#counseling
I’ve been to counseling.
Uni-life can be stressful, it's a 'judgy' environment.
We're under constant evaluation.
So there’s free counseling.
Have you ever been to counseling, dear reader?
What I love about counseling is that someone has to sit and listen to MY issues..
Wait, doesn’t that sound a lot like poetry!?
Feb 19, 2024
Feb 19, 2024 at 7:39 AM UTC
It’s really strange to pay you
To find out who I am in this head
Maybe I should just talk to a mirror
It would at least be cheaper
I came in to talk about suicide
And now we are all over the place
Now I have PTSD and a divorce
But at least I know why I’m crazy
What do you mean I’m not ready
To run out and find another wife?
I don’t see how too few months
Means I’m too messed up to love
Actually, you are probably right
I probably just need to find a lay
Be honest and forthright about me
But get the hell out of there after
Thanks for the session
It was certainly enlightening
I’m no less crazy then before
But now at least I know it
Oct 5, 2019
Oct 5, 2019 at 10:49 PM UTC
It was as if everything exploded and then froze in a thousand pieces in the air.
The frozen pieces stayed there, while my screams did not.
They tore through the night and only the stars could hear me as I mourned, "I'm dying, I'm dying, I'm dying".
The pieces stayed in the air for months, looming overhead.
Until today.
They are mirror shards. And they are piercing me, they are piercing me, they are piercing me.
The unexpected villain. The fickle sin. The heaping grief.
There is blood everything. And I am weeping, I am weeping, I am weeping.
May 29, 2019
May 29, 2019 at 1:14 AM UTC
I seek
And wonder
At the withheld
And intricate
Fabric of things,
The joyous tundra
That fills my soul
With ice
And promise of spring.
Where is joy
When dark seems absolute
And the chasm threatens
To swallow whole
The entirety of me?
Come close enough
To feel the aura bloom
And the vibes
Of triumph
Yearning to break
From the temptation
Of destruction
I so often find
Feb 19, 2019
Feb 19, 2019 at 6:09 PM UTC
Welcome to your first session
Of couples’ therapy.
Before we begin conversation,
I would like to share something with you.
New research has found that, in therapy,
A client’s motivation is the most important factor.
Here is one article about it. I have copies for you.
I devised an exercise to increase your motivation.
This is, motivation about what you want to have
…again, as a couple…what you used to have.
Though there are two of you, I will say "her"
in order to keep things flowing
and for other reasons we can discuss.
Please make your selves comfortable.
Relax your muscles, starting with your toes
And working your way up.
(Yes I know it’s funny…but it works)
Focus on your breathing—in and out.
Not big breaths, but calm, even, shallow breaths,
That create stillness. Drive away intruding thoughts
And focus on the present, on being relaxed.
Are you calm? Are you in the moment? Good!
Now…I want you to imagine an ordinary day.
Picture yourself coming home from work, or
Some other place. See the road as you drive.
You don’t judge it but merely notice it.
Look at the buildings and trees as you drive past them.
Is everything the same as always? Good.
It’s an ordinary day. A day in your life.
The sun is in the sky, the grass is green
And all is as it should be. You feel content.
Keep breathing. Relax if you have tensed up.
Now picture yourself arriving home.
What do you do? Where do you enter your house?
What do you say or do inside?
Now, imagine that there is no one answering your “Hello”.
What do you feel? Remember how you feel when
Your wife or husband said, “Hello” or “Hi” back to you,
Even if it was casual or not very loving.
You are home now and it seems there is no one there.
What do you feel? Are you worried? Angry? Suspicious?
What do you do next? Hang up your coat, put down your bags.
Maybe you have groceries and you go to the kitchen.
Take a deep breath and relax. It’s just like any other day,
You think.
Now imagine entering the kitchen finding her there
Motionless on the floor. Do you find this bizarre?
What do you feel when you see her?
Think…
Imagine that you run to her, heart in your feet,
Maybe your head spinning and adrenaline
Is keeping you conscious.
Imagine reaching down,
Calling her name, shaking her
But she doesn’t move. What do you feel?
Her skin is gray, her lips blue.
You don’t even feel for a pulse because
You know…she is gone. It seems that
Time stretches out like a long road
With a fatal car wreck on it.
