Couch 218: Northern Minnesota 2050

I had my first COVID test today, the kind where they go straight up your nose and practically tickle your brain with the swab. It honestly wasn't as bad as I expected. Unpleasant but not painful. I still feel antsy going out in public, though, even wearing a mask and staying away from people.

Sorry if I'm overstepping... i have a PD too and the 'pathology' according to my T is adaptive responses to complex trauma (normal responses to abnormal situations) which are now "not helpful". Life long schemas due to adverse life events stemming from childhood...not character pathology.

I agree with what other folks said about your professional environment. I'm not a dr but my IT job reinforced certain schemas like emotional inhibition, perfectionism, subjugating myself etc...

This makes a lot of sense. It occurs to me that my job as a copy editor is reinforcing my perfectionism. One of my accounts will list the errors I made in every paper I edited (things I missed, style points I got wrong, etc.). And then I worry about those, even though I've been told that I'm one of the best copy editors on the account. But it's the fact that they're essentially saying, "You missed these 5 things, that's bad," as opposed to, "You caught/corrected these 250 things, good job!" (I do occasionally get praise for a good catch.)

I'm not a copywriter but when I used to work in government, people were really perfectionistic about formating for paperwork. Drove me bonkers though I understood why. Some reasons were valid, other reasons were people flexing whatever tiny power they had. But it made sense to for me to be compulsive about checking and proof reading.

I didn't like the pervasive critical, unforgiving atmosphere, it definitely maintained my anxiety. People were polite in email but could be terrible on the phone etc. Add in being "customer service" (tech support lol) for some massively entitled people, and my people pleasing tendencies were adaptive.

I thought I was terrible at my job based on how people treated me, my own sense of failure from completely burning out, how suicidal I was towards the end.

Until I left and then recently had to request for written testimonials from former colleagues and got several wonderfully written ones.

Also cheddar cheese on top of sugar (?) Crackers are very nice. I haven't had cheddar for...over a year haha.

We got the ramp yesterday that I ordered for diabetic, arthritic cat. I'm going to assemble it after work today so he can start using it tonight. At least I hope he will use it. I imagine Penny will play on it, that's just how she rolls haha but I really hope that Rascal will use it to come up into our bed during the night like he has done since he was a kitten.

Wait—they have someone copy edit the copy editor?

Yep! Not sure if they read through the whole thing or just spot check things like title, authors, affiliations, author queries that I added. This one particular journal is REALLY picky. At least they've relaxed their style a bit from when I first started working for them years ago... Its' one of the major science journals (top three in prestige, I think, to get published there--or at least it was at one point).

My students sometimes complain at me that I am like this. I have no idea why they would expect me to tell them "good for not messing that up" more than one time. I have gotten to the point where to placate them I will say something like "this is very clear" or "organized logically."

It is also why the therapist's manipulation when they ask would you say that to a friend failed me so badly. My response was "I might not tell them but I would think it"

Learned a new song this morning.

Beautiful, Chihiro!

The moronic secretary at the hospital just emailed and changed my orientation schedule to 9/6-9/11. This is the third time they've changed it. I HAVE PLANS THAT WEEK. WTF.

This might actually be the last straw.

Can you email the doc in charge if you're getting nowhere with the secretary ?

Also good luck with your exam tomorrow.

I second the good luck with the exam! I can't imagine a 10-hour one...I felt like I couldn't think anymore, like I'd used up all my brainpower, after the GRE, which was maybe 3 hours?

Good luck tomorrow with the exam chihirochild! you'll do great!

Thinking (again) about quitting therapy. Just not sure because if I end up in crisis then the only person I would have is my Pdoc and he's expensive. $200 per session. Argh. If my work changes our health insurance and the rate goes up, I'm definitely going to be thinking about quitting even harder.

How much does normal T charge at the moment? If you stop maybe it would add up to the cost of one session with pdoc or maybe you could look for an alternative therapist who is cheaper than your current t?

I bought random presents for my sisters which will be delivered to their address : a box of 12 Korean noodle packets and for my other sister two bars of Tony Chocolonely chocolate which is normally £3.50 a bar but they have them down to £2.79 each.

Is it just the cost? Or is it feeling like sessions have been kind of "meh" lately? You could try looking for a new T...

Em you would make a brilliant T.

AMEN!

Another day all but disappears. I feel like I should be better than this.
I'm not really doing anything productive with my days at the moment.

So, I'm eating my feelings instead.

Started taking Prozac today. Everything sucks.

Aww, thank you! I am way too bossy and introverted, so I would probably last about a week.

You wanna come over and we can hate life together? I have some popsicles and one ice cream bar and some vodka.