Couch 167 1/2; Tennis Anyone?

I don’t mind being a “face” on campus, but in a therapist’s office...nah.

I guess I feel like if I have an appointment, I already have a right to be there, and I’d prefer they didn’t pop their heads around the corner and say, “I’ll let Piaf know you’re here!”

I don’t know who enjoyed that appointment less, me or Piaf. I’m getting the strong impression she dislikes emotions and dealing with them.

Think the blind-date friend thing went well! Ended up being 4 of us. Conversation flowed pretty well. The only awkward part was when we opted to go for a walk afterward around a lake that was right there, and after a few minutes, the person I sorta knew had to leave to get her kids. Then after a few, the other person I felt more connected to had to go. So it was me and the person I felt least connected to walking for 20 minutes. Made it work though! (Plus now at 8,000 steps.) Now to see if the two people who I wasn't FB friends with before accept my request... or if they're like "Oh God, I don't want to ever deal with LT again!"

I guess that would make me one of the coconuts? Heh

ATAT: Doesn't that make her job extremely difficult? So strange.

ATAT is the the Professor and I am Mr. Howell (not with the money but because of port in library away from shenanigans).

Evening, couch.

I am home from the CVS store that I was covering a shift at. I also sort of ate when I got home...some left over pasta salad. Not the best, but it was something. :\

I am starting to get tired, so I may go take my evening meds (which I have not taken in a while) and head to bed. CVS (my store) all day tomorrow and Sunday.

I need to clean my room a bit too. So much too do. Lol.

You can be one of those random people who somehow gets onto the island and off it even though Gilligan and company can’t manage that.

Or you can be Maryann now I’m the Professor?

Remember her specialties are CBT and existential therapy. And she life coaches too. These don’t necessarily involve emotion.

I also learned today that she’s never been a client of a therapist outside of her training. So she’s never really been a client.

The random person thing sorta fits...

Im so excited about your test! I envision the day we'll be getting our meds right from the couch! Now that there are two of you, i can see the pattern, nay the future!

3am phone calls always wake me up with a huge adrenaline response. At least it was someone I know, not a wrong number. My daughter, trapped in the bathroom sans paper. I can't decide whether that's funny or not!

Bags I be Gilligan!

"Thurston, we have a problem."

I just had an amazing last session before a 25 day break with my therapist. I will write it up in a bit but for now...just....aaaaaahhhhhh.

Glad to hear it.

Your daughter took her phone with her to the bathroom in the middle of the night?
A phone call at 3 am would jar me as well.

I also read some medical article saying premature babies with loving parents can also exhibit disorganised attachment despite no abuse etc.

Do we have a higher risk for insecure attachment? I read we're more sensitive to parenting style and have higher risks for mood disorders.

I'm obsessed with trying to understand why my parents rejected my twin and me despite us being supposedly very wanted babies. Like we used to be paraded around as "miracle babies".

The way my T puts it (and corresponds with some articles I've read), is that being in the NICU and not being able to be held and to have to suffer medical procedures is severly traumatizing. We weren't even supposed to be out of the womb, and when we were--that is the very critical time of mother-child bonding. WHen it gets disrupted like that, the "normal" attachment pathways get re-routed, so everything that comes after goes down the different pathway.

AKA: When I did come home from the hospital (4 months later), I probably did not react or act the same as a full term baby. The only thing I know from my mother was that it took hours to feed me because I kept falling asleep. My T thinks that in order to cope in the hospital, I shut down, and that probably affected how my mom felt she was attached to me...etc...snowballing into a lifetime of attachment.

I hope that makes sense. I understand it, but what I don't understand is that if my parents were "good enough" (and I didn't experience any abuse like you did), than I would think that the next 18 years would have mitigated that trauma. So, I don't know. And it is hard to come to terms with something that you can't connet to. I can't connect to my newborn self, or early childhood self (up until 11-12) because I have no memories of it.

The reading material being limited to the chemical breakdowns listed on the bottles of hand soap and cleaning products might have some bearing on her decision.

Informal couch poll?

Yeah no way I'd bring my phone into the bathroom. Though I can see the issue if it wasn't just that she peed and had no TP. Drip dry! Might be different with the #2

I often bring my phone to the bathroom. I have children so no other space to browse the internet in peace most of the time.

At 3am? - that is the sticking point for me. When my person was sick, I kept my phone on and in the bedroom - but now I leave it in the living room when I go to bed. If I was asleep and had to get up to go to the bathroom, I would not think to pick the phone up first.

OMG, my parents said I'd sleep and sleep and was really effing hard to soothe as a baby too.

Not that I can connect to young me either because I've only very few memories up to adolescence too...

Edit: can't find that study. Basically neurological impairments can affect attachment even at 18 months despite sensitive parenting.

Kinda like babies born drug addicted?

End edit.

I don't think 18 years of "good enough" parenting necessarily guarantees a well adjusted adult though...even if one is born full term. There's also a lot of factors involved.

I've a friend with 2 kids. One, she wasn't depressed, so she says she had secure attachment to him and he's reasonably OK but he's a teen who became suicidal rom "mild" (friend's words) bullying (for example) despite supportive parents. She was in a deep depression when her other kid was a baby and he's got mental health issues going on.

Then there's your parents' own life history changing their genes via epigenetics. There's this book "It didn't start with you" (by Mark Wolynn) and if I recall right, it has some cases of adults who develop issues because of their parents / grandparents' traumas despite having "good enough" parenting themselves.

And even being emotionally neglected (despite well meaning, caring parents) can cause stuff.

No phone in the bathroom for me at 3 am.

And if someone woke me up at 3 am with a phone call because they can’t deal with no TP on their own I would be severely pissed. SM, you’re taking this much better than I would.

I like to think I'm a fairly intelligent, self-aware person, and I have only discovered in the last few years that I was emotionally neglected/abused by my parents. I really just thought that stuff was normal and/or I deserved it, but apparently it wasn't and I didn't. So I think sometimes it can be hard to know what "good enough" parenting even looks like if you didn't get it.

Everybody else thinks my parents are great, but that's because the worst stuff happened primarily at home. I also suspect my brother and I had different experiences/interpretations of our childhoods, but I'm not nearly close enough with him to talk about this kind of thing. I sincerely doubt he could hear or validate my experience anyway.

I keep my phone in the bedroom with me but not at all in the bathroom. Not at 3am or anytime, really.

StressedMess--that's hilarious. Is she a teen? I think of phones as part of their anatomy almost.

Tangentially related (to youth, laziness and burdening other people): When I was a kid, we didn't have tv with a remote (too poor). One day, my siblings got into a power struggle about who would change the channel, so they ended up calling neighbors from up the street to hurry over. When the neighbor got there, the sibs begged them to change the channel. They wouldn't budge to do it themselves, but one of them had to have gotten off their butts to get to the phone. The neighbor was Pissed. Off.