Vacation report and then some...

Well, we're back.  Had a blast in Yosemite and driving down the Pacific Coast Highway. Saw this in the beautiful afternoon sunlight.

My mother-in-law and sister-in-law, along with my stepdaughter, husband, son and I, went on a whirlwind trip through California.  We visited Yosemite for two days, drove across the state to Monterey, had dinner on the wharf with my parents and grandmother, then drove home down the Pacific Coast Highway. 

My mother-in-law and sister-in-law are wonderful people. I felt very welcomed and loved. I dig the added value family members included in the husband package!

My stepdaughter went with us. She's 17 and bipolar. I hope she had a good time. It's difficult to tell, sometimes.  She told my husband she's convinced I hate her.  I don't. I love her very much. I just refuse to allow her to use her illness as a crutch, shield or excuse.  When she does this, I disengage, effectively ignoring her and shutting down my participation in the process.  My husband admits to giving in sometimes, because it's not worth the hellfire she'll throw at him if she cannot get her way.  I understand that he's got a different dynamic with her than I do.  They need to work out their own relationaship style. I am working out mine.

My sister-in-law confided in me that she worries that my husband is bipolar, as well.  I approached him with this information.  He and I go to counseling and we decided to bring it up in our session.  The therapist isn't sure, but she did make note of his strong family history of it.  His paternal grandmother and her sister used to "lock themselves in their [respective] rooms for weeks at a time," according to his dad.  His bipolar sister committed suicide in her thirties.  His daughter is diagnosed with it. 

So, she gave him a personality test to fill out. It's not the MMPI, thank goodness, because he'd never sit through over 400 questions, thanks to his attention deficit disorder.  Our therapist usually gives this test, the BPI, to individuals who are seeking gastric bypass surgery. We all got a chuckle out of that, since he's not in need of that. She threw in another answer sheet, so I could fill it out too, just for fun.  I say fun because I was a biochemical psychology major at one point in my college career. I know how multiphasic tests work.

Which brings me to what she said next... My husband made an offhand remark about hating tests that ask things like, "I never have... I always see..." with a true/false response.  I commented that they word the questions in that way to determine the cognition processes of the test-taker. He kind of nodded, but my therapist looked at me and said, "You know, you really need to think about getting into the psychological profession."  She knows about the psych-dropout bit.  "You have a lot to offer. Really." I was taken aback.

The whole reason I dropped out of Psychology was because I realized I was really just trying to fix my autistic brother.  I told her so. She said that nearly  everyone approaches the psychological profession  from a wounded place. It's working through those issues and sharing the distilled insight gained, that makes the profession worthwhile.

I told her that I've contemplated getting a theological degree to become a Unitarian Universalist chaplain at hospitals or hospice. She encouraged me to keep pursuing that and not to rule out psychotherapy and/or psychology.  

Her words gave me pause. I'm still thinking about it.