The Dance of Deception – Apropos

I should begin today with a short (Haha. Me. Short?) digression…

A couple of days ago I wrote this post. That day was one of my worst in a month of “not greats”.

Yesterday was slightly better. I felt better.

Today, I woke up feeling… while not bushy-tailed… pretty darned good.

That’s because… even though I felt like crap… I was still trying to do things to heal.

What have I been doing?

Lemme tell ya…

Finishing the weaning-off process with my depression meds – As of two days ago, I’m not taking ANY right now.

I also stopped my stomach (gastro) meds, too, because I’ve read in several places that they were always meant to be taken for a course, not a lifetime (as my doctor said).

Also, got off all pain pills after my fall, including Celebrex for arthritis, which I can righteously take since I have several … actually quadruple!.. types of arthritis. To me, they should be taken when the pain is unmanageable. It isn’t right now.

I am still on my asthma, migraine, and blood pressure meds, which include a beta-blocker.

I did some of this with the blessing of my doctor, some without. None without deep consideration and planning, however, the anti-deps were a struggle beyond what was expected and I waffled because of the side effects. I will try not to beat myself up if I find I need to go back on them.

As I also mentioned the other day, I was nursing a sinus infection. I know all the signs as this has been a lifelong issue. For three nights, I rinsed with saline and took 1/2 dose of NyQuil, which helped me sleep and kept my nose clear. This is not something I can do often as it interferes with my blood pressure and triggers migraines. However, in the very short term, it can be helpful. The saline I can do all the time!

This morning, as I say, I woke up feeling so good I got up, got dressed, changed the bed, cleaned the fridge and freezer, made a smoothie, and got to my computer to write by 11:15 am. This, after springing-forward on the time. Yay, me!

That digression over… let’s go forward… except, I have to go back again… just for a moment.

My early years were spent in a small community nestled at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains. The downtown encompassed one street that started way up in the hills and ended up… well… way down into another city. That’s not the point. (Do I ever get right to the point? Nah.)

There were wonderful stores there, an ice-cream parlor, and I seem to remember a ballet studio where I was supposed to learn… you guessed it… ballet. Did I? Not really. I think I may have learned tap. But I suspect it was my own understanding of tap which meant I slapped my feet around in those glorious loudmouth shoes. I feel I was only there for a season. Or less. But I digress. Again.

One of the stores was called Apropos. It was a store for women… I feel like it was clothes. I do remember the name and have thought of it so often over the years. I remember trying to sound it out in my head, which was, of course, impossible. Ap-roe-poes. Oh, the s is silent? Ap-roe-po? Close enough! Here’s what Google says about it:

ap·ro·pos

/ˌaprəˈpō/

Learn to pronounce

preposition

1. with reference to; concerning.”she remarked apropos of the initiative, “It’s not going to stop the abuse.”

adjective

1. very appropriate to a particular situation.”the composer’s reference to child’s play is apropos”

All that to say, I love the word. What does it have to do with today’s offering? Well, given what I talked about the other day… in that post … everything!

Okay, so… this book is one I read many years ago. More than once. But I’d read another of the author’s books that has become a favorite: The Dance of Anger. <<< I wrote about it here.

This one is called The Dance of Deception. The author is Harriet Goldhor Lerner, Ph.D. She has a few of these “Dance of…” (Anger, Deception, Fear, Intimacy) books and they’re all good. Still, I liked the anger one best. Also, hated it best. Read the post. LOL

This book has sat in the back of my “to write about” bookshelf for… years. I kept on passing it by, adding books to the shelf, blah, blah, blah, and then it got lost. I mean, I stopped looking back there. There’s a small pile of books there… might be some gems… I’ll be looking back there again. Ahem. Anyway.

I haven’t had the energy to read new self-help lately (again, see post from the other day and those on fiction before that). I didn’t NOT want to write, especially when I’m feeling so much better, so I went to that dark corner and found this.

You guys, it’s excellent. I don’t know why or how it got back there. Seriously!

As I thumbed through it again, I found turned corners, highlighted sections, and worn pages. Clearly, it was very important to me at one time!

You know how I feel about honesty… how I’ve struggled with privacy vs. secrecy… do you, too?

The crux of Lerner’s book can be found on pages 44-45, I believe. Everything else fans out from there.

In these pages, she says (paraphrased by me) that women have a unique place in the discussion of privacy vs. secrecy because privacy is both “necessary and dangerous”.

This quote says it all:

“Privacy is necessary not only because it is a human need, but because speaking out – and being out – can place some of us emotionally and physically at risk. Privacy is dangerous, however, because the failure to share what is most private or personal isolates us, shames us, and keeps us trapped in narrow, false myths about female experience.”

That is POWERFUL!

Don’t you think so?

Every kind of deception is covered in this book and looked at through compassionate, learned eyes. There is lots of research and no shame here. The reading is easily understood and relateable.

I’ve read a few of Lerner’s books and all of them were excellent, as I say. Why did this one languish in the back of my bookshelf? Perhaps because I wasn’t ready to face some lies I’ve believed about myself. Even, possibly, others.

Deception is a tricky subject no matter how you look at it. This book will help you tease through the tangles.