Dealing with Grief and Fears

Have you ever gone to an estate sale? As you walk through the home of the previous owner, what thoughts are in your head? What are you feeling? I have found myself having difficulty not feeling like an intruder or feeling guilty or disrespectful…

We all have watershed moments in the course of our lives. Days when, from then on, things become notably different. The day you left home, the day you got married (or moved in together), the day you had your first child – all days signifying…

It seems social activities are opening back up to varying degrees depending on where you live. For me here in Oregon, there are opportunities to gather, attend live events and shop without masks, at least at the moment. As I begin to be more active…

Unwelcome visitors have a tendency to pop in at the most inopportune and unexpected times. The telephone is just such an intruder, its shrill ring interrupting sacred downtime. Back when we were still tethered to landlines, sans caller ID…

Technology is all around us. There is no escaping it these days. But the longer you avoid it, the worse your apprehensions will get. In my experience of working with people and techie things, I’ve found that fear of looking or feeling stupid…

If you were to meet me, you’d think I am cheerful, outgoing, optimistic, energetic. And I am all these things. But there’s “the me you can’t see,” as Oprah says. That me, until I started therapy, was ruminating about the past, grieving…

After I had lost a 42-year-old husband, a 50-year-old ex-husband and a 75-year-old live-in partner, my family and friends jokingly called me, “The Black Widow.” The deaths occurred under different circumstances and were all devastating…

There has been so much conversation, all around the world, about the value of life once a person reaches 65. Ultimately, this begs the question: what is lacking within us that we can so casually discuss the disposability of our elders?

When Prozac first hit the marketplace, I asked my psychotherapist if he thought it could help. “Probably not,” he said, “as it would do nothing for your core abandonment issues.” My mother committed suicide when I was nine, after years of struggling…

For weeks now, I had a feeling of foreboding. I felt stuck. I was burdening my friends with the same old rants. I was ruminating too much. I couldn’t forgive things from my past. I was filled with fears around the future. Could it be I needed to “talk to someone?”