[Elio]

I wanted to share this as a separate thread as there seems to be lots of thoughts around presents and T. This is my session notes from last Thursday where I gave T my presents. Be warned. It is very long.

[Elio]

I got to your office. I rearranged stuff in my backpack – pulled out box and journal, stuffing my coat into my backpack. I opened the door to the basement suites and saw the new rug in the waiting room. I didn’t like it simply because it was new, very light/bright, broke up the pattern in the floor… and because it was new. I headed down the stairs. At the base, Dr. F office door was open, I noticed his rug and that had me remembering that you had a rug in your office too, a red rug. I pushed the button and went into the waiting room. I put the box and journal on the table and stood there for a bit. I debated about standing as sitting puts different strain on things. Eventually, I sat down. I pulled out my phone and pulled up the Minecraft video of “It’s raining tacos”. I picked up the box and journal and tilted it, I didn’t want to move the box very much when I walked because of the puzzle . You came out to get me shortly thereafter. You said Hi, I said Hi. We headed back with you stopping to turn off the call light. Yep, back in glasses today. Yeah me for paying attention to something not in my head. Once in the office, I sat a little closer to the middle of the couch and you went to sit in the south chair then you caught yourself and said something about sitting in both chairs. I wonder if I made a face. I didn’t want you to sit in the south chair. I wouldn’t have said anything. It would have been wrong; the space would have felt wrong/different. It would have been a distraction/disturbance for me. I’m glad you moved back to the northern chair. You asked me if sitting in a chair would be better. I shrugged at this – physically maybe, mentally/emotionally – no. I said something about it being fine. I teased about me sitting in the middle and confusing things, then I moved to the northern end of the couch.

I sat the box and journal at my feet and my bag was beside me. I pulled out my phone and started playing the song, saying compliments of grandson – and I handed you the phone. While you watched the video, smiling at it, I pulled out the blanket and draped it across my lap, then moved my backpack to the floor as well. Once done, you asked about compliments of grandson. I told you the story of the song; how not this past visit but the one before, I had been chatting with a friend and he wanted to chat with her to. How he chatted using emojis and then he would make up lyrics to whatever he picked as the emojis. You thought that was great/wonderful. I said that he told me it was my turn to pick emojis. I picked a few things one of them being a taco. That triggered him to remember the song and he started singing parts of the song. You asked me if I thought he was making it up. I said yes. Then we went to share it with wife … one thing led to another and I asked him if he made it up or if he heard it. He said he heard it, so I googled it and sure enough there it was. So, we listened to it. I told you that this past weekend he had his iPhone with him and we ended up listening to it every couple of hours. You said that you could imagine him dancing, doing the robot parts (yep) and could feel his joy/happiness. I wanted to share that song with you because I thought about it earlier in the day and played it and it is just a happy silly song. I was nervous/uncomfortable about today. I wanted to ease things inside me. I thought the song might help me get into a good headspace, the right headspace. I’m not sure it did. It did give me time to get my blanket out without being watched which I was grateful for – I don’t know why. I didn’t want to be watched right then. Some point during this discussion you had handed me back my phone and I put it back in my bag.

I looked at the box and stuff at my feet. I said that I was uncomfortable with things today. I’m not sure if you asked about if I knew were that was coming from, if you did, I did not answer. Slight pause as I continued to look at the box, the journal, and the card on top. I pulled out the card and handed it to you. You asked about reading it. I said yes. You thanked me for the card and said something nice about what I had written (look it’s already faded, dang it). You said that you could see the curiosity in the fox on the cover of the card and asked if I saw it. I said no it was the word wonder that made me think of you. I liked that it wasn’t a specific holiday message. When I saw it at the store, I thought about you and how you are with me lots of times. It feels like you are open to whatever transpires between us with wonder, curiosity, and something else along these lines. Sure there’s compassion and empathy there – I think there’s something else along the lines of wonder, curiosity – maybe it is simply interest. Again, thank you for being you, for being in my life in this way. You again thanked me for the card and sat it on the table.

I again looked at the pile at my feet, at the box and my journal. I sat there for the briefest of moments. I took a breath, moved the journal, opened up the box and pulled out the 3 presents. Another pause – how did I want to share this with you? Which did I want to start with? There had been no fantasy around this. I said that this was where the question from last session came from. I was scared. Once I started there was no going back. I think you had asked if I wanted to talk about the fear/uncomfortable feelings. No, I didn’t. I didn’t want to meta talk around this.

