Couch 78: Put your feet up and stay a while

I would not feel terrible for telling a teenager to mind his own business. I have 1 and 1 soon to be... And they know that they do not get to tell me what to do.

That sounds like perfectly acceptable parenting.
Why don't you swap cars permanently?

I just realized why I felt so bad about telling my son to leave me alone. In my head, it sounded a whole lot like the "get out of my face" that I used to hear as a kid. Oy.

We don't swap them permanently cuz his is a truck that I don't like to drive, and besides I like my car!

I think it would be bad parenting to let a child get away with that.

When your gas stove spontaneously won't turn off and the flames get higher and higher…who ya gonna call?

Building maitainece…."Geez, I'm 45 minutes away. Maybe you should call the fire department."
Fire Department….."Don't you have building maintenance to take care of that?"

Damn, someone come and douse the flames and shut off the gas!!!
Literally these are the phone calls I just had while I was trying to wrangle a set of clothes and my freaked out cat in preparation of bailing out of my apartment!!!!

I had a hard time fighting panic. Everything is fine now but let's see if I sleep.
I was cooking and all of a sudden I couldn't turn off the stovetop!!! Then the knobs melted off my stove. Then the flame got to be a foot high. I hate hate hate natural gas.

Omg, growly.. How scary!! Did somebody eventually show up to help you?

Growly...that must have been so scary! I have a gas stove too. I wouldn't know how to turn it off either. Next time repair guy is here I'm definitely asking that question.

Hope you were able to sleep.

Oh wow! Nuts. Hate gas as well. Saw a mobile home explode when I was 4. Sucker burned in what seemed like a few secs

Totally relate - was in the exact same place with my 16 year old yesterday. Parenting teenagers is SO HARD. xxxx

I am the worst Mum.
And the worst wife
And the worst friend (no-body likes me)
And useless at my job

This isnt a great start to the week. You can see how I am feeling!

I just feel so abandoned, rejected, useless and... I wish I wasn't here right now.
I'm sorry to be such a miserable *****.

I hope everyone is having a better start to the week? xx

(I am also going to quit T on Wednesday)

Aloneandafraid- what makes you think you are such a horrible person? Why are you quitting therapy?

I am a horrible person because I have messed everything up - marriage, parenting, friends, parents. I am just too needy and too sensitive and I let everyone walk all over me. I am just treated badly wherever I go and people think I am a complete joke so they treat me as such. I just feel invisible to everyone. I have no needs. I am worthless. No-one likes me and everyone thinks I am a pushover. I don't stand up for myself.

I am going to quit because I have been seeing her for almost 18 months but I feel worse now than when I started. I know this might be because I am getting to the real issues but I also don't feel supported by her - I feel I am just a client and feel she can't wait to get rid of me after 50 minutes each week. I think I am angry with her because she told me we can't be friends (which I already knew but it hurt hearing it) and she has such rigid boundaries. I need more.

I am a mess. I don't know what to do to be honest.

First, a police officer showed up as I was clutching my screaming cat (I was trying to get him in a carrier so I could get kitty into the fresh air on my front porch, and to keep him from hiding in case I needed to evacuate.)

Then, about 4 bored looking fire dept dudes show up. Seriously, everyone seemed so bored and nonplussed it drove me crazy. I have a foot tall flame in my kitchen and the plastic parts of my stove are melting!!!! No one is freaked about this but me??? What does it take to rattle emergency people?

I'm fine, just shaken.

I still don't know which is worse, a growing but controlled flame or an all-out gas leak? I guess the order of business is : put out flame…turn off gas…unplug appliance. However, my melting stove was too hot for me to move it to reach the gas line. Did I mention that I hate natural gas?

GC, it might be time to invest in a fire extinguisher. Some states have laws that require apartment complexes to provide them. If so, find out where yours are. If not, they are not very expensive. I have one in the kitchen, and one in the dining area in case I cannot get to the one in the kitchen. Once the fire was out, you then could have used a blanket or something to protect your hands to move the stove and turn off the gas. Just for your future reference and not to imply you did anything wrong!

I also travel with one my truck and one in the living quarters of my horse trailer. My truck once caught on fire while I was pulling my horse trailer. I was incredibly worried about it exploding and hurting my horses, but I already had the fire extinguisher in the horse trailer part because of a friend having a fire in her trailer. So I raced back to the living quarters, grabbed the fire extinguisher and put out my truck fire within in seconds. Meanwhile, well meaning people had been throwing water on the fire -- which was an oil based fire, which had just spread the fire. Luckily it was not beyond control.

Sorry you are having a crappy week so far too.

Do you think you could have 1 more session with T to work it out or keep T until you find another one?

From your posts, you sound like a great mom.

And work …uh boy, a hard place to make friends.

