Couch 218: Northern Minnesota 2050

Thanks, Lost. I have been doing good work. I don't know why I'm all meh all the sudden. I do need to work on my tools, especially since my parents will be going away over Labor Day weekend. I told them I would try to not end up in the hospital this time, since the last time they went away I ended up at the hospital and they had to come home.

Woo-Hoo!!!! Congratulations!!!

I think I'm not enjoying stuff lately because of either depression or the AP medicine, or both. I did do a couple of paintings this summer so that was good. And I have some books to read, I just feel like not doing anything all the time or just sleeping. I think I need to get started doing something though because then I think I will feel better. I might bake some brownies. Might help the whole wanting chocolate thing.

Brownies sound like they would help with that!

I feel like I need to do a fashion report from my Wednesday session, because L was actually wearing a shirt in a color besides black! An extremely rare occurrence. I almost said who are you and where is L?


We got an extra-long lunch yesterday since our training got ahead of schedule in the morning, so I of course went to the pool. I went up there and swam laps this morning too. I love having fridays off, no one is usually up there on weekday mornings. I'll try to swim tomorrow morning too, probably will be able to if I go early enough. These earplugs are working so well, this morning a couple ladies came in while I was swimming and I saw they had a radio, I never heard it until I took out the earplugs as I was leaving. Yesterday I wrote a poem in my head while swimming, but not today. One thing my parents did that I am super grateful for, made sure we all learned how to swim. Being in the water is my happy place for sure.

Baking brownies should help with the chocolate thing, and will also get you doing something, so it's a double win.

Maybe it's time to try a new T? Just based on little things you have shared about your life, I'm guessing there are probably things you could dig into and process that aren't coming to mind for you right now but would arouse the curiosity of a certain kind of therapist. Maybe a trauma therapist who specializes in family relationships? Whenever I am at a loss for therapy topics about my current day activities, my T proffers a little morsel of historical stuff for me to work on. It seems like that's really when the biggest insights and most enduring changes happen for me.

I'm sorry your unemployment is so behind, that sucks!! Our state is doing pretty well with it thankfully. H's is pretty much caught up.

If you like to read, I've found lots of free kindle books on amazon. I've been enjoying reading them, even the ones with not so stellar grammar/writing, I've learned to enjoy the story for its own sake and ignore the rest in those cases. One of my drumming peeps, the guy who lays out our labyrinths, has recently started making them in sand on a piece of cardboard using a paintbrush. He does them on our zoom meetings sometimes. It's neat watching them in progress and i'm learning how to draw them now. it's a meditative kinda thing for him, drawing them.

Congrats on completing it! And ugh, no results for months? That sucks...

Agreed that a new T could be good. I get the sense that you're not that happy with this one, Kit. You might just need one with a different style or perspective. Plus, I know you've mentioned this one forgetting things or being out of it before.

I'm amazed that after 4 years, I still have things to talk about with my therapist. I'm going to miss talking with him.

My first student with a positive test--well, there may be others but he had to contact me for an extension (he's in the isolation dorm and his books only arrived today at his regular dorm).

You're probably right. Current T isn't very curious. So I just end up rambling. She says I'm dealing with a lot right now because of the furlough days at work and stuff but I don't necessarily feel overwhelmed, I just feel blah, nothing. Ever get to a place where you're just stuck? It's like I know I should probably make a change but can't come up with the wherewithall to actually do it. So I'm just sort of frozen and accepting the status quo. I should at least tell T that I feel stuck, and that we aren't getting anywhere. Maybe she would mix up her style.

Wow, that's kind of scary. Knock on wood. I still don't know anyone IRL that has actually gotten COVID-19.

We have had classes for two weeks and the numbers of students attending in class has already dropped about 50% - they are mostly moving to online on their own.

This morning I had the second meeting this week in which an administrator was asked why so few students were attending in person even if they were on campus and he insisted it was "the nice weather."

Don't think so...

I think a lot of it is they can't really socialize at school. The ones that are still coming in person mostly seem to be doing it for better wifi

So, my insurance had contacted Dr. T on Tuesday about confirming that I pay up front for my sessions. We both suspect it's to make sure we aren't conspiring to commit fraud (apparently this is a common form of insurance and Medicare fraud, where the practitioner submits invoices from service that weren't actually rendered, then they split the insurance or Medicare reimbursement with the client). But I'm worried they could be questioning him about 3 times a week (we have a plan to go back to twice a week in November), even though it wasn't mentioned in their message. He said he'd contact them yesterday, then texted me last night and said he didn't yet, and apologized, said he definitely would today and let me know. Well, now it's 4:30 on a Friday, so I doubt he's contacting them today either.


He knows I'm really stressing out about it. I hope at the very least he'll let me know if he wasn't able to contact them, or if he's waiting for someone to get back to him there. Just frustrating that it's been since Tuesday. And I'm concerned it could also affect their reimbursements to me if it takes forever for him to get back to them...

I hope that all gets worked out for you, LT. I still remember the period of trepidation when I switched to being a private client with R. It was awful, even though she tried to make it less so. Bureaucracy makes life more interesting, but in these times, it's the last thing anybody needs.

That sounds really stressful LT!

Thanks, Kit. He just replied to my text that he left them a message. So not sure if there's a chance he'd hear back today (don't know their hours) or won't know until Monday. But at least he did call.

I think mentioning you feel stuck could be a good idea. My wife has had therapists like that where they're nice and supportive but kind of just don't help you get anywhere. Then it's hard to figure out what to do because you don't dislike them, but they're not very effective either. I am most impressed by therapists who can point out things that seem obvious but I hadn't thought of them before. That's paydirt for me.

Exactly. I don't dislike her. I thought she was pretty helpful when I was more regularly in crisis but now that I'm not, I'm kind of at a loss of what to do and she hasn't picked up on that and helped me process anything else.

My COVID test came back inconclusive, so I have to go get re-swabbed this evening. The swabbing wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, but I'm still not fond of having things jammed up my nose. I really doubt I have COVID, but if I do, it'll have been like a week before I get confirmation. Testing is really not what it should be right now.

I read they are checking college students poop to see if a dorm has covid. My time has finally come!