I reached down and gave you the package that was on the bottom, the minions present. As I handed it to you, I said that this is the present we already talked about. I said to go ahead and open it. You started to open it gently. I said it was ok to tear the paper. You said that you always struggle with the to tear or not to tear dilemma of unwrapping presents. You tried to just undo the tape for a little bit longer then you ripped it. I reached out my hand for the wrapping paper and put it in the box. You made an exclamation of joy/excitement/happiness. You asked about playing with it. I shrugged. I was very unsure about playing with it. You went to open the box and I said that one side was untapped from where I opened it to put the batteries in. You opened it and pulled out the tray. You tugged at the car, and I said to flip it over. You did and saw the twist ties. You undid the twist ties and the car started to fall. You got the car off the box and put it on the floor, I had said to turn it on but I don’t think you heard me. I told you that you had to turn the lever/button to get the remote to be unlocked. You were puzzled for a moment and asked how, then you figured it out. You made a comment about wondering how it worked. I again said to turn it on. You turned on the remote. I said to turn the car on, and you reached down and turned it on. You started pushing the levers to try to figure out how it worked. Somewhere early on here you commented about being able to run up to six in the same area/time. I responded that I could have brought mine in but didn’t have room in my bag. You asked if I bought one of these, I said no one of the other/earlier ones. You figured out that it took both levers to make it go forward and backwards. You wondered about the other ones and I said yes the same as those. As you played with it we talked about the car and playing with it. You inched it around until it hit my shoe. You said something about trying to do that. That felt like you were reaching out to touch me, in some way, or pull me into the play. I don’t think I had gone distance, I think I could have though. You continued to play with it some running it under the table and around the office some.

Then you asked me if I wanted to play with it. I didn't want to play with it, I was afraid of breaking it or damaging something. Not mine, yours. I took it because you asked me to (offered it to me). I didn't feel like I had a choice. There were moments of laughter while I played with it. I tried to be involved, stay present, and tried to figure out when the right amount of interacting with it had passed so I could give you back the controller. As I played with it, I noticed how fast it moved; at one time it was headed towards your wooden filing cabinet. I panicked that I was going to scratch the wood and quickly reversed actions. It touched and moved off. I wasn’t fast enough. You asked if it did it or if I did it. I said that I did it [trying to get it to stop from hitting the filing cabinet]. Having the remote started feeling like I was holding the hot potato. Again, fear of being caught with it, fear of breaking it or damaging something else with it. I wanted to see how to flip it over to show you about that. I looked about the room to see what I could use. You had run into a few things and it didn’t flip over so I didn’t know for sure how to make it happen. I tried to use my backpack I think… hmm well whatever I used it worked and I got it flipped over. I noticed right away that the controller was now backwards. To make the car go forwards I had to pull the levers down. It was a trip. After a few moments, I commented about this new discovery and offered it back to you so you could see how it went. A sigh of relief to give it back to you. You agreed that it was a trip. There was some discussion about how controlling the car by sides verse one lever controlling forward/backwards and the other right/left was hard enough for drivers the flip version made it even more mind blowing. I made the comment that if you ever needed to just get a way for a little bit, put it down blue side up and play with it. The amount of concentration needed to remember how to move it would cause other things to slip off to the side.

I believe you had flipped the car over a few times to see how to do that. It was blue side up. You asked me if I wanted to play some more. I looked at my watch and you said something about maybe you are playing too much. I said no, just have other things – indicating the other presents. Somewhere in here I started telling the story about purchasing the car. I started back at the beginning, explaining how my Christmas shopping had been all on Amazon. I flipped the car green side up. I said that this was what caught my eye, the little boys eye (the orange and green). I told you that I saw that and thought oooo you need to have this (mommy needed to have this). I said that like many of these initial urges, I walk away from them and wait and see if I come back to them. I did come back to this one several days later and it was sold out. I watched it for a few days then I emailed the company to see if they were going to get any more in stock before Christmas. They said no. I continued to watch it on Amazon checking every day for several days, just in case one got returned. I also would go out and google for it. Then one day it showed up in my search. I backtracked a little here and said that I had found one on eBay for 70 some dollars but that was too much. You had a shocked look on your face. I reassured you that I did not spend nearly that amount on it and that I couldn’t believe that anyone would spend that much for it, but someone had. I still can’t believe spending that much on it. I was able to tell myself no to that, though I kept looking. Then one day a search came up in a reasonable price. I debated purchasing it for a little bit because it was from some company I had never heard of and it seemed like they carried lots of different things, like a seen-on TV store. I was leery about buying from them; however, based on how much I searched for it, I knew there was a need there. I figured that if I bought it then I’d have it on hand and I could decide what to do with it. I still didn’t have to give it to you, I could give it to a toy drive. I wouldn’t have any problem buying for a toy drive. So, I bought it. I told you how there was no expedited shipping or anything so I wasn’t sure it would make it on time. I told you how after several days I still had not heard from the company on if they had shipped it, so I called them. They had shipped it and it was to arrive Wednesday by 8pm (last night). I motioned to the remaining 2 presents and said that I went out yesterday to get the last one and it was there when I got back. You asked me how I felt about it, I said relieved because then I would have all three, that I probably wouldn’t know what to do if I didn’t have all three and this one was kind of the big important one.

