Often my therapy sessions provided my only direct contact with the outside world. I made my decisions based on my feelings, not considering factors beyond them. I was ill. I can only conclude, based on the professionals' preoccupation with my inner life and their neglect of my behavioral life that they believed my depression to be incapacitating, as if it had the power to prevent me from walking into the kitchen and turning on the oven, or walking into the laundry room and picking up the soap. I adopted this assumption too, and we proceeded on in our therapeutic adventure, assuming that my inactivity was proof of my disability, that if I could have done more I would have done more.
Assumptions can be so dangerous.
For I have discovered, through the study and practice of CL principles, that I can do what needs to be done in my life, whether I feel like it or not. I have been living well, without a therapist, for about four years, successfully maintaining the household for myself, my husband and daughter, and have learned to maintain my stability and avoid crisis. I have found that a psychiatric emergency lasts until routine and ordinary activities, not feelings, can be resumed. Learning to do domestic chores attentively and well is worth the effort for the restoration of routine and ridding oneself of helplessness and impotence. There is a great reduction of feelings of impotence when I realize that any action is better than none.