I would do anything for love...but I won't do that.

One thing about working with adults is that I see a lot of people in relationships that I find distressing. I have one woman in an actively emotionally abusive relationship, that she knows is abusive, at least some of the time, and resents all the time, but can't bring herself to leave. Several others are in relationships where they can't identify a single specific thing about the other person or the relationship that they actually like, although most of them then add "I mean, I love him...."

(Or her. All but one of my clients who are in committed relationships are in heterosexual ones, and I have more female clients than male; the male clients I have are mostly schizo-affective to the point where it's difficult for me to assess whether they have cognitive impairments or not, with PTSD and long history of substance use. So they're often too disorganized and pressured to want to work on relationships. Not all, though.)

In almost every case, one of the main reasons my clients in abusive or just non-working relationships don't seriously think about leaving is that they have nowhere to go. That sucks, but it's not inaccurate. They are often women who have been homeless at one point and aren't ready to go back to it. Shelter space isn't guaranteed and isn't attractive when you already have a roof over your head. They don't have family or friends they could move in with, they have very limited incomes, they know how long the wait is to get into subsidized housing, and they have no illusions about what their alternatives are.

That, of course, upsets me. But what bothers me about a lot of specific cases is that the person had subsidized housing of their own, and gave it up in order to go live with their SO's as a demonstration of caring. Now they can't easily get it back, and they're bitter and angry at themselves for having agreed to do it. And I purely hate that I live in a society where so many people - male or female - think it's acceptable to demand that someone give up such a crucial piece of their own security, and so many people feel like it's an acceptable demand to be placed on them. I think it is predominately women who are giving up their housing, but I'd be just as angry and sad if it weren't.

Kitchen Magic

Once upon a time, I was at a week-long pagan retreat/workshop (the Vermont Witch Camp as run by the Reclaiming Collective, if anyone's familiar) and I had a ritual go sideways on me and was really upset and sort of...thrown off afterward. So, the second day after, when I was still feeling that way, I sat down with one of the teachers and tried to explain how confused and unhappy and tangled up I felt.

She listened, and made comments/asked questions that showed she was paying attention. When I was done, the first thing she asked me was whether I had washed my hair since the ritual in question.

I thought about it and said, no. She nodded, and suggested I do that. I think she made one or two other small suggestions that I could try immediately, and she said she thought it was likely it would start to settle. However, if it hadn't by the time I got home, she suggested that I get a 7-bean soup mix, pour it out, and sort all the ingredients into separate piles. She said, sorting something outside yourself helps sort things inside yourself.

Washing my hair did, in fact help, but I was still feeling a little off when I got home. Since, at the time, I had more than seven different kinds of grains in the house, I didn't bother with getting a pre-prepared soup package, and mixed myself a large handful of different kinds of rice and barley and oats and so forth. And sorted it out again into little piles.

It helped amazingly. I've used the same thing again at different points, and still keep a small glass jar full of a mix of grains as one of the many items in my altar.

As a pagan, I deeply respect and admire magic and ritual that is practical and uses the things we have around us in every-day life.

As a therapist (yeah, you knew the work angle was coming), I respect and happily make use of the reciprocating effect between body and emotion, inner and outer. So, since I don't think bean soup would really be considered appropriate in my office, I'm getting a whole lot of different sizes and colors of inexpensive plastic beads, and will set that up with a small scoop and some little ziploc bags, to give people to take home and sort and see if they can't get their own thoughts and feelings sorted out as they do. Won't work for everyone - nothing works for everyone, just as nothing works every time - but if it works even once, it's worth it. (Especially because I can get 1350 assorted beads for about a dollar on Ebay.)