I then said something about finding the next present. That I had been shopping again for grandson when I saw it. I put it in my cart with little thought and bought it with the other things being bought at the time. I think I mentioned here that this was from the younger girl. I handed it to you and as you took it it jostled the pieces inside and you shook it slightly, saying that you have a guess as to what it was. As I wrote in my journal, I was not happy with myself for buying it. I started questioning what I was doing right away. How a maybe on one had now become 2. You opened it, and to some degree struggled to get all the tape off the box. I reached out my hand for the wrapping paper again. You handed it to me and I put it in the box. You asked if it was for us to put together and I said something about if that is what you want to do with it. I said that it was a step up in size at 300 pieces. You talked about how we had talked about doing a larger puzzle over several sessions when we wanted to, and storing it under the couch or someplace. I thought, I already have a puzzle under the couch. Or I did the last time I laid on the floor and colored because I looked for it and saw it was still there. It’s like my personal hiding spot or secret … I don’t know. It feels good.

You asked me to tell you about it that something must have caught my eye. I said that this one was about you. You looked the picture. I paused for a brief moment and then relayed that when I watched the video of your presentation on the power of shared experiences, when they introduced you, they said that you enjoy fly fishing. You were smiling as I shared this. When I saw the picture of the fishing hut, it reminded me of your liking to fish and I thought that you could related or be connected to the picture. I then said and pointed to the sky that I thought it was pretty. You said it was pretty/beautiful. She – the younger girl loves puzzles, she spent endless hours doing puzzles. She couldn’t imagine that you didn’t do puzzles too – you being the general you. She wanted to share her love of puzzles with you too.

Inside I kept waiting to be yelled at. There were so many times I didn’t look at you. It felt like I hardly looked at you throughout this entire session. I know that is not completely true, I do feel that my looking at you was very limited.

Then I told you about getting mad/angry. I told you that I recognized that it was coming from the older boy. About not getting what he wants, always following the rules. I told you that when I realized the anger was coming from him, I thought, “I know what caught your [his] eye”. I went looking for it and it was too expensive. I said that as I was looking at it and others like it, when in the Amazon feed of suggested items, I found this item and I thought/he thought --- oh that’s interesting/cool. I could do that. However, it was out of stock on Amazon. I said that luckily it was more common and I was able to find it locally. I wanted to show you the item that was too expensive. I again pulled out my phone and tried to locate the picture of it. I couldn’t find it right away, so I gave you the third gift. While you opened that gift, I continued to look for the item. You had just got the gift open and commented “Thinking Putty… Magnetic Thinking Putty!” when I found it. I handed you my phone. I said that this was way too expensive, that I knew it and he understood it. You agreed that it was too expensive. This made me a little sad, probably because it reinforced reality. It was good though. Just a little sad to know that there is a limit/boundary here. I don’t disagree with it in theory. In practice, well in the heart, it’s hard sometimes. He didn’t like it and he was mad. Thanked me for showing you the picture because then you would have the picture. You asked me about the robot. I said well it was a kit, and programmable and while he would like the programmable part he/I wasn’t sure if you’d like the programmable part. That I thought it could be something cute on your desk. That it has a face, and personality. You agreed that it did seem to have a personality.

We returned to the thinking putty and you pulled it out of the packaging opened the tin and pulled it out. You read the information on the packaging about charging it with the magnet for 5 seconds and then trying to make the snake dance. You started out with the whole thing as a coil and we got no movement. Then you pulled off a small part and charged that and then you pulled out even a smaller part from that. You hung it upside down and played with it against the magnet. We couldn’t completely tell if the magnet was moving the putty. I suggested that we turn it the other way so that the magnet would pull it up. That worked, we saw the magnet pull the little piece up. I don’t remember if it was the little strand that jumped up to the magnet or the ball or maybe both. I think it was the little strand. We both had it jump from our hand. I suggested that we use a little more putty and I tried to do the snake thing with a slightly more amount of the putty. It worked some. Might work better with longer charging. It also seemed like we could push it or pull it depending on which side of the magnet we used; which made sense. You rolled the putty into a ball, charged it, and then placed it on my palm. It moved some but was hard to tell if that was just because of creases and movement in my hand so I suggested that we use the box. We were able to push and pull the ball with the magnet some. We wondered if shaping it after the charging caused it to lose its charge – unsure. I also wonder if we charged it longer would it hold the charge longer. Whenever you charged it you tried to count to 5 slowly, fun, funny, silly memory.

