This site has given me so much: friendships in IRL and friendships that will only ever live in comments and DMs but are still just as valid as friendships. This led to so many professional opportunities and changed the trajectory of my career from a reporter at a legal magazine to working in social media for magazines and fitness companies. It even played a part in my decision to become a therapist—actually because of those connections I made. I was so lucky to have so many people pour their hearts out to me after I bared mine, and I realized how much I wanted to support people one-on-one.

I provided some resources to you all, but I am so so grateful for the resources you all shared with me over the years, too, particularly when I was struggling with physical health, mental health or grief.

This just isn’t the right home for me any more…but don’t worry! I started a newsletter that, honestly, will probably be a lot like this blog—a little smorgasbord of everything. You can sign up below.

Thank you so much for all of your support over the years, it means the world

*I do hope to one day make some time to add some of my best posts to this page.

**If anyone could tell me a good way to download all of the images, that would be excellent.

As I mentioned in my last post, I’ve really been going through it with headaches. They’re largely tension headaches, which means that while I don’t usually deal with nausea or light sensitivity, they’re not quite as straightforward to treat—there’s a lot more options for treating migraines than there are tension headaches.

I am getting closer to figuring out some treatment options after exhausting A LOT, but one of the causes of tensions headaches is—you guessed it—tension. Some helpful doctors have said “just reduce stress!” like it’s that easy. As someone who is in grad school/interning/freelance writing during a global pandemic, it’s hard to find opportunities to destress—but I also know I really need to not just for myself but if I want to actually have a career in this field.

My therapist and I have talked about the pressure I (/society) put on myself being part of the pressure I am quite literally feeling in my head—which would be pressing in. But recently I’ve started to picture the energy as trying to burst out.

I’ve been trying to journal more again (these are my fave notebooks to use to journal) to try to unpack more of those feelings myself between therapy sessions, and I just keep thinking of Mexican jumping beans struggling to be contained.

The other night as I lay in savasana, two strong visuals came to mind. The first was a caterpillar going through metamorphosis and busting out of their caterpillar skin (this is probably not actually how it works but stay with me) to become a butterfly. The second was of Superman jumping out of his Clark Kent clothes and into his Superman suit.

There’s something inside of me dying to come out, and I’m not sure what any of it means yet, but it’s there.

(Or maybe my head just literally is about to explode, unclear.)

Weird side notes:

• in writing this, I learned that jumping beans are actually larvae turning into moths, which tracks with the butterfly thing!
• there’s a real hole in the market for pretty illustrations of metamorphosis, so if you’re an illustrator, you should get on that
• this is the most I’ve used the word metamorphosis since third grade science class.

This blog is like a goonie, it never says die.

I keep it around when I have something I really want to say that I don’t want to pitch and is too long for Instagram. (2021 is weird.)

Last time we spoke, I wrote about realizing my role in being complicit in diet culture.

My therapist and I work on food/diet/body issues when I can stand it—it’s really hard to talk about, which then feels so silly because it’s “just food.”

“Oh, it’s just food?” she says. “It’s not like we need to think about food several times a day to stay alive.”

ALRIGHT ERICA. See why it’s hard?

Something we talk about a lot in school and in at my training site is how so, so many problems that clients come in for—particularly the clients I’m seeing—are systemic, whether that be socioeconomically, racially, etc.

As a privileged, able-bodied cishet white lady, most of these systems have benefited me—but diet culture is a pretty pervasive one, unless you are Kimmy Schmidt and have been living under a bunker with no media.

This morning, my therapist and I talked through some more of this stuff, and I was incredibly anxious and activated as we ended, so I took a few minutes to meditate and journal. (I would like to pretend I always do that after our sessions, but that would be a lie.) I was sick this weekend, so I couldn’t work out, my usual way to dispel post-therapy anxiety. I had to…just, like, sit with my feelings?!

