Change isn't linear, and that sucks

Sometimes I feel like a broken record in my work as a therapist. I end up saying the same things, over and over again, day in and day out. Don’t get me wrong: I say a lot of weird and different stuff every day, too. My head is honestly just too chaotic-- any number of different words and pictures and songs and feelings and ideas and shit are flying around up in there at any given moment-- to be all that repetitive.

Yet, some interventions are so “Allison-style” that I end up using them with most of my clients—hence the broken-record feeling I've got going on. I’m big on self-compassion, so I end up saying “Would you talk like that to your best friend if she was going through what you’re going through?” I'm hip on self-awareness and values as in-roads to making lasting change, so I hear myself saying, “I think it would be helpful if we spend some time identifying the things you deeply care about, the things you want to build your life around.”  And, I'm pragmatic. I accept that people are inherently messy, and so is change. Thus, the  “progress isn’t linear” talk, which is one that I have with almost every client.

Here’s what sets the scene for the “progress isn’t linear” shtick: after a couple of sessions, a client comes in saying he's feeling better. He's probably feeling lighter, freer, because he has someone to talk to now. Maybe he's also experimented with a coping skill or two that he's learned in session. This relief lasts for a few days, or maybe a few weeks, sometimes even months. Yet, inevitably, the client falters, and that relief slips through his fingers. He has a bad day. If he struggles with alcoholism, he's picked up a bottle. If he struggles with depression, he's struggled to get out of bed. If he has post-traumatic stress, he's had a series of disturbing flashbacks. And he'd thought that these behaviors or symptoms were gone, that he'd kicked them. He comes in, head hanging, and tells me that he’s failed. He’s “back at square one.” He is demoralized and dejected and questioning if he really can change, if he really can heal. Sometimes he wants to quit trying.

And I, though I feel empathy for my client, am unfazed by his revelations. I know that this is how it goes. I’ve seen this happen so many times, in fact, that I would argue until I’m blue in the face that progress simply isn’t linear. And that sucks, because we so want progress to be linear. We want to see ourselves on a steady road to recovery, to see improvement every day.

We want progress to look like this:

But what progress really looks like is usually this:

Or even this:

I'm not entirely sure what this means. I'm pretty sure the line might
even suggest that going back in time was involved. The point is:
Progress is messy. Just go with it. 

In other words, progress can be a real bitch.

I tell clients about this. I draw these pictures. I attempt to normalize their setbacks. Usually, I can get clients to jump on this bandwagon with me. They are able to see how yes, they are human and yes, change is hard, and no, this return to old behavior does not necessarily mean they are at square one. It means they are on square 34 but had a bump in the road.

So, I hang my hat on getting my clients to buy this, so that they will go easy on themselves, and so that they keep their hope alive. And not just because I believe it's good for them, but because I actually believe it. Which all makes me very embarrassed to admit that I CAN'T EVEN DRINK MY OWN MEDICINE. Why is it so hard?  I wonder why, when I have a bad day, it is damn-near impossible to see this as normal, human, to be expected?

You know, being a therapist is nothing if it isn’t being the world’s biggest hypocrite, on a daily basis.

I’ve had a couple of challenging days lately with my journey out of depression (click here to read more about that), which caught me off guard—because things had been going so great! For the past couple of months, I’ve been riding waves of positivity. I have a new nephew to love on. My cousins and I had an epic Harry Potter Trivia night, and I was victorious! (eat it, Noah! And you’ll get me next time, Kevin. BTW, I have the best ever cousins). I BOUGHT TICKETS TO HAMILTON: THE MUSICAL (Chicago), which is a total bucket list thing for me. I’m writing more than I ever have, and better yet, I’m having meaningful conversations with friends (and even strangers!) about what I’ve written. I’ve played volleyball and baked brownies and sang Happy Birthday and chatted around firepits and taken long walks and sang on a stage and giggled with my friends and snuggled with my kiddos and did sun salutations daily. These experiences are giving me fuel, are helping me to heal. My energy level is good, my productivity at work and at home has improved immensely.   I feel smiley, a lot, and have possibly already laughed more this year than I did in 2016 altogether. Hope is winning the battle over fear and self-deprecation.

But even given all of that, I’m apparently not immune to bad days. Sometimes unwelcome stressful events go ahead and let themselves in and knock me over. If I were a football team, this would be a rebuilding year for me. So the quarterback gets hit a lot. His O line is injured, and slow. My playcalling is still all wonky, and sometimes, Bo Pelini shows up and starts railing on everyone.

Though more resilient than I would have been six months ago, going through The Depression of 2016 has left me more vulnerable, still, than I’d like. Some days it’s still hard to adjust my sails when the wind blows. Some days, I still want to crawl into my bed, cover up with the quilt that my great-grandma sewed from scraps of her clothing, and hide from everyone, everything. Some days, I hate on myself, really hate on myself, with the heat of a thousand suns, or I doubt myself with such fury that there’s not a lot of me left at the end of it.

Fortunately, these days, or stretches of days, have been few and far between. But they do happen.

And I’m going to falter again, no matter how hard I rail against that possibility. Not every day can I possibly go skipping into the sunset, in search of my ponies and rainbows. Tomorrow will not necessarily be “better” than today. I don’t get that guarantee, and neither do you. Sure, we can hope for it. We can even work for it (and we should!)—we can use good coping skills, and talk to ourselves kindly, and practice sound self-care and do everything “right”—and still, we get no guarantees.

Because change isn’t fucking linear, you guys. I so wish it was, but it’s not.

The good news is this: If you, like me, have faltered lately, you’re not alone. All this means is that you’re “normal.” You’re human. This is happening to all of us, all the time, but we’re mostly too ashamed to talk about it. This isn’t square one. This is a bump in the road. Maybe tomorrow will be kinder, maybe it won’t—but some tomorrow will be kinder, if you keep working at whatever your battle is. I promise.

Maybe if I say these things enough times, to you all, to my clients, and to myself, I'll start to apply them more readily to my life, too. :) It would seem that perhaps being a broken record does have its advantages.