You were playing with the ball and wondered if it bounced. You dropped it into the lid of the container and sure enough, it bounced. You dropped again to have it bounce even more. Then you started to put it all away. You put the magnet on top of the putty then the lid. I said something about that possibly making it hard to get the lid off. You said something about good thought and opened it back up and moved the magnet to the bottom of the container. I asked if that made it easier, you tried. I don’t remember if you answered or if it made a difference.

Somewhere in here you thank me for recognizing and listening to what was going on inside me and helping the older boy find something else. You are right, it was important that I do that, that he got to participate.

At one point while playing with the putty, you made a comment about the blue color. This reminded me about one of the things that caught my attention about it was the suggestion about trying to make it act like a wave. I told you about that on the ad. You were putting it away at this point, you thought that you probably had to start it already in the shape of a wave. Wave, ocean, boat, make the wave move, control the wave… it was important to me that I find it in blue because of this wave/water connection. I had originally bought it in silver because there was a store by my house that had it in silver. I called another store and they said they had it in the blue. I went out on Wednesday to buy it in the blue.

One thing not talked about during session was the wrapping paper. Each gift was wrapped in a different paper. The remote control car was wrapped in the Minions wrapping paper. The remote control car was wanted/given by the little boy. He likes the Minions, he finds them funny. The puzzle from the younger girl, she at first wanted to use fancy/elegant wrapping paper to please her mommy, to have her mommy feel special, important – and I think impress mommy. Then when looking at the wrapping paper and seeing Winnie the Pooh compared to the other options… Winnie the Pooh is loved and treasured from childhood. We thought, hmmm used the Winnie the Pooh last year. Looked at other options again. We do have some fancy wrapping paper, but…. Winnie the Pooh was right, so she picked it. I knew as soon as the older boy picked something that I’d use the Skylander wrapping paper. He’s the one that picked it out from the store to begin with a few years back. He likes to say Skylander. We still haven’t looked into the game or know anything about it. Grandson isn’t interested in it so we feel we are not allowed to investigate it. When I told a friend that in post session discussions, she was all like so… learn about it, and offered to learn how to play it so we can play it together. I think it’s just a video game though. I don’t know. We might talk about this on Tuesday. I’m not sure though. I really really wished I would have kept some of the wrapping paper from the actual presents. I have been wanting to make a collageish thing in my notebook of the wrapping paper and pictures of the gifts. I know I can still take scraps of the wrapping paper from here, as we have it here at the house. I don’t think it will be the same, but I will probably do that because I want the collage/memory page. I do have a picture of the presents all wrapped. I think I will look for the box though on Tuesday, just in case you have not tossed it yet.

I got quiet and was looking at the floor. You asked me how I was doing. I said that I was ok, I would be ok. I said hard. I said that I was still scared. You wanted to know how in my body - where felt it. I said that it was hard for me to sit still, I was rocking/jerking slightly - like I wanted to get up and run but I was holding myself back, I said I wanted to cry, I said I was all folded in on myself, I said that I brought my blanket and I petted it. I told you that I was scared that I was going to get yelled at and that I know you are not like that. I still expected to get yelled at, that I was bad, inappropriate, wasted the money.

I looked up and said I love you. You said I know. Smiles, warmth. Something else said and my watch started to go off. You said something about warning. I teased, yes 5 min warning, 30 sec break. You said call time out. That helped a little. You started to talk about something and I said how about the puzzle. [The first puzzle T and I put together has been sitting on a bookshelf for many months. It is a glow in the dark puzzle and we’ve been waiting for it to be dark early enough to see the glow in the dark in action. Even though it’s been getting dark early enough, we had not returned to it yet.] You wondered if it had gotten enough light. I thought it would have because of the one light sitting there always on. You said that there’s no easy way to turn off the lights and the overhead light doesn’t work. I thought it worked when we first started, but maybe you took the lightbulbs out of it because it was buzzing. Maybe it never worked and I’m thinking of the buzzing from one of the offices on the hill. You proceed to turn off some of the lights and then you said that you were going to open the door so that you didn’t kill yourself on the stuff in the middle of the floor. I indicated ok. I wondered if part of this wasn’t because of … in room, in dark, alone with client, not a smart thing to do as a therapist; just one of those things. It doesn’t bother me if that played into it or not. I think maybe I thought this because you could have started at the door and turned off the lights as you got closer to the puzzle. You have a lot of lamps. As you were turning them off, I got the journal sheets off my notebook and saw the insurance stuff. I commented that I had something for you (this comment was not said like I had another present for you). Eventually you got them all turned off. You went to check on the puzzle and no couldn’t really see anything. You touched it and said that you could feel the special paint on it. You pointed the one light a little more directly on it for a few moments then turned it off again. You said that you could see some of it, but not much, that it needs more light. You said that it is like how the stars on the ceiling work. I said ok, you went around the room and turned on the lights again. You sat back down and said something about me having something for you. I gave you the journal.

