Couch 134 - The Untriquadium Couch

T texted me

I had told him today is my last day using.opiates and can we meet in wednesday

He said you can do it! You've done it before.

And he said he will check his schedule for weds

I said I'm feeling confident about it right now

He said Good

I'm off work in 30 minutes...yay!

In search of the beautiful bunny pillow. I would love to add it to my reading room.

Try www.lupindesigns.co.uk

For comfort reading, I read: Hello Cruel World: 101 Alternatives to Suicide for Teens, Freaks, and Other Outlaws

And I read a local book of LGBTQ stories of survival if I'm really down due to LGBTQ hatred in the media of my country.

Hugs. I'm sorry you feel unheard. I read your posts and often wish caring feelings are something I can mail over.

Hope it's ok to share what I'm listening to right now. It's a Christian song. That's who I am. It's on my heart that it needs to be heard by someone. I hope it speaks to whoever is looking for it.

Sleep is not possible. Issues I had thought put to rest for at least a little bit are plaguing me.

(((atat))) hope you're sleeping now.

May I take a short nap here? Two days, zero sleep. Not feeling well. xo

My comfort reading are the Discworld novels and Garth Nix books Mainly the Old Kingdom series, for watching I like IT Crowd, Black Books. Peep Show (when I get a new DVD player. Also anything presented by Brian Cox and Dara O'Briein Plus British stand up.

I must go to the ex's place and rescue the rest of my books.

Sometimes I wonder... If I have someone to talk with, once a week or even more rarely, will I still need the therapy? It's really difficult to imagine, because I think no one ever will talk with me for free.

I think so... therapy isn't the same as talking with a friend

(and you know that you can pm me whenever you want...)

That's good. I was actually going to suggest you make an appointment with him and maybe use that as an incentive to keep clean until then. So sounds like that's what you're doing. Hope he can fit you in Wed. We're all supporting you on here!

I agree. My mom said something similar to me, like, "Maybe if you had a best friend right now you wouldn't need the therapy." Which was rather hurtful because my former longtime best friend basically abandoned me a few years ago.

And I do have some pretty close friends now, but I certainly wouldn't expect them to just sit and listen to me for 50 minutes a week and support me without me doing the same for them. Friendship is more give and take than therapy (though certainly you go through some periods where one of you is doing most of the taking). While therapy, according to both T and marriage counselor, is meant to be one-sided, with the caring and support just going in one direction (though it doesn't always 100% work out that way, but that's not the point of this post).

Plus, most of my friends don't have the psychological expertise that T and marriage counselor do. There's a reason T's generally have their diplomas on the walls. It would also be kinda weird if I told my friend I was upset about something my husband did, and she was like, "Could that be coming from childhood stuff with your mom?"

Therapy isn't the same as talking with a friend for me. Hugs, captgut. I've been friendless for several years. What helped me was joining peer support groups offline but they can be dangerous because I had a long time member try to sexually groom me. But I got to know some people with anxiety and childhood abuse there then we chatted/texted/met up and are friends outside of the peer support group now.

If I might ask; do you talk with them about anxiety, CA, etc.? Or do you keep those things for yourself?
Just curiouse. I'd like to have friends with whom I can talk about those topics.

I talked to them about anxiety first, then gradually each of us slowly opened up about "unsupportive family" one on one as time went by.

The group is a huge mixed group where many have family support so unsupportive family tends to hint to who has controlling/abusive/neglectful/estranged families. I don't attend the group now because of the member who tried to groom me and because too many people are out to "13 step" and because my social anxiety is high again.

Then slowly myself and they shared more on painful experiences via text and face to face while also chatting on normal day to day stuff, being supportive of each other, being understanding of anxiety making it hard to meet up etc.

I got to know about 6 people, sone interested in mutual friendship, others not so healthy for my stage of healing (eg pushing forgiveness, invalidating abuse, no boundaries, seeing me as a project to fix rather than a person, treating me like crisis counsellor available 24/7, wanting to push their way onto me and others) so now I've about 2 left interested in friendship.

I've talked about abuse with them, we don't really talk graphic details but brief details sometimes and encourage each other. Crucial I feel is learning over time who is nonjudgmental, who is accepting of dark emotions, who is working on their healing.

And I've come to care very much for those 2 friends despite how the friendship is mostly text. Introduced them to each other so they support each other as well. They've been so accepting of me despite how their CA has been so much worse (They both have dissociative disorders). I've known them about two years now. I feel they're like "siblings in healing" with me and I really value how they've shared their vulnerabilities with me and strive to be accepting and non judgmental like they have been for me.

It really helps me feel less alone. Just like talking with you and others here on the couch at PC. If you are comfortable, I don't mind talking about CA stuff with you.

I don't process abuse experiences with them despite how both work in areas related to mental health because that's for my therapist and me, and their therapists and them. But we share knowledge, validate each other, suggest coping skills and grounding methods without pushing, hear each other, affirm each other.

Sometimes we do talk about specific abuse, eg i have shared things my blood siblings corroborated, they talk about trauma anniversaries, we sometimes disclose things we're deeply ashamed of which maybe we haven't told our therapists. But we encourage each other to process with therapist, normalise feelings of shame esp regarding SH or rage and anguish, a lot of things.

I met my chosen sibling who lives in the USA on twitter and the path to our chosen kinship started from frequent chatting online, slowly risking vulnerability, validating each others' CA experiences.

Knowing them, hearing them and being heard by them has been so invaluable. Much like talking here on PC about stuff, it's formed bonds

I think it's good that you don't use them process trauma, it's simply not their job. Validating each others experiences ans "being heard" is as important. Thx for answering It's great that you've found such good friends.

What I wanted to add is: Not having dissociative disorder doesn't make your abuse less severe...

I get what you're saying, sorry if I sound like I'm invalidating yours or anyone's experience

it's just that I really feel I've never had it as bad as them though it's not a competition.

They've had clinicians invalidate them and so have I and the first time it happened to me, I felt really crazy like I'm just a big whiner. I had spent two years in therapy arguing with my therapist on if I'd experienced "bad enough to be abuse" and then I slowly decided I had even by Asian standards of that era, so having an experienced psychiatrist laugh about it set me back in therapy so much.

So when they shared they'd had clinicians saying the same, I started thinking maybe it's those clinicians being wrong for saying such things. Because they were talking about burns and stuff and those clinicians laughed saying it's nothing, it's common and it sounds so effed up to me.

Because research does talk about dose-response relationship regarding trauma and how not all people with CA develop mental illness depending on complex factors.

I really do hope you can find friends like I have. And should you ever want a listening ear you can pm me if you're comfortable with that.

My mind is in a whirl, not sure if I make a lot of sense.

Thx, same for you if you ever need someone don't worry about invalidating me, I actually do have some sort of dissociative disorder, but I never experienced anything traumatic. That's why I mentioned that, for me, not having dissociative disorder doesn't mean your experience isn't severe.

You actually had a professional laugh at you? I'm so sorry And I'm sorry you're living somewhere where you get invalidated all the time... it's not fait and I'm sure you've gone through enough pain already

My mind has been in a whirl too until yesterday, spending the day 'in my element' or whatever was exactly what i needed to slow it down. I slept 11 hours last night and feel so much more at peace with how things are. It may not be easy, but I'll get through it.