Couch 95: No title required

I didnt want to say anything, so thanks for posting.

I have had ts tell me that if you have already grieved the loss in therapy, you probably wont have to grieve the loss again. One t said this in particular about my fathers passing. She knew me for a long time before during and after. Or i could just be a robot.

I meant for people who were reasonably fond of their parents - I thought it was implied based upon the post to which I was replying.

I think what my t said was still correct re grieving beforehand. Fondness or no notwithstanding.

If it works for you - fine. I don't think pre-grieving is something that will prevent me from grieving my remaining parent when the time comes. Or beloved bff. I don't believe one can practice it.
I don't think it is even a good idea. I do not go to therapy to prevent me from it. Fortunately the two I see do not seem to believe it is possible either - they have both said they do not. And even if I thought the first was just being wily, the second usually is not.

It was never a question of "pre-grieving". That sounds heartless. Its just that, as a part of psychotherapy as many people do it, one might grieve not having the parent one wished, as part of the process of coming to terms with one's past. I believe this is a common psychodynamic concept.

I was talking about grieving the loss of the actual parent or bff that one has. It appears we are talking about two very different things.

You used the phrase grieving beforehand = pre-grieving. I have no idea what you are talking about in relation to my posts.

I just had nothing to grieve for when my mom died. We had no connection. She had hurt me far too deeply for that. In therapy I have grieved my own pain and loss and the abuse free childhood I never had.

I grieved more for my raccoon than I did for my.mother or father. If you DO love someone I don't think there is anyway to prep for grief though I think the way you grieve is different depending on whether it was expected or a shock, long illness or sudden accident.

But there is no one from my family of origin that I will ever grieve for

I still sometimes worry that this means there is something wrong with.me thpugh.my.T assures me it is normal given childhood experience

gettin' a little heavy around these parts just thought I'd jump in with a giggle!

I understand the concept of grieving for what you did not have and I think it is good when therapy can assist one with it.

It was not the thing I was talking about. Which is fine - but important to distinguish and it got a bit muddled up when you quoted me and hankster then quoted your response to me - taking it in a completely different direction on a completely different topic. Which is fine - but
I just wanted it made clear that we were not on the same idea.

I thought it was the same topic but we had different viewpoints. I dont see why you found my comments so offensive that you would call them a completely different topic. I dont know if youre angry with me or playing with me or drinking too much smoked cider.

I am not angry. I didn't find it offensive but I do consider them completely different topics.
It has been too wet to smoke anything but I am hoping to get a brisket in tomorrow. The grass is up to the dogs' bellies and they hate wet grass (I have the most pathetic herding dogs possible) - I desperately need it to dry enough to cut the grass some.

I am thawing a couple of boxes of tofu and will be cooking it with sloppy joe sauce (not manwich!) tomorrow. The pulled pork sauce did not make the tofu taste exactly like bbq pork, but neither did it make me walk funny (arthritic hip pain if i eat red meat!).

Yes. Some of us "lost" our parents decades before they died. To "lose" a parent is a bigger pain than to bury them, I find.

The first cut is the deepest one of all
And the second, it's a worthless thing
-- Stevie Nicks.

I have stayed out of this, but will say only this thing and then hold my peace: I'm afraid there is no such gender difference. It is a nice theory but unfortunately it's not supported by any studies (even if you take into account all the normal caveats: every single piece of research on language use is culture dependent and age dependent, and always says things about populations and never about individuals.)

It is never possible to state "A woman would say this" or "A man would not say that". The only thing that is sometimes possible to say is "It is more likely that a woman in this country would say this", and that's frankly not very interesting (compared to "a man would never say that!" at any rate ) And it is only possible to state "The reason he said that is because he is a man" when it refers to one of those rare languages where the vocabulary or grammar is different depending on the gender of the speaker...

More rain. Ugh.

I didn't read the man/woman thing as being more than playful generality to which there is always exception. I almost always fall into the man side when divisions are laid out about how men approach things and how women do. And I am not a man. I do find sometimes when people describe their husbands and are upset that I am left wondering why what the husband did was upsetting -often because it is what I would have done.

I like tofu but don't use it as a meat substitute because the texture doesn't work for me.

I've never been big on tofu, except for a long time ago when I still lived in the midwest, there was this chinese restaurant across the river in Illinois that served a tofu dish that was just the most delicious thing I had ever eaten and I went there for it quite often. I don't recall now what the name of it was, but whatever spices/sauce they used on it was just perfection in a bowl.

I use it mostly in asian cooking.

oh and, good morning/evening couch!! I'm up early today cuz I have my first Reiki class this morning, and I haven't finished my homework for it yet, reading a history of Reiki. This is something I've wanted to do for awhile now, so am excited to finally be doing it. Today is the first step into the next phase of my life journey.

I looked in the toaster. We're safe, for today.

Was desperately searching YouTube at an ungodly hour this morning because "the cats" aka "not me" broke my glasses. Everything you never wanted to know is right there! Except what is wrong with my glasses. Eh, a little nail glue (sorta like duct tape!) will hold them until the optometrist opens on Monday.

DD1 points out "at least it's not your partial!"

(((SM))) Hey lookit me i look like mom! C'mon, thats sweet - except that they broke your glasses. Or did they try to dress up the cat? I really like the commercial with the doggie dentures!

MOrning....err...afternoon, couch. I slept in late, I just woke up about 30 minutes ago when the housemate I was parked behind needed me to move my car so she could get out. :-P I am still groggy, but I can't sleep all day. I have CVS tonight for about 5 hours.

Still thinking about T's letter and how little it said. I guess I am just used to old T addressing almost every issue I wrote about when I was struggling. Old T would still say we'll talk about it when we meet again, but she would at least give me something to chew on until then. Oh well.

I need to get in the shower, so my hair can dry before work.

I"ll check back in later, couch.

Yeah, once "the cats" knocked my partial into the floor, DD2 stepped on it, and I took a little trip to crazy down. That was a costly and embarrassing cat-mistake. Today's was a mere inconvenience in comparison.

Usually she dresses herself in my best work clothes, my highest heels, and some truly innovative combinations of makeup colors, topped off with my glasses and says she's "going to work, gotta make money to buy cat food!" She's cute, and annoying, sometimes not in equal measures.

DD1 has dressed the cat, he's such a diva and has no patience with the procedure. He won't claw her to get away, but his face in the pics screams "not amused."

Children. Can't live with them, can't imagine living without them. . .

Yeah, this. I hate that men are from Mars, women are from Venus nonsense. It's just a highly marketable excuse for not being open to different communication styles. So instead of I don't understand my spouse because I don't want to make the effort to listen, it becomes I don't understand my spouse because he's speaking Man/ she's speaking Woman.
And FWIW my male T understands me a lot better than my previous, female T, because he listens to me and she didn't, for the most part.

I am having my mouth surgically reconstructed and I had a temporary denture during part of the procedure ( an expensive temporary denture). One of the dogs got it off the counter somehow and ate it. We made all 4 vomit in an attempt to recover repairable parts. No dice. They chewed it into teeny pieces....