Assignment for therapy

The Life Compass

Parenting: Doesn't apply to me because I don't have children, but in working and interacting with children I want to be as kind and understanding and friendly as I can.

Personal growth: This is kinda what it's all about. I want to move closer to the person that's inside me instead of holding myself back and being a prisoner of my childhood. I feel like I'm banging my head against the wall in my search for personal growth sometimes. But what else is there to live for?

Leisure: I don't consider music leisure; it's my life's work. So taking that away, leisure seems to be pretty boring, with me being an observer: internet, occasionally watching something on Netflix. I don't have the concentration to read books anymore, which makes me sad. I like podcasts a lot. I like hearing the human voice. It helps me to be less lonely. I guess marijuana could be considered my main form of leisure. I would like to experiment with some other drugs.

Spirituality: Really important. Always has been. I can tell you more, but I'm generally pretty private about that stuff. One thing, though: I've had massive problems since I was a child with scrupulosity.

Health: Very important. This is one of the main mental problems I have. I'm so fat that I don't even feel like a human being. It alienates me from everything, including myself. I feel like I'm wearing my mental illness on the outside. Also, though, I would love to be in touch with my own physical-ness (when you don't know words, you can just make them up). I would love to find some physical that I enjoy doing. 

Work: It's important to me that I do something worthwhile with work. That being said, I feel that I've disappointed myself, that I could have done so much more. My current job is extremely unhealthy for me because I tend to believe it when people tell me I'm full of shit.
I feel that the life's biggest mistake was when I got the day job. I'm a songwriter and a musician. That's what I should have been doing all these years. With the exception of the children, my working life has been a massive failure. 

Community and environment: Becoming more important. Isolating myself keeps me away from community, which I desperately need but I'm afraid of. Or something like that.

Family relationships: I'm on good terms with my two brothers and my sister. I'm very close to my younger brother and his family, who live here in Portland. I talk to my other brother about once a week on the phone. We have gotten closer over time. I don't talk with my sister much, but we get along well. I love my big Mexican family and I miss my parents and my aunts and uncles and the others who have passed. I miss being around family.

Intimate relationships: I don't have any. I'm way too damaged for that. It is the saddest fact in my life. 

Social relationships: I have a hard time initiating friendships. Asking people if they'd like to meet for coffee is a major emotional production. Weirdly enough, I have a lot of friends and people I genuinely love. It's mostly because of my involvement with music and because I enjoy being friendly, at least on a superficial level. But I have a hard time reaching out (though I'm getting better) and I have very few close friends. I am always on guard with them. This is a complicated subject for me, as I was very socially isolated up until age 18. I also have some guilt issues with it because of my teenage years.

Art: My added category. This is my life's work, the reason I was born, and probably about a thousand other cliches. This -- well, and love, I guess -- is ultimately what my life is for.