On a positive note, I've now clocked in some of my longest runs, a 7 miler, 9 miler and 8 miler*!! I actually felt great. On the 7 miler there was a killer hill from Marine Terrace 3 to Marine Terrace 4 that I had to walk up but that was three weeks ago so I'm itching to get back and try it again. The other runs have also been very hilly because my race is very hilly. Last Sunday we did the second half of the 1/2 marathon course and I'm more confident now about my ability to complete the race. Saturday night I didn't sleep well and had nightmares about getting lost. But we didn't. We did learn that we will cross a stream at least three times during the race and that maybe 50% of the single track portion is very scary! Deadly cliffs on one side, lots of tree roots and some really skinny turns. Now my main goal besides to finish is to not trip.
Maybe not my best choice for my first 1/2 marathon and definitely no PR's will be set but it's going to be a lot of fun and good energy. Five more weeks of training! Next week-end we are running a 6 mile race. That should help with getting into the race mode. The weeks after that are going to be more difficult for training since I'll be traveling. I won't have my long run partner and since I'll be away I won't have my familar trails and being on vacation makes scheduling running time more complicated. I'm just going to have to map out my runs before I travel and then get up early to complete them.
As it stands now I do one sprinty type run and one shortish run alone (or with my husband), then one sprinty type run and the long run with my running partner.
I'm exciting about this new found fun.
*I don't always trust how accurate google maps are, the runs were between 1.5 to 2.0 hours.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Therapy: Part 2
I've decided the best way to frame this is to just explained what has happened so far in my weekly sessions (4?), this should likely spark some talking points.
I found my therapist through the recommendation of my primary doctor. As I explained I went to her first and she wanted to put me on drugs (which readers have said I shouldn't be adverse to), but I'm not ready to go that route yet. I told her I needed help finding a therapist and she told me to look on my provider page for my insurance. Sure, I had done this already but there are 10's of therapist out there to choose from. Turns out my doctors mom is also a therapist, so I was recommended to her and looked her up on my insurance web site. Therapist (as I'll call her) turned out to be a 5 minuet walk from my house. I took this to be a sign of fate and called to make an appointment.
Although I don't like to talk about my feelings I am a very chatty person-especially when nervous-so in the first couple of sessions my therapist learned a lot about my life. Not deep dark secretes but an outline of my life; my different dads, boyfriends, age of first sexual experience, all about graduate school and the different places I've lived, ect. We also talked a lot about my current job. Two sessions ago I told therapist that I didn't like going to therapy and that I felt silly. She seemed shocked and was very calm and said therapy isn't silly. I told her I didn't think therapy was silly but I felt silly talking to her. I mean I have to set up my whole life for her so she can know where I'm coming from and how is this really helping? I felt like I should just be able to find a good friend, vent about my life and feel better. But I confessed that this hadn't worked, trying to eat healthier and exercise more didn't work. Telling myself that I'm smart and capable hadn't worked. I still have this darkness, this feeling of dread, when I'm trying to do something that is new to me. Like I've written before, I have this fear of failure that prevents me from trying, and when something starts to get difficult I don't feel challenged I feel defeated.
So, after the "I feel silly session," I went back and the therapist decided to tell me her diagnoses. She said I have a mild underlying depression (and gave it a fancy word I can't remember) that probably started when I was a child (I saw my father die from a heart failure and had to call 911). Unfortunately I had to disagree with her. My depression feeling didn't start until I started writing my masters thesis, then got better and then went up and down toward the end of my dissertation, getting really bad while in post doc town. I remember being a happy child and while I've had a lot of hard things happen to me and may have felt sad at times I don't remember feeling depressed. This is not to say that my life up until graduate school didn't create this poor way of dealing with stress that I'm just now having to deal with, I just, didn't think I was depressed as a child.
So I feel a little weary of my therapist and am not sure how much it's helping. She was receptive to my comments and said, well, then we will have to deal with this issue.
