polishing a gem.

Sometimes I see people who are depressed, and they are depressing. Blah, blah, blah, the world sucks, people were mean to me, blah blah. Why can't I do things right? My mother...blah, blah, blah.... It can get so bad that a friend of mine, who was a talented therapist and specialized in cognitive therapy for depressed people, left his clinical practice for software development.

But sometimes I get to see a person who should be depressed, but they are absolutely delightful. Perhaps a bit screwed-up, but still, they seem to have overcome a great deal. I saw one yesterday, let's call he Cheryl. I have been seeing her for about two months, and even though her life gets worse, her attitude, her behavior, and her sense of herself (and her sense of humor) get better and better.

She began life with three strikes against her. Her mother was eighteen, tried to raise her for three months and gave her to her sister to raise. Her sister didn't last a month before she left her with her best friend. This woman has mostly raised her, or tired to. But that woman has been through three long-term relationships; one with a drunk, one with a sleaze and one guy just disappeared. Two of them left children behind. During some of the darkest days Cheryl went to live with her biological grandmother, but that woman became very ill and Cheryl was put in foster care. Her real mother got her out and gave her back to the friend who had been raising her.

Not surprisingly Cheryl was not the easiest adolescent to deal with. Beginning at 14 she was drinking and cutting school. Right before she was going to be thrown out she would go back to school and got As. Then she would drop out the next year. At seventeen she got her GED, a boyfriend and an apartment. The boyfriend left so she went back home and began college. She did well in college but was drinking too much so she dropped out, got a job, a new boyfriend and moved out. She threw the boyfriend out because he wouldn't work, and went back home and back to college. She was doing well but still drinking too much so she came to see me. The weekend after our first visit she drank too much, blacked out and woke up in jail.

But now she is in therapy, and she seems to really like it. She said she needed to stop drinking, and she has. Without a license she had to stop going to college again, so she stayed home and began cleaning the house, which her "mother" made her do, and she began to read. Then, when her next boyfriend lost his job, she increased her hours at her job and she makes him drive her to work every day.

In treatment she is delightful, insightful and really funny. At twenty-three she has been through all of this and she has really learned how the world works. She has figured out who she can trust ( not many), how to push back, how to make deals, and how to take care of herself. She rejected three lawyers before she got the right one, got him to take what she could pay, and made a pretty good deal with the court.

My problem is that often, with people like this, I begin to expect too much. You know, I expect her to be in law school when she finishes therapy. I think she should be Mayor. She is wondering if she can handle getting an LPN.

I have to be careful I don't frighten her away. I have to go slow. That way she can make her own decisions about what she wants to do, and I get to hear more of how she describes the world.

I'll let you know when she wins the election.