Like many people, I gained weight over the course of the pandemic—and I have struggled accepting that. I have come to some peace, though, that this body got me through a goddamn pandemic.

It was raining here in LA today, which is Big News, and so I went to put on a rain coat as I took my dog out. Well, said rain coat fit me like sausage casing…which was not enjoyable and did not make me feel awesome about myself.

I took a few minutes for a pity party, and then I got angry—not at myself, but for this diet culture that measures us by the number on our scale, by the tags on our clothes.

A jacket not fitting is just a piece of data that says nothing about who I am.

More than anything, it’s just an annoyance—I just don’t really want to have to take the time and money to buy new clothes right now.

I’m sure I’m not alone in internalizing things like that as my “fault,” but diet culture is designed to make us feel shitty about ourselves like that to perpetuate the industries it supports. I’m doing a lot of work to unpack all of that and also find a way to eat that feels right for my health, too—addressing energy issues, headaches and digestive issues.

If you’re new here, this blog started as a weight loss blog. (LOL that that about page says “crap, I’m 30.” Reader, I am now 38.

I wanted to lose 50 pounds before a friend’s wedding in Aruba. I lost 35 before the wedding and the last 15 in about six months after that.

I thought I looked great, and I was happy*, and my mom took me shopping to “celebrate” my weight loss. I got lots of great comments here. I started getting interviewed all over the place about my weight loss as my blog grew.
(*My therapist questions “happy” since I was still drinking my face off but that’s another topic for another day. Maybe.)

I was absolutely rewarded and treated differently because I’d lost 50 pounds.

I have been struggling deeply with my body image lately*. I gained weight during the pandemic, and a lot of my clothes don’t fit, and it’s hard when you have this record of your life when you were smaller on the internet.
(*My therapist would also say always/for a long time but I am just now truly acknowledging it.)

I see a picture like this, and I know I am too thin for my body here—and I also miss looking like that. And also can see what an ASSHOLE I look like for sticking my elbow out so far into my friend’s space in my attempt to look skinny.

Why Is Diet Culture Unhealthy?

The more I learn about diet culture and realize how a $71 billion dollar industry (and media, of which this blog was a part of in broad definitions) is designed to sell us the lie that we’re not good enough in the bodies we’re in, and if we just pushed a little harder, bought this diet, bought this workout plan.

And I was complicit in that, too. As this blog grew and brands wanted to start working with me to get access to the eyeballs on this site, I wasn’t super picky (weight loss pills were never OK in my book though), and I definitely did campaigns with Weight Watchers, Lean Cuisine, some shitty-ass meal delivery service that was absolutely frankenfood. I did all kinds of mental gymnastics to make these OK in my head.

I also said a lot of “if I can do it, you can do it” kind of things. The more I learn about privilege, I realize how much that played a part in all of this too. I was 26 when I started this blog with little responsibility other than going to work 9-5ish—and, to be honest, my parents paid for that twice-a-week trainer I had. That time and money are not resources everyone has.

But back to today. My weight is approaching the original weight it was before I lost all of that weight, and that doesn’t feel good to me. I built an entire identity (and a good chunk of income) around/from that weight loss. It feels really embarrassing to have “failed.” But 80% of diets eventually “fail”—as in, people gain the weight back. Most “diets” work at first—if you’re restricting calories or food groups, you’re probably going to lose weight—but if they’re not lifestyle changes, the weight comes back.

To lose the weight, I essentially did pretty close to Paleo. Whenever I have thought about trying to lose weight, my mind goes back to some kind of restriction like that. “Then that’s not a lifestyle,” says that lovely lady I pay a bunch of money to and then get indignant when she says the things I need to hear. The deeper we dig, the more we find a lot of fucked up things I think about myself, my weight, my body.

If you’re savvy about diet culture, you can probably still see some thinking in here that’s not healthy. I asked her if she thought I had an eating disorder. I’m honestly not sure if she heard me say “had or have” so I’m not sure if she means now or then, but she said, “I don’t think an eating disorder, but definitely some disordered thinking.”

