Couch 228--The Wellness Couch

Doughnut Friday at work today. I was trying to abstain because of Noom but my boss brought me my favorite kind to my desk so I just inhaled it. Lol

Less than 2 hours until my doctor's appointment. Pocket riders requested.

I'll ride along, Kit (but will just stay in the waiting room, as you'd prefer). I hope it goes OK.

Interesting--I didn't know we each chose our post counts per page. Apparently mine is 20 per page.

Thanks LT!

We're with you in spirit, Kit! You got this!

Thanks NP_Complete. I am determined to complete the exam this time. I don't want to go through this again for another three years.

Lavender Jane Loves Women - Alix Dobkin has died.

Today, Dr. T, in talking about parenting then equating it to therapy, was saying how you need to have both a velvet glove and an iron fist. With parenting, the velvet glove is unconditional love and support, more like unconditional positive regard in therapy. With the iron fist, for parenting, having to also teach kids that their actions have consequences. We were talking about it in the sense of how I want him to support my reducing drinking. Where he said in general, his approach to me has been more the velvet glove, because of how I react at times to negative comments/criticisms (not just about the drinking, but anything).


I said I feel like I need something in between. Me: "Could you maybe put the velvet glove over the iron first?" Dr. T: "Well, that would make it a velvet fist, so would defeat the purpose." Me: "A metal softer than iron, maybe?" He asked if I felt like I was capable of having a secure enough base with him to do the more iron-fist part. I said I definitely felt closer to that now than I did even a year ago. He seemed to agree. I said I wanted to think more over the weekend about how I might want him to support me, as it's not fair to ask him to strike some perfect balance. He said he'd do his best to follow whatever I suggested.

Adding on to my previous comment--I know it really ultimately down to what I ask of and expect from myself. But I'm also incredibly hard on myself. And tend to not have enough faith in myself to accomplish difficult things. Which can lead me to not try as hard as I could (with other things in life, too). So having an outside person who can help with both the having faith (which he said he did) and the pushing, I think could help me. Even though it all comes down to me in the end.

20 is the new default. It used to be ten. Unlike una, I like a short page.

I assume a thread with 1000 posts gets unwieldy and hard to follow or load.

Must be down to loading times, as multiple threads over 1000 posts would likely slow things down quite a bit.


Not that I know much about this kind of thing.

I don't have experience with substance abuse, but I do have experience with using maladaptive coping mechanisms, which I think is maybe how you've said you tend to use alcohol. I don't know if it's a willpower thing as much as a need to find other ways of coping to where you don't really feel the need to drink as much. (Obviously there could also be physiological aspects of withdrawal, which would be a different thing.)

I would just be concerned if the pressure to "not let Dr. T down" would be more of a stressor and source of shame, which could make you want to drink more. I think it could be more helpful for you to find ways to get more skills or strategies to help yourself in the moment when you run into triggers that make you want to drink, since you'll be the one there to help yourself in the moment.

Back from my appointment. I survived. I didn't have a panic attack. I did have two Xanax and per Comrademoomoo's suggestion, a comfort item, my blanket. My doctor was sympathetic to the fact that I was FREAKED OUT!


trigger warning for women's health procedures

I did get to keep my shirt on, yeah! Which means I didn't have old SH scars showing. Nothing new anyway because it's been almost 16 months since I've engaged in any SH but I don't like showing my scars if I am in a vulnerable position. It didn't hurt as much as last time (it was a different doctor last time and she looked freaked out that I was freaked out. This doctor who I've had for a while was like, you're going to be okay. It's not that bad. I'm not going to hurt you. Etc. She kept saying that kind of thing when we were in the room together. She has a new male nurse and I was scared she was going to have him come in and that was going to be a deal breaker but she did it herself. So I was like THANK YOU GOD.

So I'm not sure I had the exam or not. I guess I'll find out if I ever get results back. Not sure. But I went there and was sticking it out through the whole thing and doing my breathing and staring at the light so I could dissociate and holding onto my blanket for dear life.


Thanks everyone for your suggestions and support. And for LT and NP Complete accompanying me to the waiting room in my pocket!


