music, therapy, and me

For some reason, I am having the heebie-jeebies today.  I don't know why, and this may be a side effect of all the medication that I am taking right now, but I am jumpier than usual and a bit over-responsive to the news and commentaries that I am accessing. This is probably a function of said medication and a bit about the political climate that we live in, but for whatever reason, I am going through it.  I thoroughly dislike this feeling of general uneasiness that comes over me with the heebie-jeebies. It's like something is out there, just waiting to take over, and I know it is out there, but I am trying to avoid it. This is the theme of every anxiety dream that I have lately - hiding and avoiding things and people who annoy me. I don't know if I am feeling this way due to the medications or because the world is disintegrating around us all or because my brain is just wanting to take me on a ride. It is a mystery. No matter how I'm feeling, today is a work day, so I w...

I am falling into a pattern where I do not sleep well on Sunday nights. No matter what I do to keep myself ready to sleep through the night, I wake up early and often on Sunday/Monday nights. I am not sure why this is happening. I do not feel particularly anxious about going to work, I don't think. I just can't seem to figure out how to change that pattern. My mother used to get into huge anxiety patterns over work. She had to go on anti-anxiety medication to help her navigate the work stress that she had. I am not sure that is what is going on with me, but it is something worth exploring, I guess. I would think that my sleep disturbance (if it really was an anxiety thing) would happen on Monday/Tuesday nights due to the groups that I have on Tuesdays. Mondays are easy in comparison. I did not take a nap yesterday afternoon - on purpose - and ate early to see if that would help. It did not. I still woke up at 1:07 am and struggled to get back to sleep. It is supposed to be cool...

A friend of mine messaged me yesterday to ask me how things were going, and I started to cry. Yesterday was one of those days where clients who used to love being in music therapy were ripping things off the walls, breaking the thermometers, and destroying things, all while trying to hurt me. Actually, it was just one client, but still, it hit me deep. We are very short-staffed at the moment, and the only staff members that were present are not ones that I know. I have no idea if they were trained in our crisis management system or not. All I know is that they did NOTHING to help me out. This happens every Tuesday, and I am exhausted by the situation. The student refuses to talk to me or to use the program that the student has agreed to use. This happens regardless of what we are doing or the sounds we are making which makes it seem personal. The student will bring in noise-cancelling headphones and then destroy them rather than wearing them. add in the fact that the student makes thre...

4rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrre00000000000000000000000000000000000000 (Bella's thoughts, I guess...) Here I go again. Yesterday was rough to get through, mainly because my demands for myself are pretty high, and I just can't seem to get them done. I did manage to get three videos done (almost brings me to my self-imposed expectation of four per day). I also decided that I needed a backdrop for my films and for any sort of livestreaming that may happen in the future. I made the basic frame for that yesterday. Now I am on the brink of tears because I cannot get my acid reflux medication to open - one of those "match the arrows and the top will come off easily" type of bottles. I think I'm going in with the saw I found on Wednesday. That worked. I have now transferred the pills from the impossible bottles to one that works much better for me and my current finger situation...because let's not forget that I still have two broken fingers...Thanks, 2020! I ended yes...

These are not happy times in my country. There are riots happening in various parts of the territory and people are engaged in a pissing contest about who is right and who is wrong and who has what power and who will bend first. I am sinking under the weight of it all. I strive to be a good person. I strive to be inclusive and I strive to focus on each person as a unique and special person who offers so much to the world. I am a person of privilege, and I acknowledge that fact whenever I write about situations where biases are prevalent and that cause friction. I cannot and will never understand the situations that others live in and through every day. I know this, and I find a bit of shame in the fact that anyone in this world is treated with less than compassion in every single interaction with every single person. I tend to internalize this shame and it is fed by constant triggers from social media and the outrage of others. I feel powerless when it comes to speaking out about gende...

Well, yesterday we had a "this is the way it is" talk at work. We have these about every 5-10 years and have ranged from "Hey, welcome to the last day before Winter Break - by the way, we might not be open on New Years. Merry Christmas!" to yesterday's greatest hit, "We may not be able to sustain our numbers with the level of funding that we have now, so some of you may not be working here in July." Sigh. I am currently experiencing an anxiety attack about all the things that are in my head right now - hence, the last afternoon blog post - an attempt to get this out of my head and into the ether of the internet in a way that is archived for all eternity but that allows me to purge my thoughts and try to settle. I got sick again on Sunday - not anything COVID-ish, but lots of my typical gastrointestinal stuff. I wasn't able to sleep very well in between issues and attacks, but things started earlier on Sunday than it did last Sunday. I was a...

Today, I am spending some time thinking about what I want to have systematically organized in my music therapy life. I have lots of music therapy stuff, and I am constantly trying to corral it into some sort of organizational system. I would love to be able to place my hands on everything that I want to see by just looking up a file in my digital world, but I'm not at that point yet. I have several shelves that are dedicated to one specific type of music therapy tool or the other to help me find materials when I need them. I have a couple of music therapy textbook bookcases. Texts are arranged by topic area so I can easily identify where the general music therapy texts are compared to the technique-specific texts. There is a portion of the shelf dedicated to my copies of the Journal of Music Therapy and another part stores my Music Therapy Perspectives . I also have my copies of the first journal from the National Association for Music Therapy, Music Therapy in that location ...

Yesterday, I spent some time engaged in busywork. You know the kind - work that someone thinks has value but really just takes up time and siphons energy away from other tasks. Fortunately, it was only 15 minutes worth of time, but the exercise itself had nothing to do with my job or my vision for my job. The exercise was related to a book that we are all reading this year for our jobs. The book is entitled "The Energy Bus," and was a quick read. It is about finding a common destination and getting people onto your bus who will add to your energy and get you to your goals. It is a good idea and a wonderful story, but the process that we are taking to find a common idea is not really clear. Disclosure: I am not someone who enjoys team building exercises. I am not someone who enjoys most group projects (with the exception of this one we did in eighth grade). I am the type of person who does best when I am allowed to be on my own with occasional check-ins with the others. So...

I am lousy when it comes to confrontations. I'm the first to admit it. I hate confronting people about their inappropriate actions towards others, especially when the "others" include myself. I am much better at calling someone out when they are bullying others that do not include me, but I am not good at it when I am the target. I have never been good at this, so I was a target of bullies and teasing and lots of hurt feelings as a kid. Those feelings continue in me as an adult, but my ability to be strong has increased. I definitely am less likely to break into tears in public than I used to be (but I still have that tendency as well). So, why is this the topic for my blog post today? I am getting ready for a confrontation that is unfair. I'm not going to go into any more details, but this confrontation is ridiculous, and yet I have to go through it. It has shaken my thoughts for the past two months, and the day of confrontation has arrived.  This is one of the...

Yesterday was a loud day, both inside and outside the music therapy room. Everyone was screaming, oh, and urinating. I'm not sure that the two behaviors were related as those who urinated were not around the ones who were screaming, but those two things do not usually coincide. It's been a long half of the week. One of the situations would have been completely avoided had the lead classroom aide followed the school rules rather than making up her own rules. She told her students that they could shop in the student store after their music therapy session. I told them that they could not because the store was closed. BAM! Instant riot. This situation is one that is happening more and more with staff members lately. They think that they can interrupt what is happening in my room to get into the store. They are wrong. I am standing my ground on this one (with the support of the principal) and not allowing people to just come in whenever. After yesterday's riot, I will be in...