I feel a lot of guilt that I peddled a lot of that mentality on here, when I had a decent amount of influence, to other young, vulnerable women—and I can also hold that it was what I knew at the time. As Maya Angelou said, “I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better.”

I’m not gonna lie that I scrutinize every picture of myself right now. BUT, I truly love this picture from yesterday because I look strong. (I’m the one in the flowered shorts with the aggressively swishing blonde ponytail.) I would also like to know what the fuck I’m doing with my arms and that trailing left foot, but that’s another question for another day.

I am a massive hypocrite, because I absolutely tell clients things like “it’s just a body” (or meat sack, I have been pretty partial to that one lately). I absolutely believe intellectually that all of this is true about bodies—but have I internalized it? Absolutely not.

But I’m a work in progress. (Aren’t we all?)

Here’s some stuff I’m reading/listening to related to this:

Books That Show Why Diet Culture Is Unhealthy

Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Anti-Diet Approach—my therapist is a very direct woman, and I love that about her, but she is rarely directive, as in, telling me what to do. The other day, she pretty much demanded I buy this book. As we hung up, “so you’re going to go order that now, right?” OK YES LADY. A lot of my RD friends swear by this. I’m not going to lie—intuitive eating sounds pretty scary to me. My intuition is usually telling me to eat tacos, so I don’t trust it.

Intuitive Eating Workbook: It contains exercises (emotional ones, not physical ones) to go along with the above book.

Body Talk by Katie Sturino—do you follow Katie on Instagram? She is a plus-sized influencer and body positivity advocate, and she wrote this book about learning how to embrace our bodies for what they are. The first line in the description really stands out to me: “Can you imagine how much free time you’d have if you didn’t spend so much of it body shaming yourself?”

Self Compassion by Kristin Neff—

Podcast

Maintenance Phase—this is a fascinating podcast that deconstructs a lot of the junk science we’ve been peddled and the unhealthy messaging. The episode I was listening to that kind of inspired this post was their episode on Oprah.

I woke up this morning already feeling anxious. (Yay!)

My standard iPhone alarm is set for 6:45, but I prefer to get up a little before it and get some shit done. I am most productive in the mornings, and I like to ride that wave. It also means I can be at my coffee shop right when it opens. A positive of the pandemic is that most of the coffee shops on Main Street in Santa Monica are walk-up service right now (with a table at the doorway), so I can make walking Lucy in the morning a little less boring when it involves coffee.

But today I woke up right at 6:45, and it was well after 7 before I got moving, which made me feel behind the eight-ball already. I have a client at 10 and then a housekeeper coming for a deep clean, so I felt like I had a 10am deadline.

Seeing therapy clients (during a pandemic!) has really made me realize how important real and true self care is. I can’t be there for others if I can’t be there for myself.

Before 10am, I wanted to:

• get coffee and walk Lucy (non negotiables)
• and also go for a long walk!
• or work out
• call my aunt
• grocery shop
• get my 5 min of meditation in on the beach
• shower and dry my hair
• get some reading done for class
• and maybe catch up on my client notes

(I know that if you have kids or an intense job, it might be hard to do any of those things in the morning. I get really lonely as a single person living alone sometimes but there is absolutely a certain freedom to it.)

There was literally no way I could do this all before 10, and I started beating myself up for not being able to do those things. But I’m listening to the book Self-Compassion by Kristin Neff and learning so much about the weight of our negative self-talk.

It’s helping me be a little more present. On a run the other day, for example, I really noticed my negative self-talk, comparing myself to a younger, faster me who could run much more easily.

Meanwhile…I was out running. In a pretty gorgeous place. But I could have been anywhere because I was so in my head. We carry emotions in our body, and no wonder running feels hard if I’m carrying that weight of comparison. I reminded myself I don’t have to run, I get to run, and I reminded myself how much more enjoyable the run would be, if I could just be present through the shitty first 15 minutes or so AND when it felt good.

