Cracking my High C and forgetting my lines

I realize that I forgot my lines.  I forgot the words that asked to be written.  They simply slipped my mind.  They slipped my mind because there was no space there.  It had been filled up with jobs and relationships and life.  It was filled to overflowing with thoughts about my feelings and my body and my work.  This meta cognition was beginning to bore holes into my skull and I just could not escape the rapture of it all. 

Well, okay, this is how I REALLY forgot my lines:

Something happened to jolt me back onto the stage of life - and take me out of the rapturous bliss of simply living life.  An intern said that because of ME, she was unable to fulfill her responsibilities as a clinician in training.  That I was critical and made her feel like she was in grade school.  Logically I knew that it was nearly impossible for me to wield that much power.  But that was what she felt.  Psychologically I knew that she was projecting.  But that is what she sensed.  My relationship with her and the rest of the staff told me that her poor performance was felt by EVERY SINGLE STAFF person, but it was me she scapegoated.

So, I forgot my lines.  I could not think of anything to say and there were no cue cards.

This is not who I believed myself to be as a human being or a clinician.  I had to do some serious self care work around that so that I did not feel like I failed this woman.  I wanted her to take some responsibility for her life - for her work - for how much energy, time and thought she did NOT put into therapeutic interventions. But I could not do her work for her, so instead I focused on me.  I thought about past interns and how I really try to mentor them.  I really try and take time to listen to them, explain the impulse behind my interventions, give them helpful, honest feedback about their own work, help them write a perfect clinical note, describe the ins and outs of expressive therapy, etc.  And I had to ask myself, "Did I do all of that for her?"  I would like to think that I did, but maybe I did not do all that I could for her.  Maybe I had a bit of countertransferrence going on.

Ultimately, I read this as a lesson: Not every encounter I have, not every workshop I do or therapy group I lead is going to end on a High C note (as my opera singing sister would describe it).   Sometimes you are going to Crack your High C AND forget your lines.  But, of course, the show must go on.

Oddly enough, a week later, I got a message from one of my former interns asking me if she could write about me for a paper she was completing for a Master's level course about  a leader in the field of counseling who is also an advocate.  I felt honored... and relieved.

I hit my High C AND remembered my lines!