53. Breakthrough

Here we explore anything and everything that might support us on the journey to mental wellness , from hope to grief , possibilities to challenges , joy to heartache . Nothing is off limits . Let's reflect on our lives and discover ways to heal and grow together . I'm so glad you're here with me . Followed Smorgasbord Arts . Yet Please do , please do , please do .

We have been applying to art fairs and they ask us how many followers we have , which is a total bummer and I hate that game , but we have like 33 followers . So if you could go to Smorgasbord Arts on Instagram and give us a follow , that would be so helpful . Thank you , so I had therapy today . I go to therapy once or twice a month .

I started going to therapy when I was 16 years old and ,

with the exception of taking like three to six months off here and there , I've been going pretty continually . I am a huge therapy advocate . I really wish that everyone was like required to go , but you know I'm not in charge of things like that . Anyway , let me tell you what happened today .

So , for some background information , I have been having dreams that Paul leaves me , having dreams that Paul leaves me , and it happens like one or once , twice , maybe three times a month . It's been happening for a while and it's incredibly disturbing .

In real life I don't think that Paul is going to leave me , but in my dreams I pay attention to this kind of stuff because obviously I feel like I'm not addressing something that I need to be addressing .

So my dream I had a dream last night which is why I brought it up to my therapist today and in this dream we were trying to figure out who gets to keep the dog and that was heartbreaking . And in my dreams I'm so sad and distraught and every time I wake up from one of these dreams it's awful because I know that it was just a dream .

But I keep holding on to those feelings even though I'm awake . And about three or four months ago I told Paul about a couple of the dreams . He's like stop telling me these . They're so sad . So I've stopped telling him , but I've I've continued to have these dreams . So I thought I'm going to bring this up in my therapy session today .

So I bring it up and I say , hey , I've been having these dreams for about six months and then I had like a revelation right there . Six months ago is when I applied for disability . So I apply for disability , the dreams start and I think they're

absolutely related . They're absolutely related . I've talked before to my therapist about how my self-worth is tied to productivity . I'll say that again my self-worth for me , in my own eyes , in my own life , my self-worth is dependent on my productivity , is dependent on my productivity .

Productivity meaning how much money I'm bringing in , how many jobs I have , or how many I have lined up Right now , how many paintings I'm producing because I'm prepping for art fairs and things like that . So , in my own eyes , if I'm not making money , getting gigs , painting , speaking , all of this stuff , I'm worthless .

I'm contributing nothing to our partnership Slash , I'm contributing nothing to my community and , believe me , I know that this is common with a lot of people . But I also know that it's BS or at least I mostly know that it's BS and I'm really working to release , to release this that I have worth , even though you know I'm waiting for my disability benefits .

I have worth , even if I'm having a really bad day and I can't get out of bed . I'm trying to reframe all of this and also today , in thinking of all this I'm I'm wondering where did these thoughts originate ?

There's got to be a place in my childhood somehow where I can look back and say , oh , I think maybe it started here and I remembered something today that sort of just like blew my mind and I really think is part of my worthiness productivity issue .

So my dad was a social studies teacher in Minneapolis public schools for like 30 some years . He's had an incredible education career . He comes from a line of educators and education is incredibly important to him . It was also very important to my mom because my mom didn't have a ton of educational opportunities .

She got her high school diploma and then immediately she went into I don't know what you call it like typing school , stenographer school , something like that and throughout her life she was always like ashamed and disappointed that she never got her BA , but she did eventually go back to school and she got her AA .

Anyway , the point is that education is really important in my family and I don't know why my dad started to do this and I think I'm going to ask him the next time I see him . But starting in first grade , whenever I would do my homework , whenever I would fill out my homework sheets , I was then required to hand that over to my dad .

My dad would look it over and make sure that it is 100% perfect . If it wasn't perfect , he gave it back to me and I had to correct my mistakes . And then , once it was perfect , he signed my homework every night , like with his name and the date . Now , this was never required , ever . This is just something that my dad decided to do .

I think maybe because he's an educator and he wanted everyone to know that his kid was smart , or I don't know why . I'll ask him and I'll follow up . But this is , this was a requirement um first grade through . I think it dropped off at some point in middle school .

It started up again in high school in a different way , which I'll tell you about in a second . But my dad's honey , my homework was so embarrassing to me because it was not required , it was not necessary . My teachers asked me what is this about ? Why is your dad signing your homework ? And I just would be like I'm not really sure .

It's just important to him that I do this correctly , and the kids kids never made fun of me about it for it , but it it was something that some of them noticed and they would ask me about .

