The Couch - Welcome to the Psychedelic 70's

C is drinking his juice mixture his mom likes him drinking. It's 1/3 orange juice, 1/3 white grape juice, 1/3 prune juice, and a splash of cherry juice. I think it sounds nasty, but of course I don't like prune juice.

1. Happy birthday, Squirrel!

2. I can't even begin to express how much I hate my social anxiety disorder (well, all of my disorders but that one I hate the most).

Well, I am home. C's mom's dentist appointment didn't take long.

I checked my email a few minutes ago and had one from T wishing me a "Happy Birthday". I feel cared for that she remembered my birthday and actually sent an email with bithday wishes.

Now to enjoy the rest of my day until Carrabba's opens tonight and my mom buys me dinner.

I graduated college with honors but I had to look up prevaricating on dictionary.com and I'm not lying ...

I probably memorized that word for the SAT test but the people that I am friends with and work with would not use that word or know what it means either...

I'm not saying one would be stuck up for using the word...just that I think our vocabulary over the years assimilates to our environment....

You don't sound stuck up. I am the same. T and I discuss word definitions a lot, and it's important for me to have a T who is interested in language and words, and who speaks like an academic (and that probably makes me sound stuck up...) My situation is a little peculiar because I do therapy in a language where I'm not a native speaker, and my T who is a native speaker has lived in this country for over 40 years, so we both sometimes search for words, or substitute a term in Swedish.

(In the letter I gave to T last week I mentioned that I tend to prevaricate around the bush. I didn't make that one up myself, though.)

I had to look up this word too...

But I'm not the native, so it's not the first word from PC which I had to check - cool, even if I didn't "profit" from PC support, I always could improve my English

I too had to look up prevaricate. I love my Webster dictionary app. I never was good at "big" words. My verbal SAT and GRE scores were horrendous.

Ok so today I started a new class (molecular cell biology) and there are a lot of mandatory assignments that include oral presentations and group discussions (one of them is having to give a 10-15 minute long presentation on your own), which of course made me so anxious I felt sick and wanted to disappear from this world when I got to know about it.

Since I'm officially diagnosed with social anxiety disorder and it's severe enough for me to need extra support at university, I talked to the professor about it. He said there are some things that can be done to help me out but that I'll really have to try to participate (start small and work my way up to bigger things) and that I'll still have to give the presentation etc. Anyway, there are a lot group discussions and seminars etc so my professor encouraged me to tell the members of my group (7 people, excluding myself) about my difficulties so that they'll understand why I'm so quiet and might not be able to participate and speak as much as they do.

I thought about it and deep down I think it's probably the best way to go so I sort of agreed to do it. So I sent my group an email about an hour ago. I didn't mind telling two of them (and one of them I told in person because I sort of trust her and she took it very well) but the other five I barely know and now I'm really anxious. What if they think I'm crazy? Or weird? Or what if they bully me in an adult sort of way (just like back when was I child)? Or what if they give me strange looks or laugh at me or something?

Did I do the right thing or did I mess up big time?

You did the right thing, neutrino. That doesn't mean that all the members of your group will necessarily understand what you are going through. Hopefully they will, and I also dare voice the hope that if one or two of them should behave childishly, the others will step in.
But if you hadn't told them, they might have started wondering, or thought there was something else going on. I think that some spectres are best killed by sunlight, if you'll allow me that metaphor.

I hope you're right, Mastodon. I sort of worry that the people I've now told will spread it to others in the class, which would suck. I don't like the fact that I told them, even though it might've been the right thing to do, since it means I've let them into my world. Not sure if that makes sense? It's just all very personal and I would never have told them if I didn't feel like I had to.

Puke.

That's all..

Carry on.

Hmm...

Got my loan payment due date moved from the 8th to the 15th for the rest of the life of the loan. Also got permission to pay my u-Verse bill a couple weeks late without getting my service cut off. That means that depending on how much my grandmother gives me for my birthday, I could put the downpayment to get sunglasses made at the end of the month. Then pay the rest on 2/14 or when they come in (which ever is last). The optical place in the eye dr said I could pay that way if I needed to.

