My SIL is a LCSW and is a nut. Really. Well, see....that's how *I* see her. LOL. But I knew her back in the day, long before she was a SW. I don't see her with her professional "hat" on (and it's hard for me to think of her with said hat on because I see her through a personal lens....not a professional one). I see her as someone who is real and flawed. She has marital issues like a lot of people; and she's a knucklehead sometimes when it comes to her kids to the point where I'm like !!! She has a difficult relationship with her brothers. She has money problems and is indecisive at times. She's also a kind person and is easy to carry on a conversation with. She has a good heart and good intentions. She doesn't have all the answers and she doesn't have it all together. She really is like "everyone else". She talks about clients once in a while.....not names or anything like that, and not in a gossip-y way (not that I've ever heard) but more in a "I'm worried about one of my clients", or, "one of my clients is having a hard time, made some bad choices and is in jail and I feel awful..." kind of thing. I know she thinks of them outside of their time together; but when she's not in her office she's running her kids off to soccer and doing normal people type stuff.

I try to envision my T as a regular person and I wonder sometimes what he must be like outside of that dang office. Is he as kind IRL as he is at work? Does he talk to his parents? Maybe he struggles with a mental illness/disorder and takes meds like me. Does he have a tumultuous past...or did he grow up with a charmed life? Maybe he's a masochistic freak. Who knows.....

I can literally make myself crazy wondering about all of this irrelevant information. What I've realized though, is that it doesn't matter. Our sessions are about ME; it's just that the thing that makes therapy work so well is the same thing that is driving me up a wall - my relationship with my T. It's a dichotomy that's incredibly confusing and difficult to separate into their own parts that stand on their own. I just have to find a way to be OK with the ambiguity and not knowing; kind of like not knowing what happens after we die or if God is real and if he gives a damn. I can literally make myself crazy thinking about it; it's like trying to nail Jello to the wall. What I *do* know is that there *is* a person there....I just don't see the full person, nor will I ever. Gotta find a way to get it outta my head and focus on what's really important.

*sigh*