Couch 215: The Overcoming Couch

Its not that kind of thermometer!

I had my brussels sprouts today

I think that the telling her she's a good girl likely translates in the tone of your voice. i don't know that cats understand words but i've experimented - i use a particular voice (apparently) when i tell my cats it 's time for treats, and they come running. when h said my voice is different i started saying nonsense words in the same tone and they still come so... i think it's how my voice sounds that they associate with treats.


we have to feed our diabetic cat separate from the other 2 or else he'll just eat their food instead of his, so we close him in the bedroom while he eats and feed the other 2 in the kitchen at the same time. if we put his food in the kitchen too, he'll ignore it and shove one of the other cats out of the way and eat theirs.

I read that cats understand like 3 yr old humans.

You know my friends cat would read 7:00 on the VCR and run to the kitchen for his dinner. It was hilarious. He would wait for the numbers to turn from 6:5x.

Omg that's so smart.

I believe that they do understand too. Belle goes nuts every time the word "cheese" is said. Our local pet store also has fancy cat food that had cheese in it and 80 something % meat.

Think you guys might like this:

Older dog unimpressed with hyperactive puppy | Daily Mail Online

I think the temperature taking is ridiculous. Completely stupid.

Actually, this was exactly the episode on Law and Order today. The killer was saying his rights were violated when he took a hostage and a defense attorney told him she was A lawyer (not HIS lawyer) and saved the day. As no good deed goes unpunished, they tried to disbar her. But they only put a private yelling in her file.

It seems like therapists are not always consistent about releases. Whenever I have given Liz permission to talk to another practitioner about me, she has wanted me to sign her own form, regardless of whether she is giving or receiving the information and regardless of whether the other party had me sign something. Amy didn't care as long as I signed something somewhere. I think Liz has the right idea in order to avoid misunderstanding, but then I have CYA stickler tendencies too.

That said, Liz and Amy have both been unnecessarily transparent about when they communicate and what they say. The BCC thing seems off to me, regardless of permissions. But then ex-MC was never known for his professionalism...

FWIW, I think it's understandable that you would want to touch base with ex-MC when the world feels like it's on fire. I'm sorry he had to make it weird, but I'm glad his response had felt okay to you, at least initially.

My dog does not respond to his own name or any sort of attempts to get his attention by people other than me. This is not due to poor hearing or stupidity. It's all an act. He responds immediately to me and will respond to other people if I'm not present. But if I'm there and even remotely available to him, his attention is solely on me and he's just not interested enough in anybody else to pretend to give them the time of day. He's not unfriendly - when I'm not available, he will dole out affection and attention to others. But in my presence, he feels he's too good for the peasants. My sister says if she tries saying his name long enough, he sometimes will reward her with a contemptuous look from his perch on my lap/stomach/head.

He is a chihuahua and it is my understanding that they are often like this. In addition to the "saucy" expression that is described in the breed standard, mine also often looks rather conceited and self-important. I love it. He has every reason to be conceited because he is perfect.

So, I had a moment of weakness in the midst of despair over the pandemic and riots and stuff and emailed ex-MC Sunday for the first time since September or October. Yes, I know, please try not to attack me for that, I'm fully aware that it was stupid. It was basically a saying I hoped he and his kids were safe and giving an update on how I'm doing right now and that I'd been doing much better before pandemic. And saying how Dr. T was helping me. He replied yesterday afternoon, a cordial and generally supportive reply of like 5 sentences. I was content with it.


Today, Dr. T asked if I wanted to talk about the email with ex-MC (which I'd told him Monday I'd sent). He said, "So, he replied around yesterday afternoon?" Me: "How do you know that? I didn't tell you that." Dr. T: "Oh, apparently he BCCed me on his response." Me: ".........." I said how I'd revoked permission for them to talk back when I'd terminated with ex-MC 2 years ago--though the forms were filled out at Dr. T's office, so possibly ex-MC was unaware? Still, I thought they expired in a year anyway. Note that I checked my email, and it was a BCC, as Dr. T was not shown as a recipient. (We discussed the email briefly, how I was trying to reach out to someone who'd given me comfort in the past.)

After session, I started wondering if ex-MC had copied Dr. T on every email response. So I emailed Dr. T. He wrote back immediately and said it was just this email he'd been BCCed on. I asked if he could let ex-MC know I'd revoked my consent. He emailed a few minutes later, copying me, to tell him that (referring to me as "Mrs. [my last name]," which amused me). Ex-MC wrote back a bit later saying "Thanks for letting me know."

It really bothers me that he copied Dr. T. Maybe he wasn't aware that I'd revoked privilege, but I haven't been his client for 2 years. I guess I just figured it was assumed at that point? Also thought that they permissions were only good for a year anyway techinically. Not sure whether to say anything else, because this could theoretically be complaint-worthy, I'd think (against ex-MC, that is).

LT, that sounds like a really scummy and gross thing that ex-MC did. I don't really like BCCs as a rule since it's usually a way to be sneaky and catch someone else out. Of course, it can be a handy and necessary feature for mass messaging, where you don't want to expose the addresses of all recipients for either privacy purposes or to prevent abuse by spambots... but still.

Honestly, I kind of wonder if Dr. T made the comment he did about you getting it at a specific time as a way of revealing what ex-MC did. He'd be just as scummy as ex-MC, imo, if he had sat there and pretended like the only knowledge he had about the email was what you were telling him.

As for HIPAA, I think there might be a violation there on ex-MC's part even though you did not revoke permission to him specifically. If, as you said, the consent was set to expire a year after it was signed, and that time has passed, then he did not have your consent to share information about you with anybody and he has violated his duty to protect your privacy.

My teletherapy session went horribly awry today. I told him to just call me because we have issues every time with Zoom and Doxy. But the call kept getting dropped. It's so upsetting. We're supposed to meet in-person tomorrow, so after about 15 or 20 minutes of losing connection, I told him we can talk tomorrow and started crying. He said he's going to email me some of his thoughts from what little talking we did today, but I'm still feeling pretty low because of this.

And I just bought a brand new cable modem and wifi router. Still nothing works right.

Thank you so much for sharing that, LT. As I feel compassion for you in this situation, I'm applying it to myself as well for wanting to contact L. These are different times indeed that we are all living through right now, and we don't have an instruction book you know? We need what we need and stuff, and reaching out for help or connection or whatever when we need it is not weakness.

I'm sorry that ex-MC did the blind CC thing, but I think it's a good thing that current dr t mentioned it, because.... if he hadn't, and you'd somehow found out later down the road, it might have felt like a betrayal or something from both of them instead of just from ex-MC.

I hate when I pour my heart out in a text to a friend and then get an emoji back. Like what is that about?!!

OBVIOUSLY its better because its ALLITERATIVE!

Cohesive Cohunseling woulda been even better!