And I employed that this morning: a short workout is better than nothing, meditation is non-negotiable, I can order groceries online, I can compromise with myself by sitting outside on a park that looks at the ocean rather than on the actual beach (I know this last part sounds silly but it did save me a good 10 minutes when I was feeling stressed about time.)

Self-care is realizing that something is better than nothing. Self-care is not doing one of these things and beating yourself for not doing them all—or trying to race through a list of things meant to take care of yourself while not at all being present.

Self-care is not writing a post like this and talking yourself out of posting it because you think it feels silly in the scheme of things. Are these things I’m stressing out about inconsequential in the grand scheme of things? Absolutely—but this is just an example of how the self-talk about the small things can begin snowballing to the bigger things.

Self-care is writing a post like this even though it wasn’t on your little list of things you should be doing this morning to take care of yourself. It just felt good to write this this morning, and like with anything I write, if it helps one person a little bit, even better. Self-care is not doing all the things you know how to do to optimize this post but you hate doing.

What’s one thing you’re doing today to take care of yourself? Not because you feel like you should—but because you know it will just bring you a little more joy today?

I read The Midnight Library over the weekend, and I need to talk about it. With everyone.

(Trigger/content warnings of suicide attempt/suicidal ideation/mom loss.)

I’ve heard so much buzz about this book, but because of said trigger warnings was really nervous to read it…since those are personal triggers for me, too. But Grace said that it was actually incredibly uplifting, so I decided to give it a try and let myself stop if it became too triggering.

(Though, when I started to describe the book to my therapist this morning, before I got to the uplifting part, she asked me “where the fuck do you find these books, Theodora?!” I am known to fall into books, sometimes unknowingly, that are DEEPLY triggering.)

The book starts off with our young protagonist, Nora, losing her cat and then contemplating, and then attempting suicide. She falls into…title drop…the Midnight Library. The premise of the Midnight Library is that it’s kind of a land in between life and death. The library holds shelves of books of your regrets and all the alternate lives you might have lived.

She tries out a life where her childhood swimming led her to the Olympics, where her singing made her a rockstar, etc, etc—but realized that none of these alternate lives were what she thought they were. Every life, even the ones that look all bright and shiny, has its shit.

As someone who deals with depression—and had a pretty bad episode recently—the idea that there is a gray cloud over my head while everyone else is living in the sunshine is all too real. And of course, social media only magnifies this. (So I’ve stayed off IG a lot lately.) I got some really good news recently, and idly started scrolling through IG and saw something that made me feel deeply envious and terrible about myself. This negated the good feelings I’d just been feeling as I went quickly and deeply into a spiral.

But I don’t know what’s in her book—maybe she had to go through a whole lot of trauma to get to where she is in her beautiful house. (After being inside a 1-BR for 90% of the past year, I have DEEP house envy right now.) Maybe she has a sick parent or partner right now or or or. Maybe her shit to go through hasn’t come yet. Because, at some point, we will ALL have that shit—that feels more than we can bear—even if things look all bright and shiny now.

I like to say I have no regrets. I DO. NOT. BELIEVE. that something like a loved one dying or an illness happens for a reason AND PLEASE NEVER SAY THAT TO SOMEONE. But with that said, I think some of the decisions we make and paths we take are what—rocky road or not—get us to where we are today. My only two true regrets are not studying harder in high school/college (I did well in classes I liked but didn’t ~apply myself~ in ones I didn’t) and not getting any kind of mental health treatment earlier. I walked into my school’s counseling center either my freshman or sophomore year…and turned around at the door because I was scared. I wonder how that might have changed things, but I can’t change that and I have to have compassion for young Theodora who was struggling and was so scared to let others in.

