter than ever. L is doing an amazing job at balancing working 5/8 at her job and being a mother. I finally finished reading a couple of books.
And here’s the thing. Having finished the books, I would love to write about them here but I don’t have the energy. It has been a big adjustment starting work as a school psychologist and then there are the day-to-day demands and anxieties associated with being a parent of a toddler. I’d love to say more about the job but I probably need to let it settle down first (and also not write about it on a public blog).
So what have I been reading? The first book was Writing through the Darkness by Elizabeth Schaeffer. She writes from personal experience about using writing to ease her depression. She suffers from bipolar mood disorder and found it incredibly useful to write down her thoughts and feelings. From there she started a writing group at Stanford University for people with mood disorders. She has some excellent ideas on how to use different kinds of writing in different ways. Journalling, poetry, creative writing exercises, writing about trauma and so on. She also provides very valuable tips on how to start a writing group of your own and how to handle feedback (only constructive feedback is allowed). It is the kind of book that makes me want to go out and start such a group myself.
The second book is a therapy memoir about recovering from Borderline Personality Disorder using dialectical behaviour therapy, Buddhism and online dating. The Buddha and the Borderline is really good from both a therapy point of view and a memoir perspective. Kiera van Gelder captures excellently in words what so many people struggle with. And the fact that she does it with self-effacing humour, honesty and courage had me cheering her on all the way through.
It would be good to read another therapy memoir and to be able to compare these two. But at the moment my attention is quite divided between my job and Baby F.
Speaking of which, a couple more pics …
I love her expression in the first one. She’s clearly quite unimpressed to be faced with the prospect of learning to play the piano. Perhaps she senses the hours of musical misery which her father inflicted on this instrument (and his family)?
In the bottom one she’s in her element on her safari mat with her Lion-Cow and other animals. She’s also wearing a green baby-grow in honour of the Springboks (it is World Cup time after all) and in the background you can see some of the books which are piled up on my bedside table.
That’s probably enough for now. I hope to be back before another two months go by.
Posted by Pete 
