Couch 215: The Overcoming Couch

I started doing sudokus again about a month ago, cuz we found like 5 different magazine-style books of them at the dollar store and I find them helpful in slowing my thoughts down when I get all up in my head. I do all the one stars and I've now graduated to doing the 2 stars, and h does the harder ones. we're filling up these little books quickly. I look at the answers in the back every now and then just to be sure i'm on the right track on the 2 star ones, but i try not to have to. I bought this giant book of them a couple years ago but they are impossible haha!! I can handle the magazine-book ones though.

Mmm, cheesecake!

cheesecake sounds sooooooo good una!

I could never get into Soduku for some reason, like it stresses me out!

I am too cheap to subscribe to NYT games, so I do the ones that come free with the subscription from my university. Like the minis or Spelling Bee (my favorite). I buy the local paper to do the Sunday NYT crossword on paper and in ink. I like figuring out what I did wrong.

I prefer other Japanese logic problems—nurikabe, slitherlink—to Sudoku. I just find them more challenging.

now i have to go see what those are (nurikabe and slitherlink) never heard of either

Dr. T was surprised to hear that it's a separate fee for NYT games sub. (He wrote something down right after I said that, though may have been unrelated--he doesn't usually write stuff.) I figured it was worth it because you get the archives as well. I've never tried those logic puzzles either--may need to check them out. I used to do logic puzzles as a kid, where there were clues and you had to eliminate different possibilities. I'm not sure how to describe them. This is an example. Haven't done one in years though.

Thanks, y'all.

I had a session with T at 7 this morning and it was just difficult.

We've been talking about what to do when I feel this awful longing to connect with him. And what he suggested was to seriously consider in those moments the idea that I have inherent value and deserve love and care. But, like... eff that? I know I'm not a therapist or anything but IMHO, that's something that has to be learned experientially and relationally, not something that I can just, like, think my way into. I had felt hopeful that maybe he was going to suggest something that might actually work and was disappointed in him for offering an inadequate solution.

And then he had to go and say something like "this is a common struggle for people like you with BPD." I know that he believes this is the diagnosis I have, and I understand why he believes that. But it's still so hard for me to hear him say that, or for me to even think about it. It makes me feel crazy and manipulative and bad. I can tell my doctor colleagues that I have depression and they'll be understanding... but I can never tell them I have BPD because there's so much stigma there; they wouldn't trust me or want to be friends with me.

Furthermore, at the end of the session I was feeling quite bad and he said, "I have the desire to reassure you, but..." and then proceeded not to reassure me. I can't remember what his reasoning was. I think it was something about him reassuring me reinforcing me being in the sick role. I wish I weren't so crazy that reassurance, which I crave, would be bad for me.

Also I have all of next week off (I worked through one of my vacations during the worst of the pandemic and they're now paying it back to me) but I can't go anywhere and have nobody to go somewhere with anyway. I don't know what I'm going to do with myself. Maybe if I weren't so ugly and crazy and messed up I would have a BF I could do things with during the pandemic but I don't.

So now I'm sitting in my room on this lovely sunny day glumly watching old episodes of Will and Grace and not doing anything.

@chihirochild one thing I do to try to make myself believe I have inherent value is to watch my self talk. I try to talk to myself as I would to a friend. Before, I used to call myself stupid and lazy, but I really try not to do that anymore.

I'm saying this because you called yourself "ugly and crazy and messed up". If you had a single friend who asked you why she didn't have a boyfriend would you reply, "It's because you're ugly and crazy and messed up"? I highly doubt you would. You strike me as a kind and compassionate person to people other than yourself. I'm not trying to give you a hard time. I am often my own worst critic as well. It's something we can all work on.

Ugh, I'm sorry. So this line of his particularly bothers me: "And then he had to go and say something like "this is a common struggle for people like you with BPD."" Because he could have just left it as "This is a common struggle for people." I struggle with this. It's an anxious/preoccupied attachment thing, too. (Incidentally, I've been told by both Dr. T and ex-T that I do have some borderline traits, though likely wouldn't qualify for diagnosis.) But I do feel it's a common thing for people who didn't get what they needed in childhood, because we didn't learn certain lessons then, we didn't get the security, so we keep looking for it as adults.

And OK, I also hate that he said he had the urge to reassure you, but then wouldn't.