Not that sunglasses are a neccessity...I just want them.

Hope you dont mind but i told my t about this. That it describes how i felt about getting a card in the mail from my mother over the weekend. Its pretty excellent.

I used the word "foppish" today in session to describe a young female character in a Louisa May Alcott novel - Eight Cousins - its not very well known - and t stopped me! I said, okay, the word is usually used to describe a male. Now i have to look it up. Anyway, after the girl started eating oatmeal for breakfast, and by the end of the book, she no longer wore velvet and was no longer foppish we were discussing my long term constipation issues!

yeah, I understand that. It is always safer not to tell things to people. Witness my not even telling my husband that I'm in therapy.

But I still think you did the smart thing.

Eight Cousins! I loved that as a child. Not so much when I re-read it the other year - I think the translation I had was also abbreviated and had removed a lot of the "all girls are weak lilies" stuff. (I know I've confessed before to never being able to get through Little Women.)

And I don't really think Rose was foppish. Vapid is the adjective I'd use. It's kind of weird to use "fop" about a woman, at least in a historical context, but that aside, she's pretty much a wet blanket when the book starts, and becomes more of a real person (although still a wet blanket by today's standards.) She still had "feminine virtues" though, and was much more vain and aware of her looks, as far as I can remember (I hated that part, still do), which is really the core of foppishness.

hi everyone i am home .still hanging on. i got a call Friday i guess to remind me i have an appointment tueasdy so my T didn't cancel and is not in the office today do to holiday

I'm glad to hear you're home, granite. I'll pocket ride tomorrow if you want.

(((jersey))) hang in there... thinking of you.

Going to bed at a reasonable hour tonight. Night night, couchies. T tomorrow morning. I know what I need to talk about - work procrastination stuff - and I hope I'll be able to do it.

Omg! Mast! I dont know anyone else who knows that book!! When i read it again recently, I remembered how i felt when i first read it. I identified more with the old velvet-wearing Rose, dressing as one "had" to. I felt like i didnt have a choice, but i knew i wasnt living as the real me. I even asked my parents to buy me oatmeal because of that book. They refused, because my older brother had asked for maple-flavored cream of wheat and then not liked it and not eaten it, so they said i would do the same with oatmeal. Its not that they couldnt afford it. They just didnt want to tell me yes, for whatever reason. Thats what is weird. Not knowing why. It was so arbitrary and unnecessary, and caused me so much trouble in life. Story of my life.

Now i'm a steel cut oats girl.

Behold the power of the oat! lol

Never read the book, and I had to look up foppish. I had heard the word, and used to know it's meaning, but it wouldn't come to me. So, thank you for that, I especially love it when I have to look up something.

I stayed with mom for quite a while, so I am sufficiently kicked in the head. Headache included. Sigh. Still in quite a frenzy about xt. I hate when that happens, a memory or feeling comes up and just glues itself to me. Painful. Suddenly overwhelming and kind of fusty. Sickening.

Granite...let us know how we can help you thru this week.

Jerz...I am sorry you are so overwhelmed. When do you see T again?

Vapid is a good word. We should use it more.

i think the best thing would be not to hate me for being so needy and posting a lot .i'm scared she will ask me if i want to continue and i will cave because i am terrified of starting over. but she may not because i e-mailed her about terminating .but i doubt she has read it .i think i will print out a copy to give her incase she didn't read it. it will be harder to change my mind knowing i have appointments with two other T's.

Tomorrow. Unless Mother Nature gets in the f u c k I n g way because more snow is on the way. First it was just a snow shower then 3-6 inches now 4-8. And they just said if it hits a Little higher up.. 8+.

I'm just waiting for the universe to confirm my superiority.

A man said to the universe:
“Sir, I exist!”
“However,” replied the universe,
“The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation.”

Stephen Crane

I have always thought of foppish as being some way to describe men rather than women. Like a dandy.
Back before gay was a term.