Third Culture Kid(s)

1. So, I went to the therapist appointment.  I’m of two minds about how it went, both colored a bit by the fact that it was mostly filling out forms and questionnaires.  On the one hand, I thought that she made a pretty good initial assessment of where I’m at.  At the end of our time, she observed that her impressions talking with me were different from the one she got reading the questionnaires I had filled out.  On paper, she said, I’m seriously depressed.  But after talking with me, she said it was clear that I wasn’t suffering from major depression - something I agree with.  She said she marked me down as having “major depression - mild” (a nice both/and thing I like in an [academic] theoretical sense).

On the other hand, she almost immediately suggested medication.  Now, I’m not catagorically opposed to medication for depression or any other psychological condition, nor did I think her reasons for suggesting it were completely out of line.  She said she suggested it because she thought it might help in the short-term with helping my concentration and allowing me to get some work done and, by extension, increase my sense of competency.  Fair enough.  But my resistance to that approach stems from the fact that it teaches me nothing about how to overcome blocks and obstacles in any meaningful way.  I don’t think I’m so incapacitated that I need pharmaceutical help, and I’d rather learn a way to handle this kind of stress so that I can draw on it the next time it happens.

So, I’m planning to see her at least once more (it was very, very nice just talking about myself and my family without having to nurture the conversation, as it were - as self-involved as that may sound), but if she pushes the meds thing I’m going to have to find someone else, or quit altogether.

2. MM and I had an unexpectedly pleasant morning.  I’d decided to take her to a nearby park after we dropped M. off at the station, and when we got there we found they had a little playground (with swings and slides that were about her size) and a micro-beach they use to launch rental boats (there’s also a carousel, but I think that doesn’t start for a few weeks).  We played on the sand, backed away from marauding geese, heard a real live duck quack at us, played with Sebastian and his Jamaican mommy for awhile (who was reading “The Secret” - what is the deal with this book??).

To cap things off, we were lucky to run into our acquaintance M.E. and her son.  M.E. is the Korean wife of a Korean-American colleague of M.’s - we had them out for dinner once, and X (their son) and MM got along well.  We were able to commiserate about the toxic manager currently making life difficult for everyone at work, watch the kids play around each other, and it was just very pleasant to have a little adult conversation for awhile.

3. When I got home, I had an email from the Washington bureau of the paper I used to work at (as a research assistant, lo these many years ago), asking if I was interested in reapplying for the same position.  I’d sent a resume to them when they were looking a year and a half or so ago (when M. was also looking for work around here and we weren’t sure if either of us would ever have a job again).  There’s a part of me that would love to say YES!…but the reality is the job doesn’t pay enough to begin to cover daycare, and I’m not a big fan of American daycare on a good day.  It doesn’t make sense for us at this point in our lives…but it sure was nice hearing that the bureau chief was “very impressed” with my resume.