therapy month

it is pretty hot gossip on my strictly personal grapevine that there is already a christmas tree in my living room. that is quite the contrast to the vast majority of holidays in my life, beginning in the late 60's when i had no home to decorate and morphing through time and healing into the early 80's when intensive psychotherapy suggested i, strictly personal, needed to declare december a therapy month to deal with the prolonged string of trauma anniversaries which describe the holidays in the kiddie whorehouses. child prostitutes are all to savvy to what's REALLY in santa's lap. 

i still view december as therapy month but the therapy needs have changed considerably since my therapy needs earned me the stigmatic titles of "scrooge" and "grinch." those who matter don't mind. those who mind don't matter. in the 70's and 80's i was dealing with the still unnamed psychoticks of a child prostitute's ptsd. healing has happened and i have come quite a long way at processing the repressed memories, etc., of life in a kiddie whorehouse. these days i can comfort that still hurting inner child without losing my adult self in her pain. she still doesn't want to sit in a rent-a-santa's lap but she can watch a holiday movie without triggering into hysterical flight. she remains far from "cured" but healing has happened. in my adult realities, i can acknowledge the traumatic reminders without losing my grip on the here and now.

the healing/hope needs here in the covidic era are drastically different than the healing needs of 2018 when i put together my very first dramatic (for me) christmas display in hopes of healing the protective custody trauma for 2 of my 3 grandchildren. the baby had yet to be born and her future was a major uncertainty in a sea of uncertainties. on the comfortable retiree front, the dairy barn conversion was only about half complete. the oppresive pall of long neglect still hung heavily over 2 of the three rooms in the barn. turning the nearly finished room into the christmas room went a long way toward making the building less spooky. i remain quite pleased with how well the ploy worked.

here in year 2 of the covidic chaos, the most urgent healing needs are quelling from the continued threat of global shutdown and the more personal disappointment of cancelation of the visit with maternal family. the visit was cancelled at the last minute because of concerns over the unidentified stomach bug currently sweeping our little ship of fools. anxieties over this year's flu season are running high globally and the maternal family is heavily afflicted with poor physical health. all were agreed it was safer to cancel the visit. on my strictly personal anxiety scale, i mostly don't want to risk feeding their passion for creative lawsuits.

which left us with 2 cruelly disappointed children yesterday as they processed the cancellation through their covidic confusions. no dear. this is not covid. you are not a social pariah for having a stomach bug. the baby doesn't understand any of this but she was deeply affected by the disappointment of her elder siblings.

enter the pre-thanksgiving christmas splurge. . . well, mask it all ! ! !

sorting. . . processing. . . again i leave the mood icon on the rapid cycling median. business as usual.