My Journey…

"8 and a half by 11"

Kurt Vonnegut (I truly love the brilliant bastard) once wrote “writers focus on an 8 and half by 11 sheet of paper to attempt to make sense out of chaos.”

Writers try contain the chaos on that one sheet, to bring some order to their world, the world. To contain the disorder.

I think therapy is the same as Vonnegut’s sheet of paper, an attempt to bring order to chaos…

A friend of mine told me a week or two ago that I was being too hard on myself, that I was beating myself up. He didn’t understand the chaos in my head. How the hell can you explain it? How can you get anyone to understand anything that is so personal, so hidden inside yourself that it only exposes its self to you and you alone. The fear, the self-doubt, the anger, the frustration, exposing it’s self from time to time in only the most inappropriate ways.

All the sessions with Erica taught me one important thing, “if behavior is inappropriate, you have to stop doing it”. She related it to drinking. The only way a person addicted to alcohol (or drugs) can begin to recover is to stop drinking. Stopping is only the first step on the long road to recovery.

If your behavior causes problems, take a long hard look at the behavior and get rid of your bullshit. Be honest, be true. Get your chaos under control, get it on that 8 and a half by 11 sheet of paper.

When you finally do, it looks pretty damn small in the complete context of your life.