Now comes the sick whirling inside,
The lightheaded improbability,
Do you deny what you see, what you know:
She is gone, but you fight against it.
Would you call for help? Perhaps you
Reach out to family, to a daughter or son,
As if they will know more than you
About what to do.
What do you tell them?
They arrive and enter that same world
Of stunned, disbelieving chaos.
When paramedics and maybe police arrive,
They are businesslike, quick: they’ve seen this before.
They are of little help to you
Except to examine “the body”.
Are their questions ones you can’t answer
Without indescribable pain?
Or do you not hear them at all?
Take a moment to imagine what you feel.
And as they take the body away.
You may watch the woman you love
Being zipped up into a bag,
Of perhaps someone had the sense
To put you in a soft chair like a baby,
To guard you from that sight
And speak softly, knowing
That your mind is barely there..
As you sit there, perhaps sipping alcohol,
Or maybe taking a sedative.
Things happen around you.
Are you a paralyzed fish in
A glaucous aquarium?
Or do you rave against the unreality
Of this thing?
Think…
Perhaps more relatives or neighbors arrive and hover.
You watch them cry and maybe
You think they have the right to grieve
More than you, for this was their mother
Or daughter and in the chaos,
Your love for her is ignored by all
Except you.
What are you feeling now?
Do you watch the show
Vaguely, remembering
Instead the things you wanted to tell her
But never said,
The places you said you would go
But never went,
Or worse, the hurts you inflicted
But never healed?
Imagine what this would be like.
You might cry yourself to sleep this night,
Or lie there, still numb, saying over and over,
“This isn’t happening.”
Now imagine the funeral;
Are you dressed in black
And do you do what your family does
On these days?
Did you see her again and say good-bye?
Or did you have the casket closed,
So as not to look at her like that?
Perhaps she was cremated
And when you arrive
At the cemetery, there is just
A small, stone box, a pretty one,
Like the one she had for her jewelry.
And it all floods back:
A scene of her, sitting at a mirror,
Putting earrings on and combing her hair.
Think…
How does it feel to know that
You will never see her again
In this life?
You know what is next—
The solemn procession
The loved ones weeping
Or standing stone still
And little ones, confused.
The words are read out by
Someone—a religious leader
Or just a funeral director.
Does it matter? Do you listen?
Sometimes the funeral is hardest,
Or for some, the easiest part;
It is scripted and you can walk through
The rituals, the reading of expected prayers.
You are silent on the ride home,
Feeling strange in the comfort
Of a limousine—so foreign yet sterile.
You watch the others’ vacant faces to see
What they feel, hoping for a clue
About what to say.
But nothing comes. Not even after
You are home, looking at the unaccustomed crowd.
Why are they here, chatting, eating, getting drunk
When you just want to be alone?
People say things but you hear vague words
From another language that you've forgot.
Some people even laugh or giggle;
Do you want to slap them?
Or are you grateful for the distraction?
Finally, as the morning wears down into
A cold afternoon, the black-dressed figures
Start to disappear. Some just touch you,
While others wrap you in their arms
And you don’t know why.
Some family members mills around,
Fussing over details big and small.
Some are things that she used to do
And you ignored them. Now
You wish you had watched her
Put food away, or fold things—perhaps
You would even offer to help.
You would do anything now…
And you would give anything
To see her move, smile, even to herself.
You would smile at her and say, “I love you!”
for no reason.
Think…
Now listen to your own voice
Saying that you need her.
But that is all done.
Perhaps you spend a night
With someone in the house,
Who stays to watch you.
After all, you have put on a show
So they won’t worry too much.
And on the second day,
Nothing seems real.
You are not the type who talks
About anything deep.
Yet maybe you feel sick
And would talk if you could.
Do you keep thinking she will
Suddenly walk in?
This is very common.
Hours groan past, elongated.
Sometimes, throughout the day
There are shocks to your system,
Electric shocks of reality.
You see her body again,
Or the coffin, the stillness of death
That is incomprehensible.
Sunset comes like an anodyne,
You think...
Night will blanket the loss.
But when your loved one or your neighbor
Leaves at last.
