Couch 218: Northern Minnesota 2050

Haha yeah this would start July 2021.

Fingers crossed it goes well!

LT, I was delighted to see that you wrote an In Session post again! What do you think about what Dr. T said about your mom not knowing that you feel invalidated and unsupported? Are you thinking about talking to her about it? I tried several times with my mom before ultimately giving up. The conversations didn't change anything, but I am glad that I tried as hard as I could before I chose the "leave" option. (Which is not to say that you would have the same outcome!)

I also do the "doorknob confession" sometimes, but it's strategic for me. Like, it's honestly too much to ask sometimes to disclose a thing and then talk about it too. Yeesh. I refer to that move as cliffhanger therapy.

Wishing you all the best, chihiro!

They loved me. Like, they literally said, "we love you." (Granted, it was the hospital where I went to med school so they already knew me...)

God. It just blows my mind that I can be so effing depressed and fake it so thoroughly. It makes me sad somehow.

Thanks, glad you enjoyed seeing it. I felt...well, validated by his saying I was invalidated.

I continued the conversation in today's session. I said how I do feel in the past few years that I've kept her more at arm's length, in part due to stuff I'd realized in therapy. He asked about how that was working, and I said it helped. That sometimes I'll just wait to tell her stuff later. Like I waited till after I'd applied to the PhD program (which I was ultimately rejected from, but that's OK). And when I did tell her, she seemed fairly negative about it. I still think of when I told her we were adopting a dog the next day. Her response was, "Why?" (she doesn't like dogs, but still...and OK, that didn't work out, but that was the dog herself--and the foster group for not being fully honest with us--not the act of us getting a dog) I told her about the guinea pigs once we already had them... Like, I wanted time to be excited and not have stuff dashed by her doubts and questions...

Dr. T was saying today how you can decide how much effort you want to put into something, whether it's career-wise or a relationship with someone. So that relates to what you were saying here. As there's an emotional risk, too. And it could potentially lead to a conflict that would leave things worse. I said I might try a couple things he suggested before, as I hadn't tried those specific tactics yet. But maybe not push much harder, if I'm unhappy with the results from those. I have tried at times in the past few years to say things like "I get the sense you're annoyed with me" or "I feel like you'd rather not watch D this weekend" (other stuff Dr. T suggested), but she would tend to deny it. Or calling her out when she made what I felt was a racist comment about their potential new neighbors, but that just led to an awkward silence.

So, we'll see... they're currently still on vacation, so I'd wait until after that.

I like the term "cliffhanger therapy." I suppose I've done something more like that, too, like, "I do need to discuss something, but am worried about it, and I know we don't have time." Or sending an email that's like, "I need to discuss something difficult in session tomorrow, make sure I do that." (He tends to be good about that, where ex-T wasn't so much.) "Tune in next session, when I talk about an awkward topic!"

That's awesome!


I'm also good at the being really depressed and totally faking it through something. I think it's a coping skill we learn.

It's awesome that you did so well.


And yes I can relate to being super depressed and faking it well. HUGS Kit

Yes, I think it's a coping skill we learn as well. It's how I pretty much make it through life. Faking it!

I'm going to have five days off from work (this Saturday through Wednesday). I'm going to lose my mind. I'm worried because my parents will be gone Friday through Sunday. I promised them no hospitals.

I have "Edelweiss" in my head for days now. It's a nice song but....stop this madness! please!!!

Darn that julie andrews anyways!

Yeah I literally had a dream about the Sound of Music and I haven't watched that movie in a long time! Used to love it as a child though.