And I I just I was so embarrassed about it and I used to try to erase his signature at the bottom , which was even worse because he had such like a firm grip on the pencil that there's no way I could erase it . So it looked like I tried to erase it .

He also would go through and like if something was wrong he would make a check mark on it instead of just like telling me hey , you should look over this one again . And so I'm handing in my homework with check marks all over it and it was just weird and it was embarrassing and I felt crappy because I didn't know anybody else that did it .

And then there was a time in high school I was a junior , I think it was before I went into the hospital I did a whole episode on going to the hospital in season one , so you could check that out if you'd like to , but it was before I went to the hospital and academically I wasn't doing as well as I normally did , which means that instead of straight A's

, um , or even A's and B's , b's were acceptable A plus A , a minus B plus B . Those were acceptable . Everything else was not . So in like one or two of my classes I was getting a C , and this was unacceptable to definitely to my dad I don't know about my mom

and so for months I had to carry around this little like yellow sheet every day and my teachers had to fill it out every day . Um , they had to initial it and then they had to put what my grade was that day . Teachers would ask me why am I doing this for you Especially ?

You know the classes that I was getting an A and a B in , and I just said , this is something that my family is requiring of me right now . A couple of times I forged it because I was so embarrassed that I had to , like , ask every day what my grade was . It's the same as it was yesterday , you know .

So all of this to say is that growing up I had to have , in this case my dad , but like someone in an advisory position , someone of authority , saying this is my requirement of you . I want to make sure that you're doing the right thing . The right thing meaning whatever my dad thought was the right thing .

That's what I had to do , and so my worthiness was about what I'm producing , what kind of grade I am producing . I think that that's what's going on in my dreams . Is that I ? I am not producing right now ? Um , we're broke , and we are broke because of my situation .

I want to be careful to not say like we're broke because of me , because it's not me , but it is my medical situation .

We are broke because I am waiting for disability benefits , which Lord knows when they're going to come , and when you are waiting for disability , you can only make a certain amount of income in order to qualify , so I have to stay under a certain amount . So , excuse me , we are broke because of me , because of my situation .

Because of me , because of my situation . Now I want to like interrupt myself right now and just say Paul is so freaking cool about this . Like we talk all the time . When I applied in November , we had a ton of conversations surrounding it . We are checking in with each other all the time .

We even have a financial advisor who knows about all of this and we meet with her once a month and she's actually more of like a financial therapist .

So , like Paul and I are okay , it's my past personal history that is sort of interjecting its ugly head right now and it's showing up in my dreams , sort of interjecting its ugly head right now , and it's it's showing up in my dreams . I'm not producing money , I'm not . I'm not producing income , I'm because I have to stay under a certain amount of money .

I'm not gigging very much or I'm not working very much , so I'm not producing . Therefore , my self-worth is suffering .

I even I've been painting a ton and I like to show Paul my work and he's really great at constructive criticism and helping me out , so I like to share my work with him just because it's fun and because I'm learning new things and I'm exploring new things and I like to share that with him .

But lately I've been like , hey , come look at my work so that I can show him . I actually did five things that I did . I did five paintings today . That's like the underlying reason why I'm showing him . So blah , blah , blah , shmash , shmash , shmash , blah , blah , blah , schmah , schmah , schmah .

I had a really great breakthrough in therapy today and it's something I'm going to think about a lot

and just reflect on , because it's big , it's really huge to me when I am able to pinpoint the origin of a behavior , and I think that this whole dad and school and signing my things and having to get good grades I think that that's the origin of this , and so that feels like a major , major breakthrough and that is why I wanted to share that with you today

, that with you today , because I feel like , if you go back and listen to episode one episode one when I asked my dad a question about something that happened in the past go back and listen to that , because that's how I feel right now . In episode what is this like ?

53 , is that I just had another breakthrough about my behavior and how it's related to my dad . And again , I'm going to ask my dad about this and follow up with you all because I think it'll be really interesting to see what he says about this .

But I feel like I just broke wide open today and made this brand new discovery and and now , because of that discovery , I can start to heal this part of me and then grow from it . Hence the name healing growth , nikki . Okay , thank you so much for listening today and listening to all of that .

It feels good to share that good news with you , that it feels good to share that good news with you , yeah , so thank you , thank you , thank you and , as always , thank you for healing and going with me today . This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal , health or professional advice .

I am not responsible for any losses , damages or liabilities that may arise from the use of this podcast . This podcast is not intended to replace professional medical advice .