Do I wish I had gone to treatment earlier? Or moved to California earlier? Absolutely—but I wouldn’t have been ready.

As I finished The Midnight Library, I was snuggled up in the corner of my couch, under my cozy weighted blanket, with my snuggly little puppy by my side, with the sun warming my face as I looked out at the ocean. When I put down the book and realized that, I realized how lucky I was—and was able to hold onto that. When I am having a dark moment, I am always very aware of how truly lucky I am in many ways in this life—and that makes me feel even worse that my brain won’t let me appreciate that, furthering the spiral.

Even when I am doing relatively well mentally, my mind can VERY quickly go to despair and a very dark place. Since finishing this book, when it does go to that dark place of personal despair (societal despair is a very different thing), I have been reminding myself that this is my book. There may be some pretty fucked up pages in it, there may be lots of espresso stains on the pages, Lucy might have eaten a corner of a page—but it’s mine. And it’s mine to write going forward.

I should also note that the author, Matt Haig, writes frequently on mental health and deals with depression himself. I’ve also read his Reasons to Stay Alive when I was looking deeply…for reasons to stay alive.

Yeah, just another year with a dog as my valentine. (Though she’s a pretty damn good one, I must say.)

Because everything seems to hit differently in a pandemic, it’s hitting me extra hard today that I’m single…still.

Taylor Swift gave me a 13 year gap to find someone to date when she re released Love Story and I failed

— Fernanda (@heythereswiftie) February 12, 2021

I like to *say* I’m not one to regret things, but I’ve certainly recently uncovered some things in therapy that have me feeling like I wish I’d done things differently, and then maybe I wouldn’t be single at 38. (Or maybe I would? Who knows.) But, I can’t change the past, I can only change things going forward.

(Also there’s that whole pandemic thing making dating hard.)

fast forward x amount of years later, im able to see what she was getting at but still struggling to really *feel* it. tv and rom coms and the media and capitalism and generational stuff and blah blah blah, so much makes us feel like the realest form of love is the romantic kind

— tracy the business goose (@brokeymcpoverty) February 15, 2021

This whole thread is good, but even as alone as I feel on my couch right now, wishing I were sharing a nice dinner with a nice man…I can also hold the fact that I *do* have so much love in my life. Just not in the romantic way.

I turned 38 on Thursday (wtf is time??), and I didn’t even have just a “good for pandemic birthday.” I had a good birthday, full stop.

I don’t love the idea of outdoor dining right now—for my safety AND the workers’ safety (who would likely be impacted far more than me)—BUT I knew I could go to Shutters for a fancy breakfast at 8am on a Thursday and there not be anyone around. (And obviously I wore a mask when they were at the table.) I love a good fancy hotel breakfast, and this previously simple thing brought me immense joy. It also reminded me of when I traveled with my mom. Of course, I was missing her on my birthday, but when I woke up, the Ferris wheel on the Santa Monica Pier said Mom?! And then there was a bird on that other chair?! Carol was never very subtle.

I had a pretty low-key day of class and trainings, but then a lovely evening. First: Kayla taught a private folkmore/evermore (yes, I am obsessed with Taylor Swift now) yoga class for me. I had really hoped I might get away with not having a pandemic birthday, but it looks like none of us will get away with that. (Except maybe Leap Day birthdays??) I would have preferred to hug people, but doing Taylor Swift yoga on a screen was as good a consolation prize as I was going to get, and not a bad one.

And then my dear friend/California family/pod upstairs, Kate, had me over for dinner and had these cute balloons up when I got there.

Between that, all the messages, sweets and flowers I got, I am feeling very loved and holding on to that right now—and the fact that I’d also like some romantic love, too.

I think I mentioned a few weeks ago that I started writing Taylor Swift fanfic. I haven’t written another word of it since, but that’s fine.

Because this one little exercise—inspired by this prompt—made me think a lot about writing and life in general.