I pulled out the insurance stuff and said that this came in the mail. I was concerned because if I understood it correctly, I was going to owe you about $2000. You were looking at it. I said that because they had paid stuff I used the money I had set aside in case the insurance didn’t pay out as well to pay my orthodontic bill. You said not to worry about it. That you were sure that the billing people could sort it out. Then you noticed that the date of service on the one sheet was from when you were still with the old clinic. This bothered you because it would have been before you were a business – that they were processing it through incorrectly. You said you’d talk to your billing people. You said that this is why you have billing people. I said that they were doing something strange with my insurance, reprocessing everything with the same CPT but with a new descriptor of gender … at first, I couldn’t remember the second word, the I remembered Gender Reassignment. This kind of bugs me because I’m not doing reassignment; whatever. We talk a bit more about this, mostly in circles of not sure what they were doing, your billing people would look into it. I said to tell them not to run the card they have on file because it doesn’t have that amount on it. You said that they wouldn’t do that. I said that I set it up for them to just charge it automatically each month. You said something about after I get a bill, I said no, that they charge it and I get the receipt but after that first month it’s only been like 50-70 dollars. Something was said about next year’s insurance, and I said that I still am covered by wife but I’ll have to pay the copays even after the deductibles. I said that I did decide to get insurance from new job because it wasn’t too expensive and I didn’t know if I could find better service there for somethings. I said like wife’s insurance does not have podiatry and new job does.

I said I wondered if that is what they were doing, that they had decided that I still had to pay the copay even though I had reached the deductibles because I had yet to reach the out of pocket maxs. It used to be that if you were double covered you didn’t have to pay the copays at all. Insurance is all weird. You tried to reassure me that it will be all ok. I’m not so sure – well sure it will be ok. I want to make sure you get paid. I also wondered but did not bring up the concept that you once said that we could try to pursue getting some type of back dating on you being in network due to continuity of care. I don’t want to fight it though. I just want to make sure you get paid and it is not a headache. A couple of times through here you thanked me for making copies for you. I wanted you to have the information as soon as possible since they are saying that they overpaid you and I don’t know what that means to you – if they will expect you to pay that money back to them or what. I’m really uncomfortable with how insurance handled this. I guess the one good thing about having only single coverage is that it is clearer how the charges will go because of no coordination of benefits.

I noticed the time of 6:03 and I worry. I asked if you have anyone after me – you don’t so I relax. Don’t need to linger but also don’t need to hop right up. You put the insurance stuff away.

me: I love you
you: I know
me: I’m going to miss you this weekend.
you: I know
<silence>
you: I’m there.
me: yes, you are there
<silence>
you: Thank you for being you

I ask about Tuesday to help move me along. You check your phone, yes 4:15pm. You ask if I want another time. I don’t answer, I wonder if it would be better for you if I have a different time. I could do a different time, it will be pretty quiet, I could leave for middle of the day appointment. You ask if I will be working and I say yes, I will be working. You said so 4:15 it is.

I pack up things in bag and you offer to keep the box. I said something about hoping you could take care of the box. Maybe I should have brought it home, then I would have had the wrapping paper. Thank you on both part and reassurances from you. I get up, I am sore to get up. Head towards the door. Hard to leave, I am leaving. More thank you, you wish me a merry Christmas, I again say thank you. At the top of the stairs I put my coat on and head out. I was not paying attention as I came through the door at the top of the stairs and I ended up letting the door bang. I cringed at that.

I really enjoy your session notes, Elio

[WarmFuzzySocks]

I enjoy them too, Elio.

I remember beforehand you’d posted that you were unsure about the presents. I enjoyed reading about the care that went into choosing them. They’re lovely gifts.

[SalingerEsme]

Thank you for sharing your session, especially the dialogue between you at the end.

[rainbow8]

Thank you for sharing! You could publish a book of your session notes. Very interesting and heartwarming to read.