I've started two new projects that I'm now the project manager on because-oh yeah didn't I tell you- my supervisor has quit for a new position. So here I am again being given a new project where I'll have little supervision and I'm going to have to learn new things. Yesterday I had that same feeling of trying to do something I don't know anything about and feeling stressed that I don't have the "consulting time" to do it and so instead of just busting some ass and doing things I feel like I shouldn't even give it a try.
I really wish I had a magic wand that could just make this feeling go away.
I found my therapist through the recommendation of my primary doctor. As I explained I went to her first and she wanted to put me on drugs (which readers have said I shouldn't be adverse to), but I'm not ready to go that route yet. I told her I needed help finding a therapist and she told me to look on my provider page for my insurance. Sure, I had done this already but there are 10's of therapist out there to choose from. Turns out my doctors mom is also a therapist, so I was recommended to her and looked her up on my insurance web site. Therapist (as I'll call her) turned out to be a 5 minuet walk from my house. I took this to be a sign of fate and called to make an appointment.
Although I don't like to talk about my feelings I am a very chatty person-especially when nervous-so in the first couple of sessions my therapist learned a lot about my life. Not deep dark secretes but an outline of my life; my different dads, boyfriends, age of first sexual experience, all about graduate school and the different places I've lived, ect. We also talked a lot about my current job. Two sessions ago I told therapist that I didn't like going to therapy and that I felt silly. She seemed shocked and was very calm and said therapy isn't silly. I told her I didn't think therapy was silly but I felt silly talking to her. I mean I have to set up my whole life for her so she can know where I'm coming from and how is this really helping? I felt like I should just be able to find a good friend, vent about my life and feel better. But I confessed that this hadn't worked, trying to eat healthier and exercise more didn't work. Telling myself that I'm smart and capable hadn't worked. I still have this darkness, this feeling of dread, when I'm trying to do something that is new to me. Like I've written before, I have this fear of failure that prevents me from trying, and when something starts to get difficult I don't feel challenged I feel defeated.
So, after the "I feel silly session," I went back and the therapist decided to tell me her diagnoses. She said I have a mild underlying depression (and gave it a fancy word I can't remember) that probably started when I was a child (I saw my father die from a heart failure and had to call 911). Unfortunately I had to disagree with her. My depression feeling didn't start until I started writing my masters thesis, then got better and then went up and down toward the end of my dissertation, getting really bad while in post doc town. I remember being a happy child and while I've had a lot of hard things happen to me and may have felt sad at times I don't remember feeling depressed. This is not to say that my life up until graduate school didn't create this poor way of dealing with stress that I'm just now having to deal with, I just, didn't think I was depressed as a child.
So I feel a little weary of my therapist and am not sure how much it's helping. She was receptive to my comments and said, well, then we will have to deal with this issue.
I've started two new projects that I'm now the project manager on because-oh yeah didn't I tell you- my supervisor has quit for a new position. So here I am again being given a new project where I'll have little supervision and I'm going to have to learn new things. Yesterday I had that same feeling of trying to do something I don't know anything about and feeling stressed that I don't have the "consulting time" to do it and so instead of just busting some ass and doing things I feel like I shouldn't even give it a try.
I really wish I had a magic wand that could just make this feeling go away.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Therapy
I should have done a follow up post many weeks ago but have been putting if off. Well I'm going to put it off again. I have another therapy session today and I'll post later this week (hopefully) about how it's going.
In general, I hate talking about my feelings so therapy is pretty lame but I'm sure it will help in the long run and positive it won't help in the short term-these things take time.
The therapist I ended up choosing is well, old, but she seems sweet and nice and I'm comfortable talking with her but I keep wondering if it would be better to get someone who might understand me more-but then I think of all her experience and how that might be helpful, and I think about having to do the start up appointments with an entirely new person and that well, sounds lame.
In general, I hate talking about my feelings so therapy is pretty lame but I'm sure it will help in the long run and positive it won't help in the short term-these things take time.
