Couch 172: Couch me if you can

You all are making me feel a lot better about my fear of turning into 2ex than Piaf did.

🙏

Yabbut a slamming door, i would take it you have left the room and are slamming the door to like your bedroom, so AWAY from the person you were talking to. So i would give that a 4. Then 5 - in the room noise, 6- in room yelling, 7- in room pounding, 8-in room throwing, 9- in room throwing at you but missing, 10 - physical assault. 3 - rude noises, 2 - eye rolling. 1 - frankly my dear, i dont give a damn and exit gracefully.

Boy you REALLY hate nonperforming hair!

If you hand an Italian a glass of wine and he pours it on the floor, the message is crystal clear: "There can be no peace between us."

Lol! But I don't think this was really about her hair.

Speaking of nonperforming hair, I would descrbe Piaf’s hair as such.

That’s probably like a 6 on her anger scale.

Do they not cover Intro to Psychometrics in Germany in whatever course she did (assuming her lone specialty isn’t in 19th century German literature)?

If she thinks that scale has equidistant responses (like a good scale should).....I don’t mean to question the quality of the education she received buuuuuuuut.....

She did her formal therapist training right here in the good ol’ US of A.

Today I also informed her she was not very obviously empathic and gets these looks on her face when I weep that look like they’re meant to be sympathetic but things went horribly wrong somewhere along the way and it ends up as a horrified grimace. Then I added if I were a therapist I’d probably be just like her. She found this amusing.

I you take the pencil slamming out of the equation, was she in the ballpark about how much anger you feel over T-3's actions and other therapy violations?

Oh, interesting.

Given that I’d put that around a 7, yeah.

My therapist asked me to tell her the results of my follow up exam yesterday, so I did. She did not reply and is now on vacation. It is not at all like her to vanish like that. She will, at the very least, say that she won't be online while she's gone. And she definitely would have replied about my test results.

Possibilities that I'm stewing over:

1. She is fed up with the whole ordeal of my freak out over the past 10 days leading up to the re-exam, and she is not going to reply until she gets back. (She has never done this before, but it seems the most likely).

2. She replied but the email bounced.

3. She drafted a reply and forgot that it's in the draft folder, then split for vacation and left her work phone behind.


4. Her SO and/or family made her leave her devices behind so that she won't work. She wanted to reply to me but they were firm. (I have no idea about this at all, as she never says anything about a SO and very little about kids.)


5. She got into an accident.

6. Something has happened to a family member.

7. She got arrested.

8. She blocked my email and is going to return with a list of therapists for me to switch to.

I suspect it's a simple brain fart.

Wait a bit and follow up?

I wonder where throwing my pen "at" t (but missing on purpose) would fall on the anger scale. that was a long time ago though.

This sort of speculation is never productive. She might simply be on vacation in a place with no email (eg Idaho. )

I did, this morning. Radio silence.

The thing is, when I saw her a couple days ago and was concerned that I hadn't heard from my doctor about a request I made, she said she was worried for my heart because she knows how isolated I feel with this medical stuff and not getting a reply from the doc on this one issue would make that feeling worsen.

She was still working when I emailed, though. And where she is going, she has email, but may very well choose not to work (for good reason). Worrying is never productive, but that doesn't make it stop.

How did it go, Art?

I don't know, from your description, #3 seems more likely to me. Or maybe that's because I do that all the time.

When is she back?

I don't know if this is something she'd be okay with, but if you don't hear for the next couple of days, I'd try texting or calling?

I was really thinking bigger harder stuff. T and i used to throw stuffies at each other. Also depends if the person is aware of it coming or blindsided.

True enough. Sorry!

Home from session. She did kiddingly yell at me. I told her that's ok I deserve it. it was a good ice breaker. Anyway...

Good but difficult session I sobbed for most of it. Especially when she said something about wasting so much time I felt like she was accusing me of wasting her time. But she clarified and said that maybe she should have made me come weekly again before now. That maybe she had been colluding with me or something for awhile. I said through my tears but honestly we did do a lot of good work. I've made so many positive changes in my life. She said yes you have. we talked about the karpman triangle she drew it out for me and we talked a bit about how i find myself in all of those roles. we talked more about the codependency thing i told her i'd gone to that CODA meeting and i told her what i shared about me, said i plan to get the workbook she said good we can work on that some here. i told her about my talk with my mom. i told her about the discussions i had with h over the weekend and how we went hiking sunday. i told her we talked about our finances and stuff. i hadn't cried so much in a session in a long time. on the way home i realized that the transference crap is gone (at least for now) and i don't have those overwhelming love feelings for her (again, at least for now). she is t, nothing more nothing less. i like seeing her that way. i need to tell her that next week. i guess that talk with my mom did a lot. i don't 'need' t to 'be my good enough mother' anymore. or something. I am SO ready to do this bit for the next 3 months. thanks for listening.

eta: oh yeah i also told her that she'd brought up the codependency thing with me before in the past but that I'd poo-poo'd it at the time and that I was very very glad that she had brought it up again because i was so ready to hear it this time and do something about it.

That’s funny—Info told me about the Karpman/drama triangle last time out, art, and I considered PM’ing you about it.

She'll be back in a week and a half. I think this time, I will just leave it (which, if I do, will be a first). Something feels really wrong. I just don't know if it's because of me or something else.

In my mind t is on death’s door. We were supposed to have a session today. He cancelled by text by saying he is sick and needs to reschedule. Not alarming at all..

2 mins after the text, his receptionist calls and says T is REALLY sick and needs to reschedule. Just the emphasis put in really has me worried.

Rationally if he was that sick I have enough mutual friends with t (including his wife) that I would hear something. But for now.. I worry. I think receptionists need lessons on how or to worry clients!