As a journalism major and someone who has written professionally for more than 15 years, I am accustomed to writing in a very structured way. There’s a “right” way to write, and I stick to it. Working in social media, I knew how to write to best game the algorithm.

I love structure, and I hate structure. (Hi, yes, I am an Aquarius.) Structure is safe.

I sat down to play with this writing prompt, and I decided to write about the Taylor Swift song Last Great American Dynasty. I kept checking the lyrics to see if I was writing “accurately.” But I wasn’t writing a review, I was writing fiction! I could write whatever the fuck I want!

And lately, that sentiment has been permeating throughout the rest of my life and thinking about the “rules” I’ve imposed on myself, the rules society has imposed on us. A silly example: telling myself I can’t read for pleasure or write for pleasure because I am in grad school. The time I’ve been intentionally carving out to do something pleasurable has made a really big difference for me lately.

There’s no rulebook for life, except to be kind to others—we’re all just making it up as we go.

This may be a random post, but I love productivity hacks and seeing other people’s systems of how they get shit done, so here’s how I’m doing it right now.

Rocketbook

I’m a writer. I LOVE me a good notebook. I also live in a one-bedroom apartment, and I am beginning to have notebooks piling up, so my organization quest started with looking for a solution to this. But also, I am super old-school and I retain information way better when I physically write, so I was hoping for some sort of solution that involved some kind of writing magic.

I asked on Twitter, and a TON of people suggested Rocketbook. It’s a notebook that uses erasable pens with paper you can wipe down. Once you are done with your notes, you scan the QR code on the page with your phone and it automatically sends it to places including Evernote, email, etc. I am generally really liking it—except, I am left-handed, so the left-hand side of the page gets a little smudgy, but not so much so that I can’t read my notes. You win some, you lose some?

Evernote

I tried out a few different project management software thingers, but integrating with the Rocketbook was pretty important to me. The two other features most important to me were: a place to store class/training documents (notes, syllabi, etc.) and a way to see all of my tasks at a glance on a calendar. Unfortunately, the calendar part wasn’t an option in Evernote, but the rest of it seemed easy enough. I used to use Asana when I was at my last job, and I looked pretty closely at it this time, but there was no direct integration with Rocketbook. (I could have emailed to myself and then put in Asana, but I’m trying to streamline things as much as possible, not add steps, sooo.) But if you’re looking for a project management software that can hold all your to-dos AND files for projects, I think it’s a pretty damn good one.

Here’s a screenshot of my Evernote with a Rocketbook note so you can see how it all works together. As you can see, I have a LOT of notebooks because there’s a lot of stuff I’m juggling this quarter. (And then a few personal ones, and the Daily Burn one because I just couldn’t bear to delete it :)) Under Training and Workshops, you can see that there’s other notebooks—this is called stacking notebooks in Evernote, and once I’m done with this quarter, I’ll move it all into a Winter 2021 “stack.”

Todoist

I wanted some kind of task manager where I could also set up projects for each class so I could see at a glance what was coming up and what was due. I put every single reading, e-mail, assignment, etc in here so that I don’t miss anything. I had really wanted a way to see a month’s calendar at a glance, and it doesn’t do that, which is kind of annoying.

But it does also sync with Google Cal, so I can at least see there if I have any huge due dates coming up if I am trying to schedule some kind of appointment.

There’s also an app, so I can get notifications.

Focus To-Do

The last piece in my productivity puzzle is Focus To-Do. The Pomodoro technique (25 minutes of focused work, 5 minutes off) is kind of the only way I can focus these days. Most of the time, I can work for twenty-five minutes if I know I get a five-minute break (or I take ten, sometimes) where I can check email/Twitter/etc. There’s also a feature for you to use it as a time-tracker, which I sometimes use to see how long a project is taking me. (Especially my paid writing work.)

Not many people read this blog any more, but I still wanted to use whatever small platform I have over here to talk just a little bit about current events and say that I, 1 million percent, condemn the white supremacist domestic terrorism attempt to overthrow an election/an entire branch of our government, incited by the president.

