Couch 137: Jung's Obsession

So jealous! 6 weeks til our pool opens! Tomorrow the apartments dont even have water!! They sent an email: dont use the toilet. Um, i think you mean, dont FLUSH the toilet!

Ours is open year-round, but they don't start heating it in the "winter" (well, what we consider winter anyway heehee) until March. It stays open though I imagine because of the hot tub being in the same fenced in area. It felt so wonderful this evening!! I dang near fell asleep I got so relaxed. I think I'll drum a little before I go to bed. H is out on a job and son isn't home from class yet, so I've got the house to myself again. Glorious!

Night couchies.

Forward fold - you could do that too with yoga!

Here are links to the 2 children's books I found that I really liked and read in today's sessions, T read the first one to me and I read the 2nd one to T ...

Hi couch,

Thanks for all the pocket riders. T didn't fire me.

I wanted to apologize right away and did for recording and for lashing out at her. She wanted to talk about why I feel she'll take my parents' side because of their shared Christian faith. So I tried explaining how numerous sermons and people have honestly espoused similar beliefs - that you can beat your child black and blue to break their wills so they'd be godly. How I thought my psychiatrist would be a safe, progressive Christian whom I trusted (he disclosed his mother used to punch him repeatedly) then felt all my trust was shattered when he suggested reparative therapy and laughed at me over bruises... She's pissed at him.

She asked me to be OK with uncertainty of my memories, that what matters is the emotional content and that basic facts like I got hit a lot. She asked me to accept that I'll doubt and then choose to believe myself rather than seek reassurance.

Then I reminded her that I hadn't apologised properly about the recording.

She was disappointed with my action of recording without her knowing however. She says she understands why I did it, and would like me to stop. She proposed writing down key points together at the end of the session and for me to list down things I want to clarify inbetween sessions rather than listening to the recording. She said she felt I was brave, and hopes I will respect the relationship built between us. She also brought up how I could have chosen not to tell her, and she would not have known. She says there's a trust issue which has been longstanding - her trying to get closer but unable to, me trying to open up but unable to.

I also apologised for lashing out at her and yeah she would like me to work on displacing anger in sessions rather than onto myself or others who care about me.

She gave me a paper bag marked "this is a bullsh1t bag" and said she trusts our relationship enough to feel I can handle being called out when I BS(intellectualise, deflect etc). I DID tell her I often don't even know when I'm BSing...

I said I felt oddly sad at the end of session. She said that's to be expected since I'm losing recording.

I don't know how I feel yet. Relieved I think. I did tell her I felt relieved and had hoped we could work things out. She thinks I did already trust on a certain level she wouldn't fire me because yeah I brought my letter. Maybe she's right, but I genuinely did consider since the confession that she could fire me.

At airport...going to airplane mode....oh no..gonna be cut off from world.. teasing..I have no issues with flying...more issues of no Internet. Good thing I did not sleep last night...I'll sleep the flight away. See ya on the other side.

Hope you have a save flight Enjoy (or something like that ^^ )

Sorry that she wants you to stop recording. But I'm glad you were able to talk about it so you can put your mind at rest. I'm glad she didn't want to fire you - I think she would have been very unreasonable if she had!

I'm glad your session went well QM, but I'm having a hard time understanding why your T wants you to stop recording your sessions. Did she give a reason why? I could understand if it was a group therapy situation-then confidentiality would come into play, but if its just you 2 in the room why would she want you to stop?

H is taking his own c*** out on me today. That's all I need. With everything that's happening for me right now I've made such an effort to make sure it doesn't negatively impact on everyone else. Thanks, H.

Have fun, be safe

Not QM but when I asked Current T if I could record -- I often run into this issue of the session being a hazy memory (likely because of my extreme anxiety / shutting down habit) and I get frustrated with my inability to recall stuff -- she got freaked out and said No and that she'd get really self-conscious (and that no one had recorded her since grad school). She asked me a couple of times if I was secretly recording and I said No (I don't coz doesn't seem worth it to have her so upset).

She then repeated that it's because I want to listen her voice everyday (she said it in a sympathetic way) -- I tried telling her that wasn't the case (maybe I should've just gone with that if it would've made her agree) but that it's really frustrating to pay $$$ each session and then not remember the details of what happened.

Anyhow, that's just to say Ts can be odd about it.

I sound about 12 years old on voice recordings

Playing around with snap chat

I just hate my voice--especially my laugh!--on recordings. I think that alone would keep me from wanting to record my sessions. It's bad enough I have to hear myself on videos that I've taken on my phone that my daughter rewatches again and again. Now if I could record just MC saying some really caring things, without my voice in there, that would work (like if I'd recorded the end of the session where he was talking about how to help our daughter sleep...). I do have a couple of his voicemails I listen to from time to time.

Ugh, I'm sorry. Are you still on vacation or back home?

Thanks. Still on vacation.
But I was totally adult and said "I can see you're feeling pretty down, is there anything I can do?" And he was like "No it's alright, I'm just feeling a bit under the weather and haven't slept well".
Argument averted, 3 years of therapy paying off!

I also hate my voice and sound like a child!

I hate my voice on recordings too

im just so down no matter what i try and do i just cant shake it

Oh man, I'm really sorry. I am the same way about being hazy, and I also sometimes assign sinister qualities to my therapist. Having the recording to listen to can correct the record and my therapist really appreciates that it saves a lot of misunderstandings. I think she was alarmed by my recorder at first, and the fact that I put it right next to her, but it hasn't changed what she says at all. I would think all therapists would see the benefit of this.

eta: I don't use it to listen to her voice everyday. I can't believe your therapist was insisting on that. Ego much?

I was so tired that I forgot to put make-up on this morning, meaning I don't feel right. And today was a day I really needed my best Scarlett O'Hara attitude.

Fiddle dee dee.

I kind of assume some therapists worry because don't want recordings used as evidence in the event of a complaint. I would interpret it as quite defensive on the part of the therapist and it would probably bother me.
I don't want to record but might ask anyway to see what he says.

I hope it goes well today atat

She didn't give a reason why. Or if she did and I misremember, I must not have found it compelling.

She said she hopes I'll respect the relationship, if that makes sense, because tbh, I don't understand. I wonder if it's a personal boundary of hers, or her supervisor advising her.

It's just us in the room. I suspect it's also partly because maybe she could think it could foster dependency or be a form of reassurance seeking?

Honestly I told her it frees me to be more present. She disagrees, and thinks I'm less present because I know the recording is a safety net.

I'll respect her and stop, but I honestly would like recordings of safe space imagery exercises, various grounding exercises etc.