Couch 193: The Aurora Borealis Couch

Dreams about my person again - which make me both happy and sad when I wake up to it having been a dream. The dreams usually acknowledge she died (or sometimes fake died for some convoluted purpose) but is now back. This one was weirder than usual in that she was halfway between being back and being a ghost. And involved me trying to figure out what to do to get her driver's license and passport figured out(it seems she was not the sort of ghost who did not need those items) because of course she was dead but she wanted to visit a library in Leeds (her period was post-modern Brit). In this one I also kept checking to make sure I wasn't imagining that she was back - and was so happy when she really was still there when I got back home etc.
What amuses me about these dreams is how much of a lawyer I become in them - trying to figure out how to negotiate the rules

I have a very small bathroom.

I have dreams where my previous dogs fake died - mostly of the one who was euthanized. It's like somehow, the euthanization didn't work and not only that, but he isn't sick, either. Or sometimes, it's like they are ghosts in the dream. Not in the sense that they are spectral, but that I know they are only visiting for a little while.

I know it is a common phenomena to dream about loved ones - including pets -coming back. I just find it jarring upon waking.

I sometimes dream that one of my late guinea pigs is still alive (but barely), and I've forgotten about him, and I sort of panic and feed him, give him water.

Good morning couchies! Whoever has the phobia about the snake in the toilet--I'm with you! That's always been a minor phobia of mine but also why I have an automatic light in my bathroom. You walk in at two in the morning and are automatically blasted with a bright light but I want to be able to see what's in/around the toilet!!! HUGS Kit

So far I am not figuring out what it is I need to figure out this week. I'm working on deciding if I should push out my time on not SH-ing after Lent. Part of me wants to not commit to more time because I feel unwell, and I feel undone, and losing that coping mechanism, well, it's just not going to be productive if I don't have something to replace SH (and so far I don't). On the other hand, part of me wants to extend the time out because I feel like if I SH, I'm not going to be able to do just a little bit, I'm going to end up back at the hospital for stitches, and that's just embarrassing and expensive. But whenever I go for what I consider to be a long time without, when I do it, I DO IT. And it's like a big mess. With Lent, I felt like I was making a promise to God and that made it feel like a concrete thing. If I just promise myself or my T, it doesn't hold the same weight for me. My parents are going to be gone a few times in the upcoming months and I know that if I am able to SH, I will do it when they are gone, so that way they won't necessarily know that I went to the hospital (I have my own insurance through my work so I'm not on theirs). So that's another reason to extend it out. I wish I could have talked this through with T on Monday, but since she had to cancel, I'm talking it through with ya'll on the couch. I still haven't come to any sort of answer, or conclusion. I'm just trying to sort out my emotions and my logic and not run out of time before making a decision. HUGS Kit

I often dream that i still have my cats and i havent been feeding them, because its like all of a sudden they are back. Its very similar to my working dreams, where i am way behind on my timesheets. And the people gone dreams are like sd's. So real.

Slumberkitty, some people here might profanely suggest you eat some Peeps.

Me, personally, i like peeps.

SlumberKitty, if making the promise to God is helpful to you, does it have to be for something like Lent to work? Could you make a promise to God to not SH just as an independent thing? Like you could extend the promise for x weeks or something?

I like Peeps too Unaluna.

Ah that's life on the edge.

Perhaps you could also make the couch a check in place to help keep you safe whilst your parents are away.

Well then i guess that wont work. but i just wanted you to know i was thinking of you.

I had a session several weeks ago where my T confirmed what I already knew, he said I am special to him and that he has never worked with another client the way he works with me. He said it feels like uncharted territory, he can't always see the path, and sometimes he wonders if there is a path, and that's sometimes scary.

It was a very honest conversation and it felt really, really good. It took a lot of processing and I didn't want to post it in IST. The reason I want to write it now is that, since that session, which was about 4 weeks ago, I have just felt so different towards my T. I still love him dearly, but I have not felt the pain of the yearning, I've not missed him nearly as much and when I have missed him, that's felt okay. I've not felt the need to write in IST and I've not been ruminating over my sessions. I feel connected to him in session and out of session but not in a painful way, like it sometimes can be.