The therapist I ended up choosing is well, old, but she seems sweet and nice and I'm comfortable talking with her but I keep wondering if it would be better to get someone who might understand me more-but then I think of all her experience and how that might be helpful, and I think about having to do the start up appointments with an entirely new person and that well, sounds lame.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Imposter project
A quick update, the internal draft of the final report for the project I've written about the last two post is due on Friday, to my PI. I've worked really hard on it these past two days and am proud of myself but it still has a lot more that needs to be done.
I'm so burnt from Monday and Tuesday 10 hour days that my brain is having trouble starting this morning. It's 830am now so I'm allowing myself to goof off and drink coffee until 9am.
Life has been pretty busy, I'm training for a half marathon and think I overdid it on sunday with my 8 mile run that included hills. We ran for 100 minuets. To date my longest run had been 60 minuets. The training plan called for a 6 mile run but the race is mostly hills so we wanted to include some hills in this run and since we left from my friends house to the hills it turned out our run became 8 miles. Lesson learned my quads are so sore!
I'm also practicing rugby on Tuesdays, going to yoga on Wednesdays and trying to climb at the indoor gym at least one a week, ideally twice. With this project taking over my life climbing is the first activity to get cut.
My mom is buying a manufactured home and we have been waiting for escrow to close for the past month. Now it is scheduled to close on Thursday, which is exciting but my week is already so busy with this project and during the week-end I was hoping to catch up on life and climb and run and Sunday we are going to the near by city for a major wine tasting event . . . . Oh and Saturday was a rugby tournament I wanted to go to . . . looks like I'll be moving my mom instead. Small price to pay to help my mom end her life of renting. She has to be out of her rental by July 12, and next week-end is Forth of July. I'm hoping she will be able to wake up in her new place on Sunday, even if we don't get everything moved in time.
The major news in my life is that I'm going to see a therapist today. I went to my primary doctor (who I had only seen once) and mentioned that I think I might have depression but wasn't sure how to choose a therapist and what the best plan of action would be. This imposter project has brought back a lot of the bad habits I created for myself while writing my dissertation in postdoc town. My husband is finally concerned; all the times I thought I might have depression in postdoc town my husband always shrugged it off and told me just to get stronger, i.e. suck it up. I always thought this would work but I kept gaining weight and kept feeling unhappy and kept watching online TV instead of working.
What kind of suprised me was that I told the doctor I didn't want to take any medicine and she was very pro-meds. Although I see her points I really want to try and aid my mental state first by seeing a therapist and possibly identifiying my issues first. She stated that a really small dose can increase your saratonines and aid in the healing process, she also said my therapist and I might get to the point where they decide a drug is needed. My husband is also anti drugs, I think mostly because his mom is bipolar and he sees how the medication changes her.
This week is really busy but I'll aim to post something next week to keep anyone who is still reading this updated.
I'm so burnt from Monday and Tuesday 10 hour days that my brain is having trouble starting this morning. It's 830am now so I'm allowing myself to goof off and drink coffee until 9am.
Life has been pretty busy, I'm training for a half marathon and think I overdid it on sunday with my 8 mile run that included hills. We ran for 100 minuets. To date my longest run had been 60 minuets. The training plan called for a 6 mile run but the race is mostly hills so we wanted to include some hills in this run and since we left from my friends house to the hills it turned out our run became 8 miles. Lesson learned my quads are so sore!
I'm also practicing rugby on Tuesdays, going to yoga on Wednesdays and trying to climb at the indoor gym at least one a week, ideally twice. With this project taking over my life climbing is the first activity to get cut.
My mom is buying a manufactured home and we have been waiting for escrow to close for the past month. Now it is scheduled to close on Thursday, which is exciting but my week is already so busy with this project and during the week-end I was hoping to catch up on life and climb and run and Sunday we are going to the near by city for a major wine tasting event . . . . Oh and Saturday was a rugby tournament I wanted to go to . . . looks like I'll be moving my mom instead. Small price to pay to help my mom end her life of renting. She has to be out of her rental by July 12, and next week-end is Forth of July. I'm hoping she will be able to wake up in her new place on Sunday, even if we don't get everything moved in time.
