6 November - Mad therapists
There I was thiking that ageing is changing the geography of my reactions/thoughts pretty comprehensively and that I'm a boring nasty bitch compared to self a mere ten years ago, but hey, am not that bad at all!!! Oh no, am not.
Picture this. Prior to wonderfully scatty genius girl Ms Heap's show at RAH, had arranged to meet D. g/friend I seldom see who had re-located to Krakow and doesn't pass these shores that often. She was also meeting her long time friend J. who I have met several times over the years but always in party situation and do not know well. I arrive at dinner for 3 and as I sit down remark of D. that she looks amazing (42? 43?) as she usually wears jeans and a t-shirt and tonight she's channeling Chanel in a sort of Natalie Portman outfit. She has same flawless skin and alert look. J. cuts me shorts saying no time for pleasantries as our dinner before the show is limited to an hour and we should discuss weightier topics such as.... ta ra.... her absolutely dreadful time on menopause (she's 54?).
So off we go... frightening me a little and D. probably an awful lot. I figure D. knows her well so I go along. She talks about how she was suicidal, with thoughts of absolute worthlessness and other physical symtoms galore. When I try and say that perhaps it doesn't strike everyone the same, she counters that it's like giving birth and most women go along thinking 'ha, the awful experience won't be mine, I'll have the nice one pls' and then wham. strike you down.
She does offer that she refused to use anything but natural remedies and there's me mentally filing away 'You total idiot, take the goddam drugs', you can deal with possible addiction to those as a separate issue later on. She riffs and riffs on this and I say 'Must have been hard on you to keep it steady for your girls (10 and 12? 11 and 13?) if you were feeling so awful' . She replies that no, they know full well about the ghastliness of it all, she believes in letting it all hang out. Jeesus. Yeah my mother is mad. Great to have that. Husband is still around, after 30 years together I guess he could weather this one. I tried to make a bit light weight of it by saying 'hey we were supposed to be dead and buried by 50 so clearly bodies go wild in trying to cope with all this, evolution has not caught up with medical advances' but she was determined to share her experience.
Later when we exit and are talking about a friend's website and I say how she obsessed for days/weeks about the right kind of shade of mauve for her brochure and I lost my patience and told her clients probably care for content/pricing of her services not the frikking shade of mauve that's in her head and printers can't match, J. pipes up that she's a bit like that. She's wondering how much info about herself to put on her website. Forgot to tell you: she's a psychotherapist! She leads workshops! Clearly any mad person is very suitable to give advice to other shaky people. She wasn't alwasy one, had a successful fashion busienss but hit 40 something and change career into caring but lucrative profession, why not.
I say 'Er, the less the better'. Clients will project all sort of shit on you anyway, that if they knew you kind of lost it for a year or two on this menopause stuff they'd run a mile and if they're male they don't care anyway. Christ! Later on we meet further friend L. and I tell her about the dinner talk. She says -and I sort of agree - that such stuff probably highlights aspects of who you are already. She says 'J. is super intense isn't she?' And there you have it. Am not, ergo I won't be attacked by suicidal thoughts. Though some powerlessness and anger related to that plus f uck, only 30 /40 years to DEATH, will leave me pretty pissed off.
I nearly said at interval when J. went out for cigarette 'Er.. I read that if you smoke you make it worse, the sweats you have etc? and er by the way how much wine do you drink?' But I didn't want her to hate me so much.
Gig was great btw... first half with symphony orchestra conducted by Immi to original score. Get that woman a TV show. Rest of gig was her playing the top songs requested by her fans. Nice varied bunch. She has mikes embedded in her wrists. How cool is that? She does however keep up a constant stream of talking to herself throughout. Charming but also... batty. Wonde what her menop. will be like?
Picture this. Prior to wonderfully scatty genius girl Ms Heap's show at RAH, had arranged to meet D. g/friend I seldom see who had re-located to Krakow and doesn't pass these shores that often. She was also meeting her long time friend J. who I have met several times over the years but always in party situation and do not know well. I arrive at dinner for 3 and as I sit down remark of D. that she looks amazing (42? 43?) as she usually wears jeans and a t-shirt and tonight she's channeling Chanel in a sort of Natalie Portman outfit. She has same flawless skin and alert look. J. cuts me shorts saying no time for pleasantries as our dinner before the show is limited to an hour and we should discuss weightier topics such as.... ta ra.... her absolutely dreadful time on menopause (she's 54?).
So off we go... frightening me a little and D. probably an awful lot. I figure D. knows her well so I go along. She talks about how she was suicidal, with thoughts of absolute worthlessness and other physical symtoms galore. When I try and say that perhaps it doesn't strike everyone the same, she counters that it's like giving birth and most women go along thinking 'ha, the awful experience won't be mine, I'll have the nice one pls' and then wham. strike you down.
She does offer that she refused to use anything but natural remedies and there's me mentally filing away 'You total idiot, take the goddam drugs', you can deal with possible addiction to those as a separate issue later on. She riffs and riffs on this and I say 'Must have been hard on you to keep it steady for your girls (10 and 12? 11 and 13?) if you were feeling so awful' . She replies that no, they know full well about the ghastliness of it all, she believes in letting it all hang out. Jeesus. Yeah my mother is mad. Great to have that. Husband is still around, after 30 years together I guess he could weather this one. I tried to make a bit light weight of it by saying 'hey we were supposed to be dead and buried by 50 so clearly bodies go wild in trying to cope with all this, evolution has not caught up with medical advances' but she was determined to share her experience.
Later when we exit and are talking about a friend's website and I say how she obsessed for days/weeks about the right kind of shade of mauve for her brochure and I lost my patience and told her clients probably care for content/pricing of her services not the frikking shade of mauve that's in her head and printers can't match, J. pipes up that she's a bit like that. She's wondering how much info about herself to put on her website. Forgot to tell you: she's a psychotherapist! She leads workshops! Clearly any mad person is very suitable to give advice to other shaky people. She wasn't alwasy one, had a successful fashion busienss but hit 40 something and change career into caring but lucrative profession, why not.
I say 'Er, the less the better'. Clients will project all sort of shit on you anyway, that if they knew you kind of lost it for a year or two on this menopause stuff they'd run a mile and if they're male they don't care anyway. Christ! Later on we meet further friend L. and I tell her about the dinner talk. She says -and I sort of agree - that such stuff probably highlights aspects of who you are already. She says 'J. is super intense isn't she?' And there you have it. Am not, ergo I won't be attacked by suicidal thoughts. Though some powerlessness and anger related to that plus f uck, only 30 /40 years to DEATH, will leave me pretty pissed off.
I nearly said at interval when J. went out for cigarette 'Er.. I read that if you smoke you make it worse, the sweats you have etc? and er by the way how much wine do you drink?' But I didn't want her to hate me so much.
Gig was great btw... first half with symphony orchestra conducted by Immi to original score. Get that woman a TV show. Rest of gig was her playing the top songs requested by her fans. Nice varied bunch. She has mikes embedded in her wrists. How cool is that? She does however keep up a constant stream of talking to herself throughout. Charming but also... batty. Wonde what her menop. will be like?
posted by Lisa Taylor @ 4:37 AM
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