Couch 167 1/2; Tennis Anyone?

So my dad got my sister out of jail, but the boyfriend just told me that he has the police out looking for her again, this time for arson

She asked me to ask him for her psych meds and some clothes and he said no. He said she cut holes out in the crotch of all his underwear. He said he's done.

Sorry for posting all of this here. I have no one else to turn to. H doesn't want to hear it and T is on vacation until Thursday.

I don’t understand men.

Random guy at gym, to me as I cart a couple 45-lb. weights to the seated calf machine: You’re gonna feel that tomorrow.
ATAT: You might. I won’t.
(Hooting from his weight-lifting pals.)

Later he comes up to me, apologizes, and asks me out.

I think he was just showing off to his mates when he said that, but I'm not male so that's just a guess tiskettasket (sorry I can't spell your username )

That's awful, Scarlet

I don't understand them either. I usually think it is because I am lesbian -but sometimes they can just be so not understandable.

Also - anyone have a go at dream interpretation? This is the first time the first one has ever showed up in the dream openly -usually she has been behind a door or in shadows or over the phone or it was not her and neither of us realized we did not know the other for awhile.

Oh, I’m not upset. Merely mystified.

You can call me ATAT or @@ like most posters do.

She’s still kind of hidden though, right? Secret passage, etc.?

I had a couple dreams about No. 1 in which I couldn’t find her or she was hidden. Then one night I had a dream in which we were sitting on benches in an autumnal landscape just chatting peacefully. I took it to mean my subconscious had resolved my differences with her (this was after I had dumped her). Maybe yours is heading in the same direction?

Maybe - this was the first one that was not about therapy - I mean she was still a retired therapist but the dream was not about therapy at all - so that helped.
I have come to accept that I simply do not have the ability to have faith or suspension of belief enough in therapy because I do not understand what the therapist was supposed to do or what I as the client was supposed to do that would help in any organized way or with anything real. Using her to sit there while I grieved was the only useful thing that came out of it for me.

Fighting with her had its moments and was good because you cannot hurt a therapist and it was interesting to compare the two of them, but in terms of the usefulness for which they might think themselves as being.

The second one seems like it's about the first woman managing to gain access to the private areas of your life, signified by your person's stuff and your dog, when she turned out to be untrustworthy (her criminal background). She symbolically held you back by delaying you long enough to miss your meeting.

The problem with going to a bar/restaurant you frequent: the various bartenders want to do a shot of Grand Mariner with you. Which is generally OK except when it’s three different bartenders and you have to drive...which equals hanging out with water.

I'll take a stab at your dreams, sd. They both seem to be processing your two therapy experiences in terms of their usefulness as you cared for and lost your person. It seems that the first one (therapist #2) might have understood you more (the common experience in your dream of care taking), but it was cut off--literally, by waking up, but maybe the waking up was also a message or reflection on the ending.

The second dream (with the first therapist) totally sounds like the way you've described your experience in therapy with her--you could never really get a straight or clear answer about what she does and she was always shrouded in mystery or confusion/obfuscation. The concept of fraud really stands out, even if it wasn't securities fraud that she committed. The idea was that you gave everything (donated) related to your person, in going to therapy, and all she did was cause confusion and make you late for something else. (And by giving everything, I just mean that the main use for this therapist was to say things you couldn't to other people in regard to your person's experiences with the medical people.) She really wanted to connect with the you she saw when you talked about your dogs and maybe that's what horrified you about her, the way she was always trying to bond and manipulate you into that kind of relationship.

So, that's my two cents. Your psyche is evaluating and purging these two experiences. One might have been more useful, but was cut off. The other was a scam.

ATAT — sounds like he’s following a bad rom-com script (girl tells off boy = external undying love). But hey, if he’s cute enough, maybe worth an evening out?

SD — don’t kill me but in the absence of knowing what you felt during the dream (from whatever I’ve been told, that’s kinda the best indicator), here’s my shot at it —

The first woman: I’d say it sounds like there’s a bit of conflict about the woman’s role. On the one hand, she seems to have done a sort of kindness (her being a part of the charity organization) in terms of your grieving your person (giving your person’s stuff to the charity), the full impact of which perhaps may be hard to openly acknowledge (the secrecy of her role).

Related to that is possibly the idea that her ways of making money seem sketchy to you (securities fraud type thing).

And, you may possibly regret that you let yourself be influenced because she caught you in your soft spot (your dogs) and you weren’t able to maintain your professional distance (being late to the dean’s meeting).