To add insult to injury though she gave me a paper to go get a mammogram done. But I'm less freaked out about those. She said my BP was a little high. You think? But it shouldn't have been with the Xanax so she is increasing my blood pressure medication. By 10 mg. I'm overweight and everyone in my family has blood pressure problems so yeah, not surprised. Usually I am eerily calm when I go to her office so my blood pressure is low and I have to convince her that it is high because when I take it at home it is high and other places like blood banks and stuff have told me it was high.


Other than that, I go back in November unless I get sick. She was glad I got the Covid shots.

I'm proud of you for getting it done Kit even though you were scared.

The last bit is a proven thing called "white coat syndrome".

Oh I knew about the loading time and all the posts per page thing.

You little minx!

I like a long page cuz it makes it easy for me to catch up when ive been away.

Oh man. When I type I always miss out words and I've been getting worse. My speeeling wasn't perfect either, but I missed out *didn't" which changes EVERYTHING!

Kit, that's awesome that you got through it! If she said she "took a swab," pretty sure that would be for the pap smear.

And mammograms are a bit uncomfortable and awkward, but really not that bad, at least compared to some other tests. You'll need to take off your shirt/bra, but, at least where I had it done, you keep the side that's not being scanned covered.

It's okay Lemoncake, you're not alone. I miss words when I type too. Sometimes I don't take time to proofread and I always regret it because I sound well, kind of dumb. And I don't think of myself as dumb so I don't like to come across that way. Unless I am playing dumb with my Mom when she asks me if I've cleaned my room.

Ugh, I'm in the midst of packing up my share of the apartment (moving truck gets here June 3d, new tenant moves in June 5th) and everything is a huge mess. I haven't really done any decluttering over the years so there's a lot of stuff to go through, even though I live in a pretty small apartment with a roommate and am not taking any furniture.

One funny thing is that there are small bills and tampons EVERYWHERE. (Coat I haven't worn in three years? Two tampons and three ones. Old backpack? Four tampons and a five dollar bill.)

Another funny thing is that after four years of living together, my roommate and I legitimately can't remember if some of the kitchen stuff is hers or mine or something we both pitched in on. We're get along pretty well and both have enough disposable income that it isn't a huge deal if we make the wrong call. But the experience makes me appreciate that it must be utter agony to go through this process during a divorce or after a death.

That reminds me. I still need to get my ex's stuff back to him. Sigh. I'm very, very late in getting that taken care of.

Sounds like you were well prepared for emergencies!

Oh thank you God that she didn't do the second part of the exam! I would probably have freaked out more. As long as she got the swab, I'm good. I've had like the ultrasound done of my insides and stuff and everything looked okay so I'm going to go with everything is fine. Unless the swab says something else.


Thanks for the tip about the mammogram. I'm not too freaked out about the mammogram. I know it is something I have to do. Yeah, my scars will show, but also so will the scar on my breast that shows from when I had some cancer removed from my breast. So you know, whatever keeps that from coming back. It's like a two inch scar on my breast. It's one of the reasons I mainly wear sports bras. Regular bras tend to rub it and irritate the scar but sports bras tend to be a little more soft? or something. Tee-shirty. So they don't irritate the scar.


It will be my first time getting the mammogram though, but since I'm at high risk I assume for Breast cancer now I am okay with it. And after having been hospitalized in the mental hospital and basically being stripped searched there, I am much less freaked out about people seeing my body. I don't know why the Pap freaks me out so much except that my first attempt at getting one was extremely painful and I wasn't expecting that and I have had a phobia of them since. Plus the whole thing is just so....ugh, gross. Thank goodness it is over for a while, I hope.

Thanks, EM (I may PM you, too). Dr. T said recently that it seems I basically use alcohol as a mood stabilizer. Like to deal with anxiety. And more of a coping mechanism. The vast majority of the time, I'm also not drunk or even buzzed. Like I might have one drink, then a few hours later, have another. I might have two in a row, but again, not drunk (the thing with drinking quite a bit is, you end up with a rather high tolerance). This may sound weird, but honestly, it's one of the things I miss about when I used to drink much less--that a couple beers could give me a buzz.

Dr. T has also said that it's complicated for me, because drinking checks various boxes. There's the coping mechanism aspect. It's also something that can bond H and me together, because we both like craft beer and would try different ones at taprooms and pubs in the area (well, pre-pandemic) together. So it's a fun and social thing, too. It's not all just bad coping mechanism. Plus, pre-pandemic, I would sometimes go do work (I freelance from home) at a taproom for a couple hours, get a couple beers while there. Or go watch a football game, etc.