Also, I’d be remiss to say all of that and not mention Martin Luther King Jr. Day. May we one day see the justice he dreamed of—we have a long way to go. As a white person, I’m continuing to reflect on my role in society for this work beyond posting stuff online. In school, I am going deep on learning my role in white supremacy and how to be a culturally humble therapist. (As I’ve said before, a POC in a place to choose probably wouldn’t choose a white therapist like me, and I understand that!!! For those who can’t choose, I want to be there as best I can.) A cause important, related to that, is access to therapy—which is…not a good situation. I donate monthly to the Loveland Foundation, which provides scholarships for therapy to Black women and girls.

I don’t know how to end this now…so, be kind, rewind, and take care of yourself. Talk to me about social justice? or project management software? or tacos?

I’ve really felt more of a draw to write lately. I can admit that a little bit of it is fueled by envy—which is leading to a why not me? Some of it is realizing that my words and I do matter, and some of it is just becoming more authentic and less afraid to be myself. And I miss having this kind of record of my life. Maybe I won’t feel this way forever, but I still do right now.

I’m listening to Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic (a pep talk of a book about living a creative life) right now, and one line made me literally take pause, coming to a halt while walking Lucy.

You are allowed to be here, and you are allowed to have a story.

She also talks about not writing for the sole purpose of helping others and the joy that can take out of it for both the reader and the writer. I can vouch for feeling that way, and also for how much I despise attempts to help others that feel fully pedantic.

I can write because if feels good, because keeping the words inside feels like ants in my pants. Because writing is part of my identity, part of my soul, part of what makes me whole.

“What do you want your clients to feel from you when they’re in the [zoom] room with you?” my therapist asked me yesterday. I started my internship this week and will probably start seeing clients within the next week or two (!?!?!) (If you’re new here, I’m in school to become a therapist.)

“Comfort, understanding and like they’re less alone in the world,” I said. Maybe I’m projecting my own wants and needs, but they’re pretty universal ones.

And although I am nervous about how I might handle tough situations/clients/cases, I am pretty confident in my ability to create a warm space, and the relationship is the foundation of the therapy. (The foundation—you still need the skills.) In fact, research shows that a stronger therapeutic alliance is typically correlated with better results in therapy.

I will be 38 next month, and the magnitude of starting an entirely new career hit me HARD the other day—ALSO while walking Lucy. Apologies to the small shih tzu at the end of the Lilly leash for abrupt stops when I make realizations. When I realized this the other day, it felt really depressing and daunting to feel like I was starting all over again, but right now it’s feeling really exciting to think about how I want this future career to look.

I am feeling a weird sense of calm right now so I thought it should be documented. And I wanted to also document a little check in as I embark on my second half of grad school.

Last quarter was really hard for me. It went from early October to right before Christmas, so that means it included the election, the difficult holiday season, days getting shorter, and the pandemic getting worse. Additionally, the classes I took were: Assessment and Treatment of Addictive Disorders; Human Sexuality; Trauma, Its Effects and Recovery; and Pharmacology. A kind of heavy courseload emotionally? I was genuinely interested in every single one of these classes, but I also felt a sense of apathy and lack of motivation that was kind of hard to shake, just feeling like I was going through the motions. My advisor said that pandemic/election aside, this is actually a pretty normal feeling at this point in the program—you’re in it, but you haven’t started seeing clients yet, so it just feels like a slog.

I’m psyched and nervous for this quarter. The workload has felt intense the entire time, and every single week, I freak out and am convinced I won’t be able to finish it all. “Has that happened at all yet, Theodora?” my therapist asks. “Well, um…no.” Fine, lady.

