Part of the problem this year, is my kidlet and her weird depressive-like mood. I'm not so sure her therapist knows what he's doing, either. He can't seem to get it through his head, that her problem isn't the weird or sick thoughts she gets. It's that she feels like she needs to hold onto them. She continuously tells herself that she's incapable of resisting temptation. She tells herself over and over that she's not going to be able to stop having weird thoughts. It's a strain for me to have to go through this - now for nearly 3 months. Today, she and I had a long talk. We talked about why she has such a poor concept of herself, that she would believe such awful things about herself. We talked about how her weird or "sick" (that's her word, not mine) thoughts were only a tiny part of herself, and yet, she's made that EVERYTHING. I made her go stare at her reflection in the mirror. I forced her to try and appreciate all the wonderful and powerful aspects of herself. I made her list them.

Then, we went to the beach.

The beach is very centering. She's not the only one who needed to get centered either. Having to go through this stuff with my kidlet is pretty exhausting. She sucks the energy out of everything. So, we re-grouped at the sea. She went on a long walk, and I sat and snapped photos of the birds and sailboats, clouds and sky. I went through two rolls of film. We came back home, and at least I'm full of the Christmas spirit. The tree is lighted and there are candles all around. Cookies are baking.

Merry Christmas to all!

December 24, 2002