I hope things change quickly for you

I am taking the male kitten from the first litter of orphans that we saved in to be neutered today. EVERYONE has had to go without food since 6 pm last night so NO ONE is happy with me. Mr. Perky (the kitten) is very attached to me and thinks I am mama, so he spent the night gently biting my chin and corners of my mouth trying to get me to feed him. He has been Velcro-ed to me today, quite anxious about the food thing. I am very anxious about the procedure. I have not loved a cat this way since I found my first cat. I feel like I am betraying him and for the first time have been contemplating that it might not be all that bad to have an unneutered pet. I can get the female spayed in another month or so before she starts coming in heat, right? All of my other animals are altered.

That is a great idea. There is one right outside my apartment, in a glass case but it would be safer to have an extinguisher in my kitchen!

Keeping horses safe from fire must be nerve wracking. A panicky cat is one thing, but a horse? Vehicle fires are scary because of the gasoline too.

My dilemma with the gas fire: the flame was somewhat controlled but becoming more unmanageable. Wasn't sure if an all-out gas line leak was more of a danger? At the time I was not confident that I could move my stove or that moving it would cause a friction spark while I was right on top of the gas line. I'm still not sure if I did the right thing.

Hmmm. Aloneandafraid. This is going to be a long response. Sorry. First off, I would like to start out with the fact that you called yourself needy and then said you have no needs. So you can't really be that needy. regarding your marriage, it is never solely one persons fault so putting the full blame on yourself is not really fair. Are you and your husband trying to work out the issues in your marriage. Regarding your concern on parenting, how do you think a parent should be? Whst makes you think you are bad? What are some things you can do to feel closer with your children. These are questions to answer for yourself not necessarily for the forum. You may not beable to correct things out of your contol but parenting is not an all or nothing thing and I am sure your child/ children love you as much as you love them. When I start feeling this way, I start writing down pure facts without trying to put judgement to them.

For example...one of my automatic thoughts is I hate my job and I am never going to find anything better. Facts, I make a decent wage, we have decent health insurance, free food, great exercise equipment, most of the people i work with are friendly, reviews suggest I am doing well, and you get the point...so in this case, my job is not necessarily bad but when I am thinking about this, I am usually in a bad place emotionally. Regarding never finding a better job, I never look! So that is not really a fair thing for me to say to myself. So right now I am feeling ok and I am able to see this more clearly. So try listing just the facts.. So what did you do today with your child/ children..did you cook them dinner, talk about school?

In regards to your therapist, a lot of people are in the same boat you are. I have even been through that pain and realization that I am just a job and at first I wanted to run. At the time though, I had to again look at the facts. She was giving me assignments that were helping me work toward my goals. So though she would never be my friend I could accept that she was being a decent therapist and was helping me achieve what I set out to accomplish. Is your therapist good? Does she give you assignments, does she give you tips to help with your depression, does she show up on time, does she cancel requently and well you get my point. Now looking at this from my end, I am thinking about leaving therapy because of an incident that happened that in fact should have been handled better, specially relating to her job as a therapist. Additionally she did not give me tips to help with my last bout of depression, is starting to be unpunctual etc. she is no longer giving me homework to help me work on issues that seem out of reach. So these issues i list specifically relate to my therspists performance in regards to my treatment. So these are things you should look at and talk with your therapist before leaving to see what she thinks.

Growlycat - glad you and your cat are okay. Fire is scary.

I am taking a week off from seeing the first therapist. I tried telling her something last week and it failed. I need to regroup. I rarely bother anymore trying to explain this one thing to her because of how badly it fails, she does not understand any more or differently than the general populace. And she jumps to conclusions/makes assumptions that are just so very wrong. So I don't know what overcame me to cause a weakening of my usual ability to not bother trying with the woman. I regret the attempt and I am angry with myself for putting me into a situation where I feel regret.

Will catch up on the couch on my lunch break later today. I sent off the files for my poetry book to the publisher last night, and am so nervous I feel like throwing up!! But it's off to work I go. Have a good morning all I'll be back on the couch for a little bit in a few hours.

1 step closer to going back to school for my Master's next Fall, I have scheduled an information session for September 30th to learn more about the program and if that goes well I will likely apply for admission soon afterwards.

The weirdest stuff triggers me. Apparently my bad experience with the one female therapist affected me more than I like to admit because there is one thread out there right now that has me rocking back and forth in my chair with extreme anxiety.

Mkac, you are right. I need a diet plan that works with cake and donuts too. The problem is my attitude of saying "i cant have that, only special people can have that" is b.s. I was at the grocery store today and i thought that was the best post ever. And i bought a very diverse bunch of groceries! Thanks

I don't know what thread is talking about female therapists. Hope the kitten is doing okay from his adventure today.

Kitten came through surgery well and is waking up. Very happy about it.