Play therapy, first installment

The reason that expateek is able to be such a pleasant person, so nice, on a day-to-day basis, is that she deals with her anxieties and upsets on her own, in private.

But private = blog, correct?

So over the next several posts, expateek will share with you some of the coping mechanisms she employs when life gets a bit unsettled.

Fortunately for Mr D, most of these are low-cost options that deliver maximum results with minimal financial impact.

One of the first options utilised is that expateek writes about herself in the third person, to distance herself from the emotional upheaval that comes with moving yet again. Easy-peasey. It doesn't work well in oral conversations with actual people, but expateek spends a lot of her time locked in her office at her computer, so conversations are few and far between.

But what is upsetting expateek right now?

Yes, a little reminder is in order.

Remember, Readers Reader, how Mr D's new post-reorganisation French boss delivered the surprising news, just days before Christmas, that expateek and her family would be out on the Warszawian streets as of February 1st, 2009?

(Merry Christmas, by the way.)

That they would be repatriated to the USA, where Mr D could rejoin the American part of The Company in some yet-to-be-determined job in some yet-to-be-determined city?

Yes. We all remember now.

It's not so bad really. After all, Mr D still has a job for the time being. Hallelujah.

But coping is what expateek is all about. After all, we've been moved by The Company 11 times now over the last 27 years. (And there have been a few extra semi-relocations in there too, like when I fled South Africa after the robbery and lived in London for awhile on my own. Those make the total a little higher, but who's counting, really?)

So take a tip from expateek.

Two words: Play therapy.

Play therapy is a tried and true therapeutic modality in which disturbed children or adults are able to engage deeply felt emotions by enacting homicidal fantasies inner feelings, without causing actual harm to themselves or others. In a supervised setting, a client plays with toys (play-houses, pets inanimate objects, dolls, etc.) to express experiences and feelings through a natural, self-guided, self-healing process.

Instructions:

Pull out action figures.

Take appropriate ornaments off Christmas tree.

Bring out the kitchen utensils.

Find candlesticks and matches.

Assemble other things as needed.

Engage in homicidal fantasies therapeutic play.

And.... allons-y! Let's go!

Poor chef, le French boss of the bad news!

It is too bad he has decided
to take an African holiday over Noël.

Because look.

He has accidentally made the mistake
of hopping out of the Land Rover
to take a safari photograph,

et voilà!

Look!




Merde!




Oh nooooooooo!

If he had thought of it,




he could have asked expateek,




because she's lived in Africa,




and for sure,




because she is so nice,




she would have told him




not to make this silly mistake.




Oh well. Too late now.



.