But this quarter! I will be seeing anywhere from five to ten clients and having five to seven additional hours of training/supervision each week, on top of the rest of the schoolwork. I’m pretty nervous about the time management aspect of all of this, but I know I will figure it out. The benefit to this being online is that I won’t also be losing commuting hours for my internship/classes, and, uh, that there’s also nothing else to do right now.

A quick note on the classes I’m taking, more for future me than you, but maybe you care? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Personality Theories II: Comparative Contemporary Theories: I took Personality I in my first quarter last year, and it was a lot of learning about Freud and his contemporaries who were the foundation of this field. Personality II looks at more contemporary theories, such as humanistic, experiential, cognitive, behavioral, narrative (I’m particularly excited to learn about this one!!), feminist, multicultural, etc. I don’t have a particular theoretical orientation I’m really learning towards yet, so I’m really interested in this class and learning a lot more.

I’ve done a lot of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) myself. It’s pretty common because it’s very evidence-backed and, in some ways, can help you feel better pretty quickly—but it can also feel a little too simple, reductive and formulaic to me sometimes. In treatment, we didn’t follow a full formal Dialectical Behavioral Therapy program, but we used a lot of their tools/worksheets, and it is excellent in crisis/severe situations. For me, I have found a combination of CBT techniques (like learning tools and coping skills) and a deeper psychodynamic exploration of underlying causes.

I’m in a cohort, and we typically take all of our classes together, but I’m breaking out of the cohort for this one to take with an instructor I really like. I’m really bummed to be missing out on his IRL energy. Talk about feeling comforted and understood—this guy is a giant, brilliant teddy bear, and I know he must be an amazing therapist.

Family Systems II: I took Family I last year, and hooooo boy did it bring up a lot of stuff. We had to do journaling exercises and write a short reflection paper nearly every week for that class, and while that part was really emotionally difficult, I learned so much.

I don’t foresee myself doing family therapy down the line (other than in training)—but we all come from families, so it’s important for me to learn and understand more about these dynamics.

Research for Mental Health Professionals: Y’all, I am a nerd and super excited about this one. “We, uh, don’t get that a lot,” my advisor said, when I told him that. Essentially this class is learning how to read/evaluate/explain studies, which is something I’ve been doing in my professional writing for a long time. Most of what I know about this is self-taught, so I am interested to learn even more about how to critically evaluate studies. The class culminates in a lit review on a psychology topic of our choice, and Y’ALL. I love me a lit review.

I am taking this research class instead of a class on domestic violence that the rest of the cohort is taking, because we registered when I was feeling really burnt out and the thought of adding a class on DV when I was feeling burnt out felt incredibly heavy.

I’m also taking three one-credit workshops instead of fourth class here.

Dynamics and Treatment of Eating Disorders: Obviously, writing in this space for a long time, I’ve interacted with a lot of people with current or past eating disorders—or, at least, disordered/unhealthy habits. (I include myself in this, too—I’ve never been diagnosed with an eating disorder but I can also recognize some past habits of mine that were extreme.) I want to primarily work with women in the future, so it is really important to me to learn more about eating disorders. I know they are not just a female thing, and certainly not just a thin white female thing, even if the media portrays them that way.

Therapy As a Career: My long-term goal is to split my time between working in private practice, doing some kind of work that helps those who typically can’t access therapy, and writing. This is a second career for me, and I won’t become fully licensed until I am at least 40, so I want to hit the ground running and do as much career development as I can now and learn about all the options out there.

Compassion Fatigue: Taking Care While Taking Care: Coming into this with my own mental health issues and a history of poor boundaries around work after a decade of working in social media, I know how important self-care is. The true self-care—knowing when to say no, etc—not Instagram bullshit self care. Plus, I know that this is a career that is subject to burnout, so I want to be as cognizant of that upfront as possible and have the tools to recognize and deal with that when it comes up.

So…yeah. This quarter is going to be pretty intense, but good intense.

If you want to catch up from last year, I wrote about my first week last year and also a check-in after the second quarter, halfway through the year.