You are not glad to be alone,
As you used to be, sometimes,
When the expectations
Of marriage annoyed you.
When to be alone was a relief.
And now that feeling is alien.
You want nothing more
Than to spend the evening with her,
Sitting together on the couch,
Watching a favorite show
Or talking of interesting things.
Yet even those ideas are painful now.
She is not here and never will be again.
Slowly, reality seeps in, like rain
Into the soil around a tree
Or the dirt on her grave…
You sink into the seat, melting
Under the weight of grief.
The house seems to echo with her
Voice and you keep thinking
She calls to you as she used.
And you hear yourself
Snap at her, annoyed,
As you so often were.
Why was that? You don’t know now.
You were selfish, distant…
So many times, but why?
Think…
If she were alive now,
What would you say or do,
To show her you love her?
There is a ticking clock somewhere
And you can’t remember its place.
The house echoes again,
Not with her voice,
But with the long, empty sound
Of despair.
Oct 13, 2018
Oct 13, 2018 at 6:42 PM UTC
breathing techniques cannot salvage my mentality
dry - cold - gales whisking shards of icicles
jet stream frozen oxygen into my pink lungs
and as nature’s razors draw red blood
my capacity for speaking matches the bleeding
of a headspace drowning in black ink
-
The quills of my fingertips have been continuously dipped
Into the reservoir of dye crested by the hole in my head
-
a yellow sun rises anew day to cast light on these visions
a red rose withers on concrete of unwalked opportunity
a orange three-pronged leaf exists in this dissension
ambition will either
flourish to match a perpetuating green
or
decompose to return compost the dirt of earth
Sep 28, 2018
Sep 28, 2018 at 8:39 PM UTC
I started going to counseling this week
because my plants started dying
the roots are all rotted
and the leaves are just slowly eating away at themselves
maybe my roots are rotten too
and I need to fix them before I start eating myself up
Jul 4, 2018
Jul 4, 2018 at 1:28 PM UTC
Fear
Run, run, destruction awaits,
From divinity devils fall,
Atop one’s head indeed,
Absorbed with ease,
The angels swarm about the knees,
Pulling, pulling
At gravity.
~
It’s shaking me,
I haven’t seen much of what’s been pulling me,
Trying and fighting for this grip not to defeat me,
Harboring,
Wondering how it got inside of me,
Bottling, waiting for it to start changing me,
And I don’t know –
Tell me what you see inside of me,
Is it you?
Some kind of pain from what you’ve been through?
Say it,
How do I take up designation apart from you?
Share with me,
What am I supposed to do?
It’s a risk,
Struggling to find the courage to try and fix it,
To lose touch with myself and scare away the damaged bits.
What am I besides the things I’ve been through?
Or can I be more than just capacity,
Potentiality,
I guess I never identified my own identity,
I sit on the shelf and wait for you to label me,
Price check, I guess I’m assigned my own value,
Put me up for sale instead cause no one wants to bargain me
On my behalf –
Sorry, let me bow and apologize for not helping
I am trying to find something, it’s rising to the surface of
What you said,
What he did,
Ordering and sorting through your mistakes,
Which is something I never got to make and now I’m learning,
Compared to better cause I wasn’t perfected,
Choking on my DNA cause I despise the taste of it – but wait
Isn’t that a reflection of you?
Isn’t what you made me into a small part of you?
Ruined and battered and ***** and always flavorless
I’m sorry, Mama
I know you want to eradicate this
But for myself I need to deliver this message
I wanted the chance to be a creator, too
I wanted the chance to walk in my own shoes
And now I have –
I’m trying to set myself on my own path
Free of you –
Surpassing the limits of what you allowed me to do,
And I’ll never be free
Cause the part of me that you reached,
Will always have you there
The infection you are heals in to my scar, you’re tissue
Fabricated into the realm of my love so I’ll never be rid of you,
But soon enough
I’ll learn how to paint over you,
So I can mend
And others will recognize you as something that can be breached, too.
Apr 26, 2018
Apr 26, 2018 at 6:12 PM UTC
My therapist recently asked me "have you ever tried mindfulness?"
I laughed a bit, remembering of the week-long mindfulness camp (sugarcoated for in-patient psychiatric care) I attended for troubled teens. I went to this twice.
