Invalidation, Non-precipitation, and Anxiety Alleviation

My thoughts today have been consumed - - CONSUMED! - - by my anger over yesterday's Sunday NY Times magazine cover story, which I was at first very excited to read because it deals directly with What I Do Professionally, but which then perturbed me greatly because it completely invalidated What I, Specifically, Do Professionally. It put a great big cloud over my already-partly-cloudy day at Jones Beach yesterday (a day saved only by the company I was keeping, the lack of expected rain and thunderstorms, and the fact that the water was wicked wahm), and has prevented me from Doing My Job Well today. It has also Given Me An Excuse to Sit At My Desk All Day, Emailing About How Angry I Am.

Here is the perturbed-yet-professional letter to the editor I wrote:

To the Editor:

While I am always glad to see End-of-Life care making it into the news, I was disappointed at this article's failure to at least touch upon the critical role played by social work in achieving a quality end of life experience. Clinical social workers are specially trained to provide patients and families with psychosocial and emotional supports; to educate patients and families about end-of-life options and create advance care plans; to advocate for quality end-of-life care and facilitate patient and family communication with other health care providers; and to help tease apart and rectify the complicated inter- and intrapersonal dynamics that often impede an optimal dying experience. For the CEO of a major NYC hospice to suggest that emotional and/or psychological pain is best managed by a "chaplain, a massage therapist, a pet therapist, a doctor, [or] a volunteer [playing] the harp'' - with no mention of, let alone emphasis on, the role of the social worker - is saddening, frustrating and worrisome.

Groom Zilla, LMSW


What does any of this have to do with getting married to another man, you may ask? Nothing at all, I might reply. Except that M. and I sat down and had a much-needed and amply-relieving conversation about What We Want on our wedding day. We narrowed down the food choices and vendors, knocked a bunch of dollars off the tent company invoice - Good bye, bouillion spoons! See ya, salad plates! Hasta luego, eight hundred dollars worth of crappy little lantern lights! - and made some more headway into Who Will Be Sleeping Where. All in all, major relief for this worried soul.

I also threw my back (halfway) out right after yoga on Saturday morning - - which is ironic, given that I practice yoga to keep my muscles limber so that I don't throw my back out - so I can't decide if I should go to yoga after work today, or if my time would better be spent ruminating.