Couch 220: Second To None!

Welcome to the couch, old and new! A place to hang out - sometimes you get immediate feedback, sometimes you don't.

Shouting, "Cool Whip" tends to bring others out from between the cushions if you're feeling lonely.

This is a chatty thread. All are welcome. We're kind of psychologically oriented, sometimes. We try to be supportive. At times we discuss what that means.

It’s a place to plop down on the couch when you come home from work or wherever, or wake up in the middle of the night, or check in at lunch, rant a bit or not, and be among friends.

We advise you not to drink or drug and text your therapist ("T") - we speak from experience.

Sometimes the thread moves fast and you might get overlooked; sometimes it moves slowly and all you hear are crickets. Sometimes you get hugged or thanked pages later. So if it's a bigger question, you might want to start a new thread.

Grab a cushion, a spot on the floor, or an armchair in the corner and make yourselves comfy.

220 - Urban Dicionary Def - probably the only clean one!

I need to get myself to the gym and fight off the impulse to nap.

Or I should prepare for class tomorrow.

I need to get my show on the road too.

Hey couchies, I'm just gonna flop here for a while. Carry on, thanks!

Our Indian food was just delivered!

I just ordered Thai food for delivery - yay! Football game tonight - yay!

Whew. I am finally starting to come out of whatever funk got hold of me over the summer. That was pretty awful. I just left a therapy session feeling pretty okay. Well, if I can say "left the session" to mean I hit the Zoom exit button and stayed sitting in my same chair in front of my laptop.


I'm teaching a Zoom parenting class tonight (which I love doing) then attending a presentation on autism. I think I will get out of here and go for a walk.

Yum! I love Indian food.

Same here! And I introduced H to it--he immediately fell in love with it. I love the depth of flavor.

I think i have forgotten to pay a bill or buy something as it is the end of my pay fortnight and i have $60 extra. I need to get the pest guys i next week so it can go towards that. I have been doing less impulse/comfort shopping lately so maybe that is it.

I pretty much have everything i need. I am a simple person and could never understand why my ex wanted a bigger TV or a new power tool when he hardly used the ones he had.

OK, have a phone consult with a possible new T tomorrow then may have an intake appointment with another one Wednesday. He seems particularly promising, because I asked him a bunch of questions, and he basically passed all the tests. Including saying that transference is a natural thing to experience and talk about it, followed by a smiley. I was concerned that he was particularly religious from some stuff on his website, but he said he really isn't and talked more about that. And he tends to focus on trauma, so I asked about capital-T vs. lowercase-T trauma, and he gave a good answer to that as well. So...he also knows I'm knowledgeable about therapy and isn't like "run away!" Dr. T seemed threatened at times about how knowledgeable I am about therapy, saying how it seems like I know more than he does about certain things (which...yeah, I really think I do...).


So, will give him a try. Less sure about the T I'm having a brief consult with tomorrow, after looking at her website more. But the other female T who got back to me, thinking I'll do intake with her too. I asked if she'd be willing to do brief phone consult or answer some questions over email first, so waiting to hear back about that. I think I just need to try meeting and seeing what I feel like with them.

If Dr. Phil is right (words I never thought I’d say, thanks una) in LT’s thread about her therapy, that our physical environments reflect what’s inside our heads, the inside of my head is scary-organized.

yes... the depth of flavors is exactly it!

Random couch question: for those of you with dog crate-training experience, do they usually whine in the beginning of the training? I am trying to ignore her b/c if I let her out now, she's got me.

In her defense, because I know I very badly need to suck it up, I just got her from the shelter today, & I know she is anxious b/c she has no idea where she is or who the heck I am. She also just got spayed today, so I put her in the crate with a bully stick, because she had too much energy for fresh sutures, & I really need to keep her calm tonight.

She was a stray, but she hopped in my car right away leaving the shelter & walked in & out of the crate with her new toys. She definitely knew what a couch was, but won't stop jumping up and down (not a suture-friendly maneuver).

And mine is a total mess!

My dogs did always whine a bit. I have several crates that I use so that they could be in the room with me. If she just came from both the shelter and being spayed -she may be uncomfortable from the spaying and freaked out because of a new place. I would try to let her (in a crate) sleep in the bedroom with you and be in the place you spend the most time when you are watching tv or reading or however you spend time in the house. When you leave, put on the tv (I use pbs kids for example but there are dog channels on youtube and the tv). Another way to keep her from jumping is to get on the floor with her rather than sitting on the couch if you don't want her on it

Lone dog says, good job driving the human crazy so far. And welcome!

Mine too LT, mine too.

Although I think L and I are on track now to tidy it up a bit. She's been pushing me pretty hard lately on stuff and while it's uncomfortable, I kinda wish she'd started a whole hell of a lot sooner than now! I need 'tough t'. (Although maybe I wasn't ready to accept tough t before, and now I am, so here she is.) We're working on a concrete plan for now through the end of the year. I've never had a concrete plan before with her. I wish I had asked for one a long time ago. I was going to ask yesterday but she surprised me by suggesting it before I could say it.

Now I have this mental image of my brain as a series of filing cabinets. All organized alphabetically or chronologically.

Bleh. This morning I talked with T about trauma stuff. That never feels awesome... but also I worry that since he has heard about truly terrible traumas from other patients (not to mention may have experienced trauma himself), my stuff must sound minor to him, and my reaction to my little traumas must seem overblown, too much, dramatic.

Though... I've been reading a lot of ego psychologists for the fellowship I'm in (e.g. Anna Freud, Paul Gray), and it makes me wonder if this transference of authority (like, the fantasies I have about what he feels in reaction to me) is just a defense against my feelings related to the trauma... and/or whether my fantasies about how he feels in relation to me might be reflective of how my parents reacted to my intense thoughts and feelings when I was growing up.

What does it mean when your house is cluttered and organized? Lol. Like my closest is super organized: arranged by type of clothing (dresses, sweaters, long sleeve blouses, etc.), and then organized by color within those categories. But you look at my kitchen counters or dining room table, or my desk, and it's all cluttered. Does it count that the clutter is at least in piles?

Oooh I was flirting with the idea of buying the Met Opera streaming subscription but it turns out I can get it through my university library account -- score!

I feel less crises-y than yesterday.

Aaaaargh, why does my roommate talk to me when I have noise-cancelling headphones on and am clearly watching a movie? I don't know how else to signal to her that I don't want to talk with her except for saying, "I don't want to talk with you right now," but she would find that hurtful and then things would be tense and I don't want to have to deal with that. I spend most of the day in my bedroom and she's good about not bugging me when I'm in there with the door closed... but if I'm in the kitchen eating or cooking or something she like pounces on me even when I'm clearly watching something. GAH.

She also likes to talk to me right when I step in the doorway, and half the time I have headphones on and can't hear her and then have to tell her to repeat herself and I stand there helpless until she stops talking.

Bleh.