This peaceful brain training was designed to give us a retreat when the world is too loud. During group therapy, most teens shared their experiences with domestic violence, yelling, S.A., running away, abuse. Endless. We were all numb, but there was so much comfort in being locked away with others who needed the respite as much as I did.
We would eat skittles and describe their flavor and textures. We would focus on our breaths. Make beaded art. Tell collaborative stories. Follow guided meditations laying on unfamiliar gym floors, giggling a bit as we "soared through clouds".
I jumped back into the talk session, remembering my dedication to mindfulness years ago. My anxiety followed me into adulthood. I think mindfulness can be out of reach, stupid.
And yet, I looked out of her dusty, sun filled window decorated with three vases of dry arrangements. My mind started to posture into how warm and antique this image felt. I felt hot, quiet tears building up from feeling that peace again.
Mar 4, 2018
Mar 4, 2018 at 2:42 PM UTC
I overthink,
It's a regular process,
I overthink,
Is it more than just a regular process?
I overthink,
That it is common,
I overthink,
Too much for myself.
I overthink,
I can barely help,
The wounds on my hands,
prove me wrong.
I overthink,
yet this is not mirage,
This is reality,
So this is not thought.
This is not overthinking,
this is true,
It's not me who is overthinking,
It's you.
Nov 12, 2017
Nov 12, 2017 at 3:23 AM UTC
Why be a Counselor?
“Why be a counselor?” People often ask of me.
“The pay isn’t high, and the paperwork is beyond belief.
The stress you must have, dealing with people’s problems all day”.
So, I look at them, and I try, my best to explain.
“The pay won’t make me rich, you are right about that.
The paperwork's insane, and we always need more staff.
Yes, people come to me with a lot to explain.
From broken homes, trauma, and unimaginable pain.
But you asked, “Why be a Counselor?” so let me share with you.
Why I continue, to do what I do.
It’s the light in people’s eyes, when they first find that hope.
When they empower themselves, and finally learn to cope.
It’s watching them find a new life, one they actually want to live.
It’s the joy of the families, as they reunite and forgive.
It’s that one day you wonder, “am I really making a difference in what I do?”
Then your email reads; “I am happy and well, and I want to thank you.”
“That’s when you know…” I say with a tear…
“There could not be, a more rewarding career”.
-Monique Renee Smith
Apr 5, 2017
Apr 5, 2017 at 2:31 PM UTC
faux leather cracking, mauve in between
soft swoosh and wheels creaking
14 minutes and 38 seconds
your back stiffening, careful not to lean
too far back, in case the couch swallows you
why would you put such a small picture
in such a large frame? a sigh
you can’t run away from your anxiety attacks
you know
I know.
this is nothing like the movies
the bathroom is out of order
and there are barely any notes
on her clipboard
45 minutes and 22 seconds
let me know if the sadness gets worse, alright?
alright.
a child is gagging in the waiting room
you rush out without the copay
but you’ll be back again, soon.
Dec 20, 2016
Dec 20, 2016 at 1:25 AM UTC
It's time for a tale of my school's counseling system
And how it effects the students within
So to all of the counselors who ask "why don't they come to us?":
Here are the stories we take to the bus
First of all, it happens that you're never in
And without you there, how will they talking begin?
We get that you're also the hall monitors
But the way things are, you won't even let us be heard
And honestly, don't even get me started
On the stories students had once they departed
I had a friend, C, who's a bisexual girl
And, of course, that yields problems in this world
In middle school she dated another girl
In the "oh my gosh, we're holding hands" sense of the word
And one day, when it became all too much
C told her counselor about the dating and such
A day later, C and her bae were called in
And, I should note here, bae's parents saw the rainbow as sin
Turns out the counselor had told both their parents
That their girls were dating, despite the problems apparent
After that C never saw bae again
And that is how counselors treated my friend
My bestie, S, had many problems at home
She would avoid being stabbed by running outside into the snow
So one day she went to talk mental health
But her counselor gave her something else
When S, a philosophical joker, mused the meaning of life
The counselor told her it wasn't worth the strife
The woman told her that she had not place on this earth
And general statements that were all rather dearth
And S thought as she walked out an away
"What if somebody suicidal walked in today?
