Couch 156: The Clock Strikes...

i left out the passive-aggressive part about cleaning his room. After his friends go home we're going to have a talk about respecting other people and thinking before he does something. Most of the time he's pretty good about that - and I get it, I totally get it just needing to cut loose sometimes - but you still have to THINK before you do something that might affect other people. How could they NOT know that turning their amp up loud enough to play in a baseball stadium in my BACKYARD, would bother me, for crying out loud?!

The whirlpools south of the Strait of Messina are clearly visible from the deck of a cruise ship.

The kittens are Pinky and the Brain in cat form, Salem will sit and look and plan while Willow runs in circles, pounces on bits of fluff and chews his tail. But they never do anything without the other.

Hugs to everyone struggling

Are you my twin?

Maybe?
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Argh I posted a photo after Halloween so that I wouldn't be the cover on Tapatalk. Dang it. Here's an English muffin in hopes that the picture changes.

Yeah, Italian...what a strange culture in the US. Especially one generation removed.

But like you said, siamo tutti italiani oggi! (Mods—“we are Italian today.” Or my version of it, not necessarily correct.)

Now I want pizza.

Ok linguist type people, does English have a word that is not directly translatable into other languages but is not borrowed from another language? you like gestalt in German

Consider this offer — skip the Johnny Walker post divorce hearing and come down and give current T a much needed thwack or two on the noodle (mine don’t seem to be all that effective any more).

Doesn't pretty much every word in English have its roots in another language?

So, worst case scenario, there'll always be an equivalent in Latin or Greek?

My therapist emailed this morning to see how I was doing. I told her my symptoms, including eye problems that are worse. She said GO to urgent care now. I said they aren't going to do anything. She said it wasn't something to mess around with. So I went. Turns out I have shingles in my eye.

Yikes! That sounds really painful. Could they give you something to help with it? That was nice of your T to check in--glad you went to urgent care. Hope you feel better soon.

Glad you got it checked out ruh roh. i hope they were able to give you something for the pain. my mom had an outbreak of shingles last spring but it never got into her eye. i hope you feel better soon!

Holy crap, rr ((()))

Hope it goes away soon.....glad your therapist saw the urgency.

Yeah, they sent me home with a ton of medication and a request to return next week. Trying to get the eye pressure down.

Crucial stuff, here... it speaks to me.

On Intervention:

Interventionist: “ xxx is the one who is acting out the family pain. So everyone in the family looks to her as, ‘You are the problem.’ She wasn’t. She was the youngest child in the family.
Who would have been identified as the problem person in the family?”

Mother says, “It was me. I broke up the marriage...” Then mother goes on to recount her own Mh and abuse issues.

Interventionist: “So I don’t think it’s the daughter’s abuse now that’s the pain under her addiction...actually what I think she needed...and still needs....is to just be heard....just have her experience be witnessed, if you will...”

AY--I don't understand your therapist's take on your situation around family contact. I can't separate from mine either. I know it's something therapists try to get people to do, but it's hard to break a trauma bond just by saying, don't call or see any of those people. Besides, all my other sibs took their therapists' advice first, so I was kind of left holding the bag. I couldn't walk away and still be able to live with myself. So maybe I'm way off, but I totally relate to your tricky family ties, and I have no culture.

I picture Violet in Downton Abbey saying, "What is a 'week end'?" I might look at some of the newer syllogisms (is that the right word? ) that the french have unwillingly adopted into their language, such as weekend, or some new tech words. But i dont think emotion words catch on here, like limerance. That always sounded too much like limericks to me.

Thats what cant explain looks like in my head.

(I feel like I should echo your therapist’s advice and suggest you stop straining your eyes over PC)

Thanks for that — yeah, she gave me a whole spiel (while I looked on incredulously) on how “white” culture (I tried telling her there’s no such thing either and so, that’s when we got on to her husband’s essential Italian-ness) would’ve had me saying eff it to the family with no guilt that I owe them anything.

Sometimes I wonder if she thinks I’m some total hick and seriously fresh off the boat or something who’s never known anyone outside of my countrymen. She has gone to some lengths to explain “America” to me at times and has commented on how surprised she is on how much I seem to know about this country. Sigh.

She’s okay otherwise — I’m feeling rather cranky today. So, will shut up now.

I would find it rather hard to say of someone so dim and incurious who treats others as dim and in need of explanation about a country in which they have lived and studied and worked for—what? 15+ years?—that they are “okay otherwise.”

But then you are a more forgiving person than I and also able to stick with therapists longer. Which reminds me, Info’s now lasted almost as long as my average therapeutic relationship.

Oh, as for thwacks, of course, but remember, bops are free, thwacks will cost you.

~14.5 years -- dang, you're close!

I agree about the dimness but that seems to be my general fate with therapists and for the life of me, it seems I can't find someone who won't trip over themselves about one major thing or the other in a rather catastrophic manner. So, in a weird way, I'm relieved that it's not me who's the cause of her dimness -- if she can still think of her husband / his family as strange furriners, what possible chance do I have?

Speaking of long-lasting relationships, I'll raise you one -- I've now been longer with current T than pretty much all but one of my relationships (and even that, really, I'm cheating a bit in how I count the length of time).

And, there are all your other patients as well who you have helped