LT - would it be possible to just accept your parents how they are too? You keep trying to change them - they are not likely to change. Can you love them and accept they are loving you they way they know how and not press them for that which they are not likely to give? I think some of the problem is you want them to be different and they never are. And take them at their word - if they don't want to babysit your kid but they say they will -that is on them - why look for hidden meaning. Let them and go on with your life. It is way too short to mind read

Yes, that was one of the things we discussed today. I told Dr. T today that I was surprised that I wasn't more emotional about what we'd talked about Sunday, either at the time or after. But as I thought about it, I think it's because I already had accepted it on some level. He used the term "resignation," and I said how that sounded like a more negative form of acceptance. He said they were similar things. I feel in a way that's what I've already been doing, with just sort of keeping them at arm's length. So maybe I had just sort of accepted it, but not labeled it as such?


I don't know if it's worth trying anything at this point or not. Part of me would just rather stay as is. I don't see some teary scene happening like in a movie, where they go, "Wow, now we understand you, we're so sorry," and I go, "Now I understand you, too, you were trying your best," and we all cry and live happily ever after. (Not that you'd be advocating that of course!) I think at this point, it's just best to be realistic, like you say.

My relationship with my mother was fraught for a while after my father's death. Finally I accepted she is who she is, and she's still a pretty good mother and an important part of how I became me. It's not that I don't sometimes get frustrated or hurt by her still, I do, but the recognition that this is who she is and she's doing her best helps.

Maybe think of the attitude you'd like your own daughter to have towards you when she grows up and adopt that? Like however great a parent you are, she's going to find some fault, because that's what kids do even as adults. She may have more challenges with it than the more neurotypical, too.

It took me a long, long time to finally forgive my mother for that incident when I was in college the first time around, but once I finally did, and confronted her about the letter and talked it out I think that was last summer or the fall previous I don't know time melts together) my relationship with her has been better. I've been talking to her on the phone once a week in addition to our weekly family zoom call since the pandemic started. And I've actually now begun recognizing things that I am grateful to her for. This just happened last week while I was swimming! I realized that I am grateful that she made sure all 4 of her kids learned how to swim.... because swimming is my #1 favorite activity of all time, when I feel the most myself/confident/competent/beautiful, where I do my best thinking, etc etc. I tell L often that I'd be totally set in life if I could just somehow live it immersed in water.... and she says I am part mermaid ha ha.

I think sometimes acceptance is overrated. I felt pretty awful about myself for at least a few days after I spent any time with my mom. Now I rarely see her, and I don't have to deal with those consequences.

If I made my kid feel the way I do/did, I think she would be absolutely within her rights to set a firm boundary with me, including not seeing me at all. I'd do my best to work things through with her and never let it come to that, but ultimately it would be up to her.

I do think there are some parent/child combinations that are just a bad fit. I wouldn't spend time with friends who I realized didn't really like me, so why is it different because she is my mother? I guess my acceptance is accepting that we are never going to have a healthy relationship and consequently setting up the appropriate amount of distance between us.

Unrelatedly, my kid has learned to "count" to one, so every time we read a particular picture book, I say, "Shall we count the ducks?" and she points to each of five ducks shouting, "ONE! ONE! ONE! ONE! ONE!"

Hatchmark math is the oldest kind there is.

Scootch over, Couchies. Is there still room on the Couch for me? I sure like you guys, so I've been lurking quite a bit to keep up with Couch shenanigans, but work, grad school, homeschool, single mom-ing, summer, pandemic...by the end of the day my brain has mostly leaked out my ears and what's left is way too mooshy to type a coherent sentence.

Still not divorced. But the ex lives elsewhere and is super present for the kids, and that works for now. He's more stable than he's been for years. He's got a prostate biopsy next month.


Things got weird and trauma-y again for me, not sure why. After a year plus of sessions every 2-3 weeks I've gone back to seeing my therapist weekly. She actually gave me homework. AND I did it. So.


Anyway...so, how are you all doing?

There’s always room for you, WFS

Woke up at 5:30 again. Breakfast, walk, bath. Now what?

That's adorable!

I am blown away by my T’s risk tolerance.

Serious TW SUI


It’s not that I want to go to the hospital (though I guess at least that would be something different), it’s just that I can’t believe he’s willing to tolerate this.