I just finished what was a difficult session with my counselor, but one that provided insight into some ideas I believed true (deep down, if not consciously), but hadn’t even considered.

One of the biggest presenting symptoms for me with this current dip into depression is frustration with my seeming inability to get. stuff. done. It’s not that I’m incapable. It’s not that I don’t know what to do. I just don’t do it. This can be something as simple as mailing invitations for a party or as complex as applying for professional positions and/or graduate school. Through a conversation where my counselor had to pretty much pull ideas from my head with pliers (I just wasn’t getting there on my own and was really tense/anxious.), two primary aspects of my current lie-based thinking emerged:

1. No one will ever take me seriously.
   This one has appended to it, “because I’m a girl.” The very fact that this one existed in my mind is pure embarassment. Yet, there it was. The culture I grew up in contributed more than a little to this — it was the Deep South, in a backwards, redneck, good-ol-boys type of small town. While I *intellectually* reject this notion, it was still lurking in the back of my mind. I’m hopeful that calling it by name will do me some good, because it’s a ridiculous idea.

2. If I am successful, I will be alone.
   This one’s a lot more straightforward, and yet it was the embedded lie that surprised me the most — and which explains the most about my tendency to torpedo anything great I have going in my life. In that backwater town I called home from age 8 to 18, it wasn’t a particularly cool thing to be a smart kid. Especially not a female smart kid. Or a female, goody-goody smart kid. I was all three, and emblematic of that was the “trophy” that I won each and every year I attended one particular private school — a trophy for earning the best grades. I usually would come home with trophies in individual subjects, as well. Being the class brain didn’t earn me a whole lot of popularity — but it did give me a deeply-rooted sense that if I wanted to fit in, ever, I needed to dumb myself down a lot. *Especially* as a female, I needed to not showboat, be the best, and “take away” some prize that “rightfully belonged” to a boy.

   It only follows from this twisted logic, that I *can’t* let myself succeed. I mean, really, the last thing I want is to be ALONE. (To clarify this, I’m not just talking about dating here — this isn’t about being married or not. It’s about enjoying acceptance, camraderie, and a connection in my social life, whether from male or female friends.)

Interesting stuff, that. I feel lighter after pulling this tangled mess out of my head, and I’m hopeful that over the coming days and weeks, my perspectives toward myself and my gender will shift from an superficial intellectual acceptance to a deeper level.

Oh, and maybe I’ll get shit done.