At least that's not any kind of issue for me."
And that's how our counselors treated my bestie
The final anecdote is a bit personal:
I'm the girl who did this, after all
Things had been getting more tense at my house
My mom's shouting outbursts made me want to vanish like a mouse
Even on a vacation to Virginia Beach
These problems always happened to be within reach
And afterward my mom would try to make things smooth
But her words only made me more and more confused
So I went to Mr. R after months of stressing
Hoping I could find solutions to a problem that was pressing
He told me I should be honest with my mother:
That I should tell her I saw as terrifying what she saw as a bother
So I did just that in the late afternoon
Wishing it to work, but not raising my hopes so soon
And of course my words fell on deaf ears
My mom told me I was irrational for my fears
And later still, in future nights and future fights
My mom had a new verbal weapon: yelling at me for my fright
Saying "don't you cry, I'm not hitting you"
It took me the rest of the year to figure out what I could do
But there is one thing that I hold dear
Given to me by my counsellors here
For if my counselor hadn't said that to me
You wouldn't be reading the poems you see
My way of dealing with my problems was verse
At first in note margins, than this site on the virtual universe
So to all you counselors who asked why students never come to you:
We've found other places to do what we need to
Oct 24, 2016
Oct 24, 2016 at 10:30 PM UTC
"And how does that make you feel" she asks, pen poised over clipboard.
I want to scream at her, tell her that mere words could never hold the weight of what I feel
But instead I stare fiercely into her eyes and say...
"how does it make you feel, to know you can't save me?"
Jan 28, 2016
Jan 28, 2016 at 11:19 PM UTC
problem: for the longest time, i was in the mindset where i did not want to die, i just simply did not want to exist.
experiment: this summer, i did just that. i severed ties with most of my friends, cut off communication, and burned down a lot of bridges.
outcome:* i lost a lot of friendships but i found parts of myself.*
summary: i had two months of inexistence and it sparked with me a desire to live again, a fire within me that had been missing for quite some time now. it taught me how to be okay by myself, but it also taught me that it’s okay to allow good friends to help you better yourself.
error analysis: it’s not okay if you purposely burn bridges down and end friendships on bad notes. they’ll haunt you later. so leave friendships on a good note. if they’re a real friend, you won’t be leaving them; you’ll simply be putting a pause on the friendship. it’s okay to take time for yourself, and it’s also okay if friends want some time for themselves. you should not ever apologize for wanting time for yourself, nor should others.
solution: if you wish to inexist, then isolate yourself for a while. make yourself comfortable being alone. once you are able to be content in isolation, you will naturally want to exist more, both inside and outside of isolation. allow yourself to let people into your world again.
Aug 6, 2014
Aug 6, 2014 at 1:50 AM UTC
I've scheduled an appointment about 3 different times but, cancelled for each.
I didn't think there was any purpose in laying down the voices in my head for a stranger
When I've spent so much time building cement walls of silence between anyone who has ever gotten too close to me.
I have spent this lifetime creating sound proof dream catchers of my screams.
I am not known to grab hold of clingy hearts
Because, it's hard to hold on to things that are trying to do more than grasp me.
I say goodbye or pass them along as often as the tide comes into the shore.
But, I do not come back as it does.
But, the voices in my head do.
The doubts they hit me like teeth to concrete
The anxiety hits me like 10 ft deep waters with no air to breathe in
And I am not the swimming kind.
I am a runner, so it is hard for me to live in water deep enough to drown in.
I have created water deep enough to drown in.
I have become so controlled that I am numb to hands
And I fall to words so easily.
I scare me
My voice scares me
My thoughts scare me .
Night hits like the sun after a storm
And I can't figure out which one I am or which I want to be.
I have created a tornado of this mind
A wildfire of this heart
And a tomb of this body
And I don't know if I have self-shattered too profusely
And too quietly to fix it.
So I am here now,
You ask me why,
And I am here because now
The broken pieces can't be ignored anymore,
It's not getting easier in the morning anymore.
It's getting harder to wake
And I don't know how many more days I can be here
Like this...
This is my last chance to fix it
fix her
fix me.
Jun 15, 2014
Jun 15, 2014 at 4:54 PM UTC