The second one seems a bit more straightforward but I don’t know what the significance of that song he played was — I’d say maybe it’s that your person tried to live her life to the fullest even when it got really hard (his playing on the piano despite a stroke)? And, it’s something you cherish and have shared / are sharing with the second one?

He was HOPING HE would be feeling that tomorrow!

I have to say, SD, that when you wrote "securities fraud--but not SF" my mind immediately flashed on "SchadenFreude" : either as the experience of enduring therapy, or inherent quality of Ts.


Not to mention, the uhm, "Freud"ish meme.

I'll try and remember to call you ATAT from now on, I might forget by tomorrow though, I have a brain like a sieve

Good on me - didnt answer the phone this noon when auntie called, just read the voice mail that she's a great grandmother again. Then i just buried myself online here and on the weight watchers site until i got the family out of my brain.

Also, tuesday is gonna be a hot one, so i moved t to friday with a text. He is so sweet. Before i would totally agonize over doing that. He gave me a choice between thursday or Friday, both at 10 am. So i chose friday, because thats what iiii want. Not trying to guess what he would prefer. I told him ANYTIME later in the week. Small small thing, but boy can i make a mountain out of a molehill or what. This gives me a whole uninterrupted week - i like!

I literally went to bed at 1 am on Friday, woke up around 9ish, stayed awake for an hour or so, went back to sleep. Woke up again around 1, stayed awake for an hour. Went back to sleep. Woke up when the cats begged to eat at 5 and 10. 10 stayed up for an hour. Forced myself out of bed today at 10:30 to shower because I was covered in sweat.

My jaw is still swollen and i still have a headache because my initial bout of sleeping on Friday (most of it with a mouthguard) caused massive pain and swollen-ness in my jaw/face.

I literally slept an entire day.

I still feel like ****.

Why do I stay alive?

I usually feel like **** when I sleep the entire day. Maybe you will feel better today having done some self care stuff. I hope.

I can't remember what the specific dream crime was although I was told in the dream - it was not something that is a crime in real life but it was not a big deal in the dream. In the dream I was more concerned with if she was scared while there and how she handled the grime -she is sort of fastidious. The sf was because I did not want to write out the phrase securities fraud again.

It was odd to dream of both of them in the same night in two separate dreams.

Dreams are rarely literal, they're associative. I'm thinking of, for instance, the cartoon violence towards Ts that you would imagine: schadenfreude seems like a feeling not unimaginable in your therapy experiences. Whether that's part of the dream, I wouldn't know.

i just realized something now that you said that fkm about dreams rarely being literal. almost without exception when i dream about t, when we're discussing them she'll say "Then dream-T did this/said that" never just says "T did this/said that". Except for the most recent dream she was in. She said "I" instead of "dream-me" or "dream-T". And that the dream had a different tone than previous dreams she's been in. That must be why. Interesting.

I just made my first short story submission. I wanted to do more than one today, but it took an hour to get the manuscript in the proper format for them, write a short biography, go through the online submission process, and then instead of a .pdf, which is what I'd prepared, they wanted a .doc.

Now I'm worried that I should have used Courier New instead of Courier (tomorrow, maybe) or that I didn't save before submitting.

Oh, well. It gets easier the second time, right? Right.

ETA: Duotrope is great, Lost. Thanks for mentioning it.

Anxiously messages T about certain thoughts that I feel we need to discuss...then feels awkward when T responds "OK, we'll talk tomorrow!" Because now I think, is he like "Oh FFS, I'm coming in on a holiday, now we have to talk about this stuff? When I thought LT was generally doing well? Eh..." But...I guess this all ties into my fear of being a burden to people, doesn't it? And my fears that people won't want to deal with me, like my real self?

Right. Easier the 2nd time. Im sure. Treat yourself for a job well down on getting it submitted.
Also, it sounds like the arrogant gym guy wanted himself some ATAT. Clearly, he had no idea your in the process of planning a wedding with Una.

The man has office hours tomorrow. That was his choice. You are not a burden. He could have chosen to not have hours tomorrow. Obvously he wants to work.

Thanks! I just keep thinking back to when we saw ex-MC last year on a holiday and he said to us "I wish I was just cooking out in my backyard right now, but I decided to be responsible and come into work." Which made me feel like s***. I mean, OK, I get the whole being honest thing, but when it's a job that involves talking with people...maybe don't say you'd rather be hanging in your backyard right now? I just worry current T will be thinking the same, like "Ugh why did I come to work today? Oh right, the money! But now I have to deal with LT..."