I think it's much more a psychological than physiological thing at this point. When I saw Dr. T's former backup before, she asked me to think about what I experience when I order a beer. And it came up that I feel some sort of relief/calm at the first sip (or even when it was placed in front of me). Which can't be a physiological reaction, because it doesn't go into the bloodstream instantly.

And he's talked about the other ways of coping. I was doing much better with all this pre-pandemic, cutting back, finding other things to do, like yoga class, walking outside, etc. Then the pandemic halted that progress. Early on, Dr. T said not to worry about trying to reduce my drinking during the pandemic, to wait until I could have some of those other coping mechanisms available to me again (yes, I know, walking was always there, but the pandemic-induced agoraphobia messed with that). Of course, back then, he had no idea how long it would go on...so it made sense to think "this will only last a couple months, so just get through that, then get back to working on drinking, exercise, etc."

So...I know it's ultimately my responsibility, but I also feel like Dr. T was very much "Don't worry about the drinking right now, just focus on getting through this." So that's what I did. To my credit, it didn't really escalate (maybe for isolated periods, like right after the initial lockdown).

Part of it is that he wanted me to put other strategies in place first, as it's easier to add stuff in than to take away. But...I also don't feel he's really helping me with those strategies right now? I think it's something I need to bring up with him, like, "OK, so I reduce drinking, what am I doing with the anxiety when it pops up?" We've talked mindfulness before, but not any time recently. As I said to him today, with quitting smoking (which I know is incredibly hard, but which I also managed to do on my own like 15 years ago), there's nicotine patches or nicotine gum, but there's not really an equivalent thing for alcohol. Yeah, benzos, maybe, but I fear trading one addiction for another one. So I need other strategies.

I'm partly trying to do what I did when I quit regular soda years ago, which is replace it with another beverage--in some cases flavored fizzy water, nonalcoholic beers, mocktails, or just water (I used lightly sweetened iced tea to get off soda).

OK, this is insanely long already--separate post to deal with another comment of yours!

Dr. T seemed concerned about this as well. He mentioned how other times he's tried to be more "iron fist" we me, it's led to ruptures. I was saying to him today how I worried that if I didn't use this opportunity to reduce (or stop) my drinking, then he'd be thinking, "So what was the point of that evening session last week?" I've told him that I want him to try to emphasize my successes rather than my failures (even if it's like, "I had 2 fewer drinks this week compared to last week"--I am keeping a log, incidentally--or "I wanted another beer but had a flavored water instead.") He seems concerned that if he focuses *too* much on the positive, it will also help keep me from making much progress.

I said I'd think more over the weekend about what I feel will be helpful to me. I don't have the level of paternal transference with him I did with ex-MC, but he's still an authority figure of sorts to me, so I do worry about letting him down. But I think if I can know, he'll still accept me no mater what, that he's not going to think of me as a failure if I don't perfectly adhere to my goals, etc., it will go a long way.

I was thinking a bit about how he could help. And maybe it's a case of, OK, I tell him I didn't do as well as I'd hoped with drinking yesterday (or last week, or whatever). So then the two extremes could be: "It's OK, LT, you're not a failure, I'm not disappointed, I know you're trying," or the opposite where it's more like, "Well, do you want to cut back/stop drinking or not? It doesn't seem like you're really trying." Maybe the middle ground could be something like, "Well, it sounds like you're disappointed in yourself. Let's work together to figure out what you can do differently this week/going forward so you'll have a different outcome." So more of a neutral approach, almost? Like "Let's work together to figure out how to improve."

And then he can also offer up some techniques, whether it's mindfulness (one of his areas), CBT (not my favorite, but I also haven't tried it in a long time, like since early on with ex-T, but I know Dr. T has some training in it), possibly DBT (but he's not trained in that), etc. to help me get through feelings of anxiety/panic or want a drink for another reason when I'd prefer not to have one. Because my concern with the drinking right now isn't the social aspect, it's the self-medicating aspect. If I can get to where I'm just having a drink or two out someplace with H on a weekend night, I would be happy with that. But I need more tools in my arsenal for when I'm sitting here at, say, 11 a.m. feeling really anxious.