Couch 209: The Kummer Couch

T told me I have to leave the house so I'm sitting at a coffee shop watching Christmas movies.

Seeing T in a few minutes for our last session before a 2 week break. I wish I could see him tomorrow to make up for missing Monday's session from being IP.

Yes, but most of them are electric and there might be a power failure.

Also every cat I tried a fountain with was scared of it.

I feel like crying, and SH-ing and curling up into a ball. I don't feel like being at work. Sigh.

Now watching Miracle on 34th Street and scrolling through r/WholesomeMemes

I'm irritated that I'm missing parent engagement day for Ds preschool because we had speech therapy and waiting for CPS to visit today. This day isnt required by the school but "recommended" and counts towards our involvement in the preK program. I obviously can't be in 2 places at once and CPS never called me back to reschedule to a later time today. So here I am waiting around instead of being at the school.

he had to of recieved my voicemail and changed the time because he's not here now. But he hasn't called to confirm so I waited when I could have went. I might have been late but it would have been better than nothing.

ETA: Maybe I should have checked my voicemail because he did call and rescheduled for a later time this afternoon. He came out and talked to H and I and H already seems upset.

I'm upset and hurt and really starting to hate Christmas. I had delayed going home because the mother told me she didn't want me to come, which was hurtful, but I kind of understood since she said she was depressed. I mean, it's not like she would have had to entertain or feed me, as she often doesn't do that when I visit, so it did feel like it was my mere presence that was objectionable. So she said I could come to town on Thursday since I had agreed to take my sister to have her wisdom teeth taken out. I assumed this was because I would (obviously, I had thought) stay with my sister instead of with her. My sister has previously invited me to visit, and seemed to want it to happen someday. Maybe it was stupid of me to assume that when my sister asked me to take her to her appointment, while knowing that I had basically been uninvited to what I would have considered and still call home, that she was also inviting me to stay with her. But that's how I took it and this was reinforced by the fact that she was talking about the movie marathon we were going to have afterwards. But apparently she was thinking I would be staying with the mother, and I guess expecting her to care for them?

So then this evening as I'm trying to finish packing, which is really stressful for me as I do not enjoy traveling, she starts texting me and it comes out that she thinks I'm going to the mother's. I say no, that wasn't what I was thinking. I told her I assumed I wasn't particularly wanted there. So then she starts calling me. I really don't like talking on the phone at the best of times, and I was already really stressed out over the packing and feeling rushed and now I was upset because it seemed apparent that my sister didn't want me to stay with her. So she and the mother both start barraging me with calls. I tell her that it's really stressing me out. At this point, my distress is at a 9/10 which I realize might seem out of proportion, but I really hate traveling, changes in my routine throw me, and I hate being blindsided with this sort of unanticipated change in plans. And this is all coming off of a week of feeling lonely and sad because I wasn't allowed to come home yet for Christmas. Oh, and I haven't been home since July and I only live 2.5 hours away. I also didn't get to go to Thanksgiving because of schoolwork. So I'm quite lonely and starved for a bit of contact apart from the therapist.

So then when my sister asks if I'm serious about being upset I say yes.

So then she says she's going to have the mother take her to the appointment and I can communicate with her (the mother) when I will be arriving. Which makes me feel like **** and like a passive aggressive way of punishing me by making me feel like I've let her down or something.

That hurt my feelings and I didn't respond even when she asked me to confirm. Would have felt like I was saying I was ok with things. Then she tried calling me again but I was bawling my eyes out for some reason and definitely didn't want to talk and hear her patronizing bs. I also didn't need to hear her say she didn't want me staying with her because that was 100% evident. And I didn't want to hear the mother lying to me about how she did actually want to have me around when she has already said she doesn't. So I texted my sister back the last time she called to leave me alone.

I wish I could skip Christmas entirely. I don't want to be around anybody. I did want to but that's been stamped out for the year.

HUGS @susannahsays I'm so sorry that happened. I hear you. I'm sorry you are hurting. Lots of hugs Kit

That sounds really painful, susannah.

My mother has hung up new cat’s stocking. Not the human stockings, just new cat’s. Every cat in the family has a personalized hand-knitted (by my mother) stocking with their name on it and the colors agree with the cat’s colors. So new cat has a gray striped stocking since she is a gray tabby.

I am only just realizing how weird this is.

Ugh, Susannah, I'm sorry, that sounds awful. I would have also assumed you'd be staying with your sister. So are you just staying home? And I get your being upset--traveling also really stresses me out, as do the holidays. Add in the mixed messages about whether they want you to come, and I'd be a sobbing mess... Hugs if wanted...

I am still in my bed. The temperature keeps dropping and we are now a couple of degrees above freezing so my house is extremely cold since I can't afford heat. I'm just so cold I can't think. I've put on a hat and I'm wrapped in blankets but I'm still cold. I never finished packing. I don't want to talk to the mother or sister. They'll just make me feel worse and like a horrible, selfish person who has let my sister down. I texted my dad to ask what time I should arrive at his house on Sunday to celebrate. Told him it would be a day trip. Honestly, I was kind of hoping he would ask why I would be traveling back to my current residence so I could tell him how hurtful the mother and sister have been, but he didn't. No opportunities to throw a pity party for myself there. Of course, my dad is so uninterested in having me to stay that he knowingly signed up to live in a townhouse where my four legged children aren't welcome and has persisted in doing so for several years while also complaining I have never stayed overnight with him.

Perversely, I appear to have worked up quite an appetite. I'm specifically craving a burrito.

Susannah, I’m really sorry about all that. I’m sorry your family caused you so much pain.

My sister is sitting at home having a meltdown. Against her better judgment she asked that prick tonight if he is planning to renegotiate custody. He ignored her. Now she’s sitting at home having an anxiety attack and throwing up because she’s so worried custody is part of the change he wants to make in the agreement. She should have just not asked him. She knows how his mind works. Even if he is not planning to go back on what he agreed to in mediation he will make her think he is in order to torture her. My dad was trying to talk to her on the phone to calm her down. She hung up on him. I told my father to leave her alone but he called her anyway. I told him she wanted to be left alone and not talk about it.

I just took one of the 8 Klonopin I have left in my bottle I found from almost 2 years ago and I’m laying in bed.

H is currently napping after he hid out in his car for almost an hour. Caseworker told him he'll have to take DV classes. He told me that this is stupid, just more stuff added to his plate, he might as well drop out of school now, etc. He keeps saying he's not mad but his actions say otherwise. I feel like I'm doing something wrong with trying to make him happy and explain to him why he's being required to take these classes.

Yeah, I wouldn't try to explain to him. And maybe he shouldn't be happy?

It's frigid here! I'm curled up with some hot tea surfing the internet, and will take a hot shower soon.

Is it weird that I don't find that weird? Sounds like a happy family tradition.

The temperature has now dropped so low that my retriever mix has agreed to press his body up against mine. His warmth is wonderful.

I'm sorry you are going through all of that Susannah, and that you can't afford your heat

My father’s great aunt started it by crocheting us each a personalized stocking when I was a kid. (Mine has an angel on it. )

Then my mother knitted more for her parents and spouses of children. (I gather she really enjoyed ripping 2ex’s name off his.)

Then grandchildren, and grandcats.

My grandmother knitted us all stockings as well - she had them for her, my grandfather and my mother, and then one for my dad when he married my mother, then mine and then my sibling's. They are great and stretchy. Mine had a santa claus on it with soft rabbit fur for the beard.

You might want to check with your utility company and see if you qualify for any of their programs that help people with their heating bills.