The major news in my life is that I'm going to see a therapist today. I went to my primary doctor (who I had only seen once) and mentioned that I think I might have depression but wasn't sure how to choose a therapist and what the best plan of action would be. This imposter project has brought back a lot of the bad habits I created for myself while writing my dissertation in postdoc town. My husband is finally concerned; all the times I thought I might have depression in postdoc town my husband always shrugged it off and told me just to get stronger, i.e. suck it up. I always thought this would work but I kept gaining weight and kept feeling unhappy and kept watching online TV instead of working.
What kind of suprised me was that I told the doctor I didn't want to take any medicine and she was very pro-meds. Although I see her points I really want to try and aid my mental state first by seeing a therapist and possibly identifiying my issues first. She stated that a really small dose can increase your saratonines and aid in the healing process, she also said my therapist and I might get to the point where they decide a drug is needed. My husband is also anti drugs, I think mostly because his mom is bipolar and he sees how the medication changes her.
This week is really busy but I'll aim to post something next week to keep anyone who is still reading this updated.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
All is well that ends well
Turns out I am not an imposter.
Last Tuesday I had that phone meeting, which I think went well, and it led to another phone meeting that happened yesterday with the same client*. The day before, on Monday, I had a nice meeting with my PI about the project. The client meeting was going to be an update on what had been done on the project and what was still left to do. I organized my thought for this meeting in a power point form. Initially I was writing things down on a notepad but I just love power point. I got to make the font black for things we had finished and blue for aspects needing further work. I color coded slides by task. This was how I would organize my thoughts for many of my meetings with my Ph.D. adviser (those also included plots, this one was just text since the client wasn't going to look at it). It worked nice to have this powerpoint because this is what I showed to my current PI, and he added text and his own thoughts into it while we talked.
The meeting with my PI was so great!! I really needed to be brought back down to Earth on this project. I now feel I have a good list of tasks I can complete and told my PI I'd like to do this again in two weeks-to again organize myself.
Then the client meeting went into a lot less detail than I had thought. We had a nice discussion and I think I impressed him at times, which is good.
Turns out we should have a finished product for the client to review by July 1st. Although it might be tough to meet this deadline I am very excited to have a deadline, I work much better when I have a schedule. Today, however, I'm taking a break from this project but Thursday and Friday I'm going to get a significant portion finished. I'm really excited about the work and happy to be excited again about doing it.
**client might be an improper term here. When I say client I mean the other consulting firm we are subcontracted to work for. The both of us are working for an actual client.
Last Tuesday I had that phone meeting, which I think went well, and it led to another phone meeting that happened yesterday with the same client*. The day before, on Monday, I had a nice meeting with my PI about the project. The client meeting was going to be an update on what had been done on the project and what was still left to do. I organized my thought for this meeting in a power point form. Initially I was writing things down on a notepad but I just love power point. I got to make the font black for things we had finished and blue for aspects needing further work. I color coded slides by task. This was how I would organize my thoughts for many of my meetings with my Ph.D. adviser (those also included plots, this one was just text since the client wasn't going to look at it). It worked nice to have this powerpoint because this is what I showed to my current PI, and he added text and his own thoughts into it while we talked.
The meeting with my PI was so great!! I really needed to be brought back down to Earth on this project. I now feel I have a good list of tasks I can complete and told my PI I'd like to do this again in two weeks-to again organize myself.
Then the client meeting went into a lot less detail than I had thought. We had a nice discussion and I think I impressed him at times, which is good.
Turns out we should have a finished product for the client to review by July 1st. Although it might be tough to meet this deadline I am very excited to have a deadline, I work much better when I have a schedule. Today, however, I'm taking a break from this project but Thursday and Friday I'm going to get a significant portion finished. I'm really excited about the work and happy to be excited again about doing it.
**client might be an improper term here. When I say client I mean the other consulting firm we are subcontracted to work for. The both of us are working for an actual client.
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