Cat Acupuncture and Schema Work

I spoke to the cat acupuncturist yesterday. He seemed like a kind and gentle soul, but cat acupuncture is considerably more expensive than me acupuncture, and it sounded like he was thinking she would need treatment every week for quite some time. If she were five or ten years old, I might do it, but I think that, since she’s almost 19, I’m going to just keep taking her to her regular vet and otherwise let nature take its course. Acupuncture might have helped, or it might just have been unpleasant for her and cost a lot of money.

I currently find that I am unable to conjure up a fit of anxiety about my parents dying or about never living near them again. I feel quite free at the moment, like, “Maybe I’ll do this or maybe I’ll do that.” Maybe I’ll go on a Global Exchange reality tour to Iran.

While I was visiting them, I happened to be reading Tara Bennett-Goleman’s book Emotional Alchemy, which is about Buddhism plus emotional schemas—patterns such as fear of abandonment or deprivation or subjugation that result from our childhood experiences. I didn’t think I was going to like the book, but in retrospect (almost retrospect; I haven’t finished it yet), I think it actually triggered the intense experience of mourning that began toward the end of my visit. She says that just reading about schemas might have this effect.

I felt sad: not unusual. I felt worried: not unusual. I felt a bit panicked: not unusual. What was unusual was the immense, days-long outpouring of grief and my effort not to believe every thought that passed through my mind—really, just an effort to notice thoughts as thoughts.

Once that particular experience of grief had abated, there seemed to be many new options: I could move here or there or nowhere. I could visit Ann Arbor more often or not. Plus I must credit my parents’ making it clear that any of the above was fine. I think my mother probably actually wants me to move to Council Bluffs, IA, because she likes the name of the place, though if I’m going to move to a place just for its name, it would be Fallon, NV.

It occurs to me that to live in Ann Arbor might be to invite one long schema attack of the deprivation variety: Don’t you want me to come over today? What about today? What about today? What if I weed the garden and mow the lawn?

On the other hand, Ann Arbor might be a good choice if my main motivation is to live in a quiet, peaceful place full of liberals and with fantastic radio stations—much better than San Francisco’s, in fact. However, at the moment, I’m appreciating the weather here and my pleasant little apartment and the loved ones who are nearby.

I often get very wise counsel from Tom. When I ask him if I should get upset about a given thing, he always says, “No, you shouldn’t.” “But isn’t it going to give me lung cancer?” “Mmm, no, probably not.” So I asked him, “Isn’t it terrible that I live so far from my parents?” He replied serenely, “We’re a mobile society.” A lot of people don’t live near their parents. Of course, a lot of people move home because they’re homesick.

Besides the good fortune of happening to read the schemas book when I was visiting the very birthplace of my schemas, I’m starting to think there’s something magical (for me, anyway) about this blog. I have always kept a journal. I have many filing cabinet drawers full of my journal. There’s a good chance I can tell you what I was doing any day since April 22, 1976, so it’s not like I haven’t been thinking things over and putting them in words.

And it’s not like more than five people even read my blog, yet it seems like things are moving along faster since I started this. Quite often I feel rather self-conscious about it: This is probably really boring; everybody else’s blog isn’t about their every little feeling. But then I go take a look at a few blogs and see there’s a place in the world for mine. If other people can write whatever they’re moved to write, I can write what I’m moved to write.

I did, as threatened, stop going to therapy. If I have some sort of a crisis, I imagine I would go for one visit. I was frozen for so long by the idea that something bad would happen if I didn’t go regularly. Once I began to investigate further, it became clear that it was OK for me to choose and that things would be fine whether I went there or not.

I definitely didn’t enjoy it. I didn’t enjoy it for quite a number of years and also didn’t notice much change in the quality of my not liking it. I thought that not liking it meant I should go there, but I have changed my mind about that. Maybe I didn’t like it because I knew deep down that it was no longer helping, even if she helped me a whole lot once upon a time and will always be among the people who I know love me.

As I used to remind my therapist once a month, I believe what Karen Horney said: “Life itself still remains a very effective therapist.”