Couch 96: Where Furry Things Abound

Thanks for watching out for us Stopdog!
Don't worry. No more emailing the therapist for me tonight. He called, worried about me... Now I feel really silly. But I do have an awesome T! (Sorry if I made you ack...)


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i had to listen to a little bit of his condescending ranting at me but h ended up going to get pizza anyway. he can't fool me. he wants it too.

Thunder! I just heard thunder! I hope we get a big ol' thunderbooming monsoon tonight.

i'm glad you heard from your t JS, but sorry you feel silly over it. i wish my t would psychically realize how much i would love to hear from HER right now. She's heard my psyche before, but I bet she won't tonight, the wine probably blocks transmission ahahahaha and this is likely a very good thing. She'd only hear gobbledeegook anyway.

The rain just started. I was hoping it would wait til h got back.... it's raining even harder now just after typing that first part. It's coming.....

It's coming!!! Not sure you can really see the rain, but maybe you can tell the trees are blowing and the bricks are wet! This is my backyard.

I interrupt my couch spamming for pizza consumption. To be resumed forthwith.

Artie the couch-killer with all her blathering. Sorry gang.

But I just realized something. This whole fear of intimacy thing. How does that, or does it, tie in with my difficulty with confrontation of any sort? Thoughts anyone?

Well confrontation requires revealing yourself, the things that really matter, your passions and your vulerabilities, and so, though it may seem contrary, confrontation is all about intimacy.

Thanks Leah that's what I was thinking, but stated much more clearly than my own thought processes right now!

Well, it's a good kind of silly I suppose. I feel silly for being childish - I feel a bit like I acted like the seven year old when she complains that I took 'forever' at something. However, this child is the one who learned early that 'bothering' people about her needs was a good way to get nothing at all. It was kind of a big thing for me to do that I think. And for T to call... because he was concerned! I'm going to be chewing on that one for a while... I feel silly-happy. And sad too, because for so long...

I wish it would storm here. It's so hot. It'd be nice. I'd stand out in it and get soaked. Ahhhh!

My mother's here and I want to cry.

She buttered my bread at dinner for me, I am nearly 40, and I was repelled, is that just me, or should I FINALLY be old enough to decide if I'd like bread and butter it myself.

I can not wait til she's gone.

I've held onto my goals and myself for 60 hours or so, only 12 more left.

It's not just the bread, peeps, it's 100 big and small things, inappropriate, hurtful, intrusive things, like screaming obsenities at a driver while my daughter was in the car yesterday, cancelling my daughter's slumber party w/her last night because she was in a bad mood, touching me unexpectedly, choosing THE ONLY restaurant in town without a *single* vegetarian option on the out of 400 places for dinner when my dd and I are both vegetarians, and on and on and on.

And really.... it's betraying me when I was a teenager and told her my dad abused me and she ordered a bunch of ******** on false memory syndrome.

And screaming at me so badly that one night when a date wasn't at home that I was too scared to ring my own doorbell so I sat in the winter cold on our steps for hours.

And for vandalizing my house, my father's house, after the divorce, right in front of my eyes, and scaring me.

For leaving my 10 year old brother by the side of the road when we argued "too loudly" (but coming back, at least)

For being so disappointed in me when I came out.

For locking me up in Catholic school until I had to drop out.

For offering me money when I needed caring to pull it together when I had a nervous breakdown at 16.

For violating my privacy over and over

For having another child so many years later and holding him hostage so that I lose my little brother if I don't allow her in my home.

For strangling him, til his poor neck was red, because he wasn't doing his homework "well enough"

For 100 things I can't think of right now that hurt me.

I am so sorry Leah that you are having to deal with her in your home. I wish I knew what to say that could help.

Hang in there Leah

It is. I've spent most of my life enmeshed. First with my mother, then with stbx. It's like not being a whole person. Not being able to survive alone. Like being a parasite. Always looking out at a world that you can't be part of.

It's nothing like real intimacy though (as I'm slowly learning). Real intimacy is all about respect. There is no respect in enmeshment. Each party involved just grabs whatever they can and fights tooth and nail to hold onto it at all costs.

I thought about that, and suddenly, I just wished I had somewhere else to go. When it got really terrible near the end, I guess it was when the police got involved,... I was able to go stay with a friend for a little bit, if just a night or two.

And I realize now... I have no where to go.

Before... I was in her house, and I could leave.

But now.... she is in mine.... and I'm stuck here.

It's going to be okay. This visit ends in about 12 hours but I am feeling pretty broken up under the surface right now.

The meal, perhaps, was very symbolic- nothing nourishing for me here. (Even the salads were seafood... just a little ridiculous.)

When I became a vegetarian at 14, dinner was often beef stew, so I'd eat the potatoes.

But... it did teach me to be a considerate person, and to want to be a better person. I'm never quite sure if I've accomplished that one, but... I do keep trying.

Leah, your mother sounds terrible. I am so sorry she's really being incredibly selfish and awful.

Drop Dead Gorgeous is one of my very favorite movies - so this made me laugh:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/louispeitzma...811#.rp37KqXpq

Mothers, eh? I totally misunderstood my T when he asked me if I saw him as a mother-figure. I thought why would anybody want to be ANYTHING like a mother! I thought he was being objectionable.

Apparently a mother-figure is something desireable, I cant see how.

The first one I see said she could be the good mother for me. I was horrified. First, my mother was okay and second the woman is not motherly. Ack.

I used to feel like that with the stbx it was horrible.
Counting down the hours for you...

Hi couch!! Oh, we are talking moms (sigh) don't know what to do about mine. 60's and still drinking.

Trying to build a life of my own, a few thousand miles away. I'm struggling. Work is becoming boring (was once a dream job!) I have only 1 friend out here and she is always busy. I'm frustrated that everything is so geographically far away where I live. I found a meet up I wanted to go to but it is 40 minutes away after work and I'm still trying to get over my fear of highways. Trying to find a class or volunteering-anything!! I'm sick of myself and sick of living clinging to therapy. But I don't have much. Sorry I'm ranting.

I am relieved that I am not alone in thinking this. Marriage and other romantic relationships are not automatically and necessarily connected to emotional or physical intimacy. Marriage is simply a contract, a relationship is simply a verbal agreement.

A quote I like, and try to live by: "Intimacy is a four-syllable word for 'Here are my heart and soul. Please grind them into burger meat, and enjoy.'"

Edited to add: reading further I find that I'm not really on the same page as stopdog after all, if you think some intimacy or nearness can be good. I don't think it ever can be, for me personally (as usual not making claims for anyone else).

Yes! Thank you - this is it exactly!

I think it's one of those words where all people use it to mean different things and everybody thinks that it means the same thing... I don't know how it is desirable, either. To me it is just frightening.

My mom had issues with me becoming a vegetarian, too. She'd say, "What if your friends want to go to Burger King? Then you'll have nothing to eat." And I'd be like, "First, my friends don't usually go to Burger King. And I could always have fries." When I went to college, it was great because I could eat what I wanted. And they always had a vegetarian entree and soup available at each meal (big school). When I was home on breaks, I would just eat what wasn't meat. Eventually, my mom came around to it, thankfully, though it helps that it's so common now and most restaurants usually have a vegetarian option (or something can be modified).

Now that I think about it, the whole "but what will you eat if you go out with friends?" fits into her whole thing of not revealing any negative/different parts of yourself, including mental health issues, so that you'll fit in and won't cause any problems (like needing to go someplace with vegetarian options).

Not that being a vegetarian is in any way negative, of course!