We were discussing this in today's session. I said it's not like I didn't know it, I just needed to hear it. It was like "this is what I feel I'm getting from you, can you confirm my feelings?" We talked about how a lot of our ruptures have happened when he has said something that didn't match what I am picking up from him. T said it made him go back to Rogers, and the importance of congruence. How being authentic has proven more important than any "rules" about what he should and shouldn't say.

I actually feel my therapy has turned a corner. I dont want to speak too soon in case something like a break makes things go backwards again, but right now I feel the mot secure I ever have in therapy.

I think I will bury this on the couch.

That's lovely to read Echos!

I second what Lemon said!

That's really lovely, Echos. I'm glad he shared that with you and that you are feeling secure.

I had a session a few weeks ago where I shared in writing some things about how I feel about therapy and some wishes that I have. I told him that I wanted to be special to him and that I wanted to be his favorite client. There were a few other similar things in there. This was really difficult to share with him. I was not asking him if he felt these things, just sharing how I felt. We had a session the next day and he told me something to the effect of "you understand why I can't tell you that you're my favorite client (or another thing that was in my writing) even if I felt that way." I think part of me understands, or at least wants to understand why he can't say these things to me, but it really hurt to hear and I wanted to tell him to stop talking. He said he knew I wasn't asking, and I wasn't asking, but I felt ashamed at that moment. I kind of wish I hadn't shared any of that with him, but of course he thinks it's great that I did share it. I guess I don't understand why he can't tell me. I guess I did want him to feel that way about me. Therapy is hard sometimes.

It's interesting because at the beginning of the session he said something like "I can't stop you from thinking you are special to me, but I guess I shouldn't do anything to encourage it" then by the end of the session he was saying that. It really illustrated his ambivalence about how to handle it. He said a couple of things today about "what I've been told you can and can't say" as a therapist and "rules" and how he's had to come to terms with that and choose congruence with me. He said to me "it's so simple from your position. It's a case of 'I feel this, please confirm I'm right' yet for me it's a paradox.".

I'm thinking of extending my no SH time until Pentecost. A person on another PC Forum helped me get to that idea. I haven't made a firm commitment yet, but I'm leaning towards it. Attaching it to something important to my religion, my faith, seems to be key. When people tell me, just do it for you, don't do it for anyone else, that doesn't really work for me, because I don't care about myself enough. But I do care about my God, my religion, my faith, and so maybe I can tie the two together again, like I did for Lent. It definitely made it easier to get through. HUGS Kit

Proud of you, Kit. It's like they say...'whatever gets you through the night'.

My T has developed the habit of responding to my emails by way of voicemail—he says that it takes him too long to put his thoughts on writing for him to email me back properly, but sometimes there’s stuff in my emails that he feels compelled to respond to prior to our next session.

The hysterical thing is that even if I pick up the phone when he calls (I often don’t because I’m usually working during the day), he asks me to hang up so that he can leave me a voicemail. Presumably this is because he’s like btwn appointments or walking from one place to another and has exactly three minutes and not enough time to have an actual conversation?? (It also feels a little bit like a control thing maybe, I don’t know.)

It’s a little odd, but it’s also kind of sweet. I appreciate that he gives enough of a crap to want to respond to my emails, even if he does it in a weird format. It’s also nice bc then I can listen to them again if I’m struggling at a later time.

I dunno, is this totally weird?

I quit my job. After weeks of agonizing over it, because I hate it, well I hate my FT job too but I really hated this one because of the public aspect and rude people yelling at me. I got the courage to finally do it, and I talked to a woman about it, which really shocked me. She was super nice, I told her honestly that mentally I can't do it and she was talking about her struggle with anxiety and suggested therapy because it helped her. She told me they will list me as a rehire so if in the next year I feel well enough and want to return, I can.

I am kinda angry at my self because I struggle to find jobs and I feel like I blew it but I just really can't handle jobs with public right now. I need to get my head together first

I talk to someone a lot on fb messenger, and I always type something to her, and she sends a voice message back to me. I guess, like your T, she finds it easier to communicate that way (I'm totally the opposite). It's a shame he can't just record a voice clip and send you it, because relying on your voicemail is a bit awkward, like you say, if you answer.

Exactly! The problem is that while he sometimes he calls from his clinical cell number (which is programmed into my phone), he also sometimes calls from a blocked number (I assume his personal cell or something)... and when I get a call from a blocked number it’s often the department of health or a specialist calling about a patient or something, so I always try to answer it.

Silly silly silly.