Couch 226--CCXXVI Couch

I've been invited to Long Island to visit the owners of my company. I'm not sure if they are inviting me to stay with them or if I need to get a hotel or AirBNB or something. Not sure how to ask. I also need to determine when they want me to come. I know after my 2nd shot and the two week period which I get my second shot on May 2nd. Two weeks after that would be the 16th. I would prefer to buy my airline ticket sooner rather than later so that way hopefully I get a better fare but also not knowing what is going to happen with the pandemic, it only makes sense to get something I can cancel. I haven't flown since early 2000's and I haven't bought airline tickets since then either. I don't know how to upgrade from economy to business class and I'm trying to figure out all the fees. It's really complicated. I need a life lesson!

If it's a work-related trip, your company should be paying for your flight and a hotel while you're there.

Mine too. It reminds me of the Groucho Marx joke about shooting an elephant in my pajamas. What the elephant was doing in my pajamas I'll never know.

I like to wait for the reruns of ken burns. Did you catch the late night comedy show special - i think one of the jimmys, i dont know which, it mighta even been steve - on ken burns hair? It was hilarious.

Sorry about your friend. I assume we are not speaking of the hobby of sim card shopping. I apologize!!!

Daisydid - i feel the same way. Plus right now the cootie is rampant! Im not leaving the house!

Slumber - they might be inviting you for a company party. I would wait and see. I agree with NP - Plus theyve done this before, no need for you to reinvent the wheel.

I'm sorry for your loss ATAT.

Agreed, they should pay for it.

So the website Kayak has a feature where if you put in the dates and airports you want to travel, they’ll give you the recommendation whether to buy or not depending on the likelihood that prices will change in the next 7 days. That’s how I always buy my tickets when I’m going to see my parents.

But I agree with NP. If this is a work trip they should be paying or reimbursing you.

Hugs, I'm sorry...

ATAT -sorry to hear about your friend.

Do you think I’m in a constant orgiastic state?

Nah, geocaching. I used it use to motivate myself to hike.

I think exhankster is perhaps jumping the gun on the Lusty Month of May
Tra la, it's May, the lusty month of May
That lovely month when everyone goes blissfully astray
Tra la, it's here, that shocking time of year
When tons of wicked little thoughts merrily appear

If only you liked musicals better

When in real life people suddenly drop what they’re doing regularly to burst into song and dance..then I will like musicals better.

The only "good" thing about having to work 5am-2pm during my chat week is the getting off work at 2pm. I feel like I had half a day off! Must be because I'm still half asleep for the first couple of hours ha ha.

I will like real life better when a 100 piece orchestra accompanies me when I burst into song and dance. And when I learn to sing and dance.
Now all I get is odd looks

I came from an amateur dramatics family and at family gatherings people used to do that. They would be preparing food and someone would start hummingbsomething and soon there would be singing and dancing from some musical. My mum did it to a lesser extent in day to day life.

I think thats why i like videos of flash mobs so much

I would be delighted if I had Hans Zimmer or Danny Elfman writing a soundtrack to my life, playing in real time. John Williams is also great but not the vibe I’m going for.

We did it at home growing up and my friends do it now. It is fun.

Hugs if wanted.Condolences. Hugs

He's put you into a double bind and it's incredibly effed up. He's your therapist, he's supposed to be non judgmental, he's supposed to help. But he's harming you and too bleeping arrogant to see it.

Hugs to everyone struggling

There is something about those. I think of ants. Like the symmetry serves an evolutionary function, thats why it appeals to us.

I'm struggling a lot and I hope some of you understand.

Warning: Very long.

I feel like there's a huge inherent power differential in therapy. Especially when the client has a lot of trauma and attachment wounds from formative years. Something my T said a few sessions ago, and another much more long ago incident is really bugging me.

Long ago, I brought up the power differential in therapy using various examples. I said she could involuntarily ward patients, and that she sets the session frequency. She disagreed, saying there isn't a power differential, and patients can ward themselves voluntarily, as well as choose to book her "everyday" (hyperbolic, definitely not possible) if they wanted. False equivalences in my view. Because involuntary warding has been described by many psych patients in my country as traumatic. And there is no effing way I could book her every week, not even every day. I spent an entire year with once a month sessions despite needing to see her more often, as some of might recall.

Anyway, somewhere down the line, she said no to a request of mine, citing it's because patients are vulnerable. Now isn't that a direct contradiction to "we're equals, there's no power differential"? Of course I respected her no, I just wish it wasn't a BS reason. It would have been completely OK if she's just not comfortable. But don't disguise it as for my protection because I'm vulnerable. She even said I could find other therapists who would have said yes (and I know from WordPress and here, some would have said yes.)

Anyway, some time ago she brought up eventually spacing out our sessions more at a certain specific point in time. I reacted badly. She said I'd feel differently when the time came. First, I don't think she ought to assume that even if she does have individual clients in long-term therapy where this was accurate, because I'm not them, and every client is different. For all she knows, maybe some felt rushed out and didn't tell her. Second, if it's true that I could decide session frequency like what she claims, then shouldn't it be wholly up to me on spacing out sessions?

Yeah I'm triggered and angry.

(SD, I can guess what you'll say and I respect it too.)

QM - some thoughts:
There is a huge power differential between parents and children. There is history. But t and client are partners, and really there is no history - to me, every meeting is like exercising or massaging a muscle; it is done, then it is over. The next meeting has no history behind it, therefore no power differential. Each meeting is freely chosen by both partners, or else it doesnt exist.

You have freed yourself of so much of your history (by moving out). What is calling you back to repeat it now, where it doesnt belong?

Hmm, good point. I feel it's because I'm currently struggling a ton with unrelated to therapy triggers, so I've lost my adult objectivity.

Last therapy session was intensely painful as we are working with the alter who holds religious abuse. I myself have moved past and healed this in myself but that alter is frozen in time, as T explained. She gave homework.

I've nothing against religion, it's just that my family twisted religion horribly. To the point I believed g-d didn't just sanction the abuse, g-d approved of it. My dad told me the day I moved out that his abuse is his g-d given right and that he should have been harsher.

I got flooded when I attempted the homework so I stopped. Found another way. Unrelated and related things happened, I got triggered a bunch of times. Everything felt unsafe, I felt I was sucked back into the past.

I caught a glimpse of my innocence as a child. It broke me? (Felt that way) Everything became so sinister, including T. I don't really have words. It's like a horrible nightmare.

Today is a funny day. I am painfully aware that it is my best friend's son's birthday.
I do not know him, and as Chris passed away in 2007...this should not feel like this.

I am all too aware that in the aftermath of hearing about her death, realising that her son would face his first birthday without his mother so soon was the thing that made me/allowed me to cry.