My T seemed against that for a long time, feeling that reassuring me would just keep leading to more of a need for reassurance and dependence. But he seems to have changed his tune lately. Like today I said I worried he was disappointed in me (and how I'm handling things lately) because of some things he'd said lately. We talked about it a bit, and then he came right out and explicitly said, "I'm not disappointed in you, LT." (He recently reassured me that I'm not a burden, too, when I asked about that.) There's this part of me that needs to hear the actual words to believe it (or even come close to believing it), and I imagine you do as well.

Maybe it could help to explain it to your T that way? That, yes, ideally you should be able to believe it without the explicit reassurance, but right now, that's what you need. That you help in working toward trusting that.

It's sort of like with the transitional object, where Dr. T had said that I should be able to hold someone's caring in me, but I said I wasn't there yet, so I needed the external object to help me get there (he didn't get it at first, of course...). I sometimes wish we could just give our T's a day or two in our brains, because then they'd be like, "Oh..." (and also, probably, let me out of here!)

I loved those when I was a kid. I got a job offer from Penny Press after college to edit their logic puzzle series. In retrospect maybe I should have made that my career.

Doesn’t pretty much everyone have borderline traits? It’s a diagnosis I dislike for many reasons—categories that can apply to other mental illnesses, it’s applied to women more than men, it’s often applied to “difficult” patients, and providers use it to shame. Not saying it doesn’t exist but it can be abused.

I feel like I'm letting down or frustrating T2 because I'm "stuck." I'm not doing 100% better, but I feel like I've made a lot of changes since January. Maybe he feels like he's not helping me much or my own perception. I want to be yell that we're in the middle of a pandemic, I'm trying to basically be a single mom of 4, dealing with CPS, trying to go to school, etc. I'm trying and I feel like I should apologize for not being where others want me to be right now and feel like I'm a burden to others when I talk about the same stuff.

Send hubby to slumber kitty's to pick it up! Theyre blowing out the candles at 2 pacific time!

I ALWAYS get it SOOOOO wrong!! Its like i have math dyslexia. I fill out a couple of boxes, then im like, who the heck added THIS up?? And i have a BS in math, so im usually pretty good at numbers, but soduko just THROWS me. Really. I am haunted by a soduko gremlin who changes my answers or changes the preprinted numbers when im not looking at them. There is NO other explanation!

Well we are singing Happy Birthday but there will be no blowing out of candles. Eww gross. Germs.

Right, Penny Press! You could have been the next Will Shortz.

I guess everyone does have some borderline traits--I feel like I have more than many though... but I agree that it tends to be applied to women more and has a stigma. Like I've read that many T's won't work with borderline, which seems wrong to me.


Meanwhile, when I asked ex-MC (in joint session) if he thought I could be borderline, he told a story about how, in grad school, he was studying some questionnaire, and his roommate asked what it was for because it all fit him, and he said borderline personality. So he said his roommate and best friend was borderline. But didn't answer my question...

Apparently singing can help spread it, too, unfortunately...

Ugh, I feel close to relapsing on some negative behavior/coping mechanism. Monday will be 4 months if I make it that far. I'm supposed to talk to Pastor T on Monday though I could email him before hand. I don't really want to because I'm afraid he is going to flip out. I don't want to end up back at the hospital again, although it feels like how I felt before I was hospitalized. Dang it. I was just like oh, I'm getting better and then the last three days have totally stunk.

Hugs, Kit...You can do this.

Well we did sing with our masks on and stood six feet apart. But when you are as small of a company as we are, if one of us gets sick, we are probably all going to get it anyway. It was some mighty good cheesecake. One of the guy's mom's made it. It was like cheesecake factory good. MMM. I'm full now. I better eat something vegetarian for dinner.

Ah, if you were wearing masks and were physically distanced, I'm sure you were fine!

Just put a soup pot of barley, corn, black beans, bell pepper, broccoli, and diced tomatoes and some various seasons on to cook....

Other than the broccoli, that sounds delicious. Can I have a bowl with a little parmesan on top when it's finished?

Today I told my T I need a break. Financially and mentally. I'm getting into some big stuff in EMDR and just want to focus on that. She was so kinda and understanding. She told me she would still be there and that she was part of my journey. I speak to her on June 18 next so it is not me never going back. Just some space. Dreading EMDR but ready to get this stuff done.

Oh and hi!