Couch 211: The Stoffle couch

I called one of the Ts tonight because I've been struggling this weekend. He said what everyone else has been saying...he's not sure that just him is enough support for me. I'm feeling like I'm being too needy and feeling discouraged.

Hi Art think of you when i see cfochet stuff desert jumping cactus
Just miss your chatter thats all.

I know its monsoon season but my house smells constantly of wet dog i am thinking of getting on of those glade plug in things

I realise i still expect to see a text from exT even though i stopped texting him 3 months ago. I want to write him a letter telling him what think of him but i dont really know what this would achieve

Thats a painting?? It looks like a photograph! The light and detail is amazing!! But yes, i can see the texture. Omg.

I have an assignment I should be working on right now but I just can't seem to do it. The assignment is completing a grad school application paper personal statement thing (we don't actually have to do submit it). I have absolutely no interest in obtaining a master's degree, let alone a doctorate. I hate being a student, truth be told. Working suited me better. I am also extremely unambitious and have zero research experience, and worse, zero research interests (this makes me The Worst Person Ever since I am in a STEM field).

I just don't care. Great attitude, right? I have no clue how I'm supposed to write a personal statement when I'm basically the opposite of who and what I should be as someone who is theoretically applying for a graduate degree program.

Dinner snafu got worse. Dinner list included a local teacher (very big in the community) who was not given the information about the change of venue. So at 6 she went to the old venue, who had a reservation for us at 6:45 pm (secretary did not cancel it). Meanwhile the rest of us are at new venue. I finally checked my email after she’d been waiting at the old venue for 40 minutes and she was able to come to the new venue. She tried to be nice about it but was clearly pissed (as who wouldn’t be?).

Yeah, we've stayed in contact. Figuring out boundaries has been, uh, an adventure. She's still stuck in the self punishment phase and not allowing herself to take recovery seriously, so her therapist terminated a few months back. She goes on these self deprecating rants and tries to get me to argue with her, and I've finally told her that I refuse to be her defense attorney when she's the prosecutor, defendant, judge, and jury, and has already made up her mind that she's guilty.

It's been eye opening. Comparing notes has been interesting. There's a lot of really specific shame and morality stuff that I wouldn't have expected her to have in common with me and I can't tell quite how we ended up like this. I told my therapist it was like in a crime drama where they can't identify the unusual weapon used to do the damage to the victims, but they can say definitely that it was the same one causing the same damage.

It's also made me aware of how protective the fact that I fought back against our father was. I sometimes blamed myself for antagonizing and at times even goading him, whereas my sister placated him, classic fight vs freeze/fawn, where flight was not an option. My sister has a lot more damage from that, and internalized a lot more of our father's criticism.

It was really hard to come to terms with the fact that I failed to protect her. In earlier years I tried to shield her from the divorce and everything else that was going on, give her a few extra years before she had to face that stuff, but it doesn't seem to have made any difference.

Talking to her has also made me realize how far I've come. She'll ask if I feel or think a certain way and my answer will be "not anymore, but I used to." I kind of see her as being where I was a few years ago, too scared to take the leap of faith to try to get better because she thinks she doesn't deserve to and is worried about what will happen if she fails.

It's been hard not to make myself her therapist. With most people I can reassure myself that I'm not equipped to help them and they would be better off with a professional. But my sister is incredibly bright and incredibly damaged and we can understand each other in a way almost no one else can. She likened therapy to chess. You've spent 10 years playing against yourself in your head, learning all the moves and how to counter them, and then suddenly you're playing someone who hasn't just spent the last decade practicing all the moves. You know the refutation to your irrational belief, but you also know your response to that, and your response to your response to that, because you've been playing this game for years.
I deal with that by not playing chess against my therapist. I have him keep me company while I play chess against myself, because if we go head to head he's just not going to win and it's not constructive.
I feel like I'm the only person in the world who is equipped to play this metaphorical chess game against my sister, because I've been playing for as long as she has.
She'll tell me about stuff her therapist said or tried, and I immediately know how she felt about it before she tells me, because I understand her and I've been there. And she can discuss these things with me without having to spend forever explaining.

In a way it's just kind of been nice though. Triggering as hell, but nice. We were best friends for our childhood and adolescence. I missed her. I realized how much my sense of humor was impacted by her growing up. Like I like making anyone laugh, but there's something extra special about it when she thinks something I said was clever or witty.
I've been in awe of what a thoughtful insightful person she's become in many ways. In some ways her growth is certainly stunted by trauma, as is mine, but hearing her insight and reflections and thoughts about some matters has been wonderful. She described some book as "beautiful and excruciatingly human" and that's not the kind of reflection she would have had when we last spoke at 17. I guess 7 or 8 years is a long time. In some ways it's like no time passed at all, but at times I'm struck by how different she is from the kid I knew all those years ago.
It makes me sad that we missed out on so much of each other's lives, but I think it was necessary. We weren't ready before. There was too much fresh pain right near the surface.

I have successfully stayed off my bed for 12 hours did a fair bit of cleaning

Do you take all candidaes out for dinner? Sorry if i missed something

I met a guy on Hinge who I actually like! He’s an ICU nurse and is nice and funny and ambitious. We went ice skating on Saturday and then decided to go skiing together the next day (I wanted to go skiing but didn’t have a buddy to go with). I was a little nervous about that because it’s an hour drive each way and I worried we’d run out of things to say to each other but we didn’t! Now we’re texting a lot and I’m hoping we’ll see each other later this week

Today is a double-edged sword of a day. The 14th anniversary of my meeting Chris. She was a gift. Now my life is upside downish, and she is the one who would get it...and she isn't ****ing here any more.

I don't drink so have no first hand experience like youuuu but it's not fair on @@ to just have to suck it up and eat nothing the whole evening, because a snowflake* can't handle dinner 45 mins later.

If it had to be that time I would try another GF restaurant.

*(Unless said person has a real reason).

thank you.

Awww i'm happy for you!. I hope the other date goes well.

OMG!

Welcome back!



You were missed. I'm sorry for still owing you an email reply back from jan.

Hey Art - I will be in AZ in a few weeks in April at ASU - I am staying a bit out from it - I forget where you are - but thought I would ask if you know of any good rather shortish trails (I have to be at the univ every day) in that area.

@ArtieTheSequal #metoo