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October 29, 2004
Calm My Storm
I'm reading the book Letters to a Young Therapist for Counseling Psych. Usually I find Mary Pipher's metaphors for life overdone, but I think she sheds a bright light on the phenomenon of individual differences in emotions by speaking of them in terms of regional weather patterns:
Places have different ranges of weather, and so do humans. In intensity of feelings and mood swings, we are not created equal. There are people who cope daily with the equivalent of tornadoes, while others bask in perpetual ocean breezes.
The most extreme emotional weather is bipolar disorder, in which every day people oscillate between elation and grief. Slightly less extreme weather plagued my client Maggie, who laughed and cried every session. What she loved, she loved so much it made her heart swell. What tickled her made her laugh until her sides hurt. On the other hand, the smallest slight caused her to sob in despair. She was often adrift on a heaving sea of emotions. Once she wailed, "I have mixed feelings about everything." Another time Maggie said to me, "You have no idea how many ups and downs have ravaged me in the last twenty-four hours."
This metaphor is especially poignant after an early autumn day in the Midwest.
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Quote of the Day:
"I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy." -Tom Waits
Posted by Megan at October 29, 2004 06:56 PM