Couch 229 - Acetominphen and

I had an extra session with Rob today too.

The charity I emailed replied yesterday and sent another check up email this morning as well as asking for my phone number to arrange a time to talk on saturday. I feel like I may have been over dramatic.

If you're still feeling bad, you're not being dramatic. You are allowed to take up space. You are allowed to use whatever support is available to you.

I agree with all of this. Do what you need to feel better and safe, Lemon.

New Cat Helen has an eye infection. I took her to the vet yesterday. It was a "drop off" appointment so I couldn't stay with her. We dropped her off at 11:30. We called at 3:30....the doctor still hadn't seen her! But good thing we called because they called back a little after 4 saying she was ready for pickup! I think we sped things along for her.

We weren't able to get her shots because she is sick. But we got an antibiotic eye drop and oral antibiotics for her. They did a checkup and she is healthy besides the infection. I got to ask them how much food I should be giving her because she always seems hungry. We were giving her 1/4 cup of dry food twice a day and a little over an ounce of wet food twice a day. Vet tech said to increase the dry food to 1/3 cup twice a day and keep giving her the wet food. Of course this morning we gave her the food and she ate the wet food, then we gave her the antibiotics and she didn't want the dry food. I don't know if it tasted funny after the antibiotics or what. So my Dad is going to try to feed her some more later since I am at work.

We got her successfully transitioned out of the guest room since we need the guest room next week. She has taken over space in my bedroom which is totally fine! I am ecstatic that she chooses to share space with me. Of course now that she has her collar off she can get under the bed so that complicates things as I have a queen sized bed. So she can get under there and hide out. I hope she doesn't hide all the time and comes out and is social because I wanted a social cat. But I'm okay that she has a safe place where she feels she is hidden and safe.


Helen and Amelia were in the same room today and Amelia didn't run away. This is progress. Amelia has been scared of Helen even though Amelia is bigger than Helen. I think she is coming around to the idea that there is a new cat in the house. The dog is besotted and wants to be near new cat Helen all the time. Helen would prefer not to be near the dog all the time so that is an interesting dynamic.

Helen goes back to the vet in two weeks hopefully to get her shots. I got her started on a wellness plan and she is currently in the waiting period for her pet insurance. She should be fully covered by July 3rd! Yeah! Yesterday cost me $167 with the wellness plan, the first visit cost, and the two antibiotics. Soon with her insurance and her wellness plan I will just have the monthly premiums and that won't be such a big deal.


Hopefully new cat Helen heals from the eye infection quickly and gets back to feeling like herself. I'm glad she was seen by the vet yesterday and that she got some medications. Thanks anyone who read this!

I was supposed to have a phone or video session 20 minutes ago with P. Haven't heard anything from him and no response to the email I sent asking if I had the wrong time (I don't think I did). I'm concerned. I wonder if I should call him?

Kit, I hope Helen's feeling better quickly!

If it were me with L I would call or text. I hope you hear something soon.

I would call. HUGS

He finally responded. He just forgot about me, or "lost track of time" as he put it.

How beautiful! What's growing out there?

I would so love to have a garden of some kind but I need to do some research about what will grow best in the desert. Our backyard at new house is a complete blank slate - it's just dirt and rocks right now. We're looking for someone to hire to build a short retaining wall in front of the back wall and then between that and the tall back wall we'll fill it in with dirt and plant bougainvillea bushes (we had them at the old house and they did well). Not sure what we're gonna do with the rest of the yard. We figure we need to watch through one full monsoon to see what kind of drainage issues if any we have so we can fix those first before we do anything. We got a little rain the other day but it didn't amount to anything at all lasted only about 15 minutes even though there was lots of thunder and lightening.

Has he offered another time slot to make up for it?

I'm glad he responded and is okay. I'm sorry he lost track of time. I know that is hurtful.

He offered to meet at noon, but I'm feeling a bit angry and hurt at the moment and don't know if I want to take him up on it.

Hugs, NP, that sounds very difficult... Maybe it would be good to still meet to talk through those feelings of being hurt?

I'd personally also take the session, like LT suggested. Just because for me things like a T making me angry by doing something like forgetting about my session happens so rarely that if these things do happen, I like to work through them while actually still being emotionally connected to that moment. If I waited a week, I'd probably be over it and might never discuss feeling that way, but maybe that's also just me.

If you feel that space would be better for you, then take that. Both ways are okay.

I don't think you were being overly dramatic, usually time just tends to make the intensity of some stuff go away and now you might feel not as bad anymore and it now sounds like overreacting, but you tried to reach out to some people and I think that's a great thing.

The charity also sounds very nice, maybe also for future contacts, if you ever need to just talk to somebody for a few minutes again?

After a bit of back and forth where I originally told him I didn't want to talk at noon, I've agreed to talk at noon. We'll see how it goes.

I hope it goes/went well, NP.

Today's session with Dr. T was really painful. It's like he switched into "tough love" mode, which I know works with some people, but doesn't work on me. It just makes me feel worse (and he knows this--like he's said it before, that he's learned not to use a certain approach because it sort of backfires). It's especially difficult, because last session felt really validating about stuff with my parenting D, where I felt better about things after session. And in that session he was empathetic to the point of wiping tears from his eyes multiple times. Whereas today it felt like he was being one of my parents, where to not be perfect and continuously trying to achieve means I'm a failure. Of course he didn't say it that way, exactly, but I felt it. And he used someone he knows I hate (and who I believe he hates as well, from things he's said) as an example of someone who was successful due to his tenacity. Not the best session for heading into the weekend...

HUGS LT. I'm sorry your T was kind of a jerk today. I hope it doesn't ruin your weekend. Hang in there!

Thanks, Kit. I mean...I get what he was trying to do. But it didn't really make it hurt less? I guess it's the sort of mind vs. emotions thing. Where I can understand the idea behind it, but it doesn't make me really feel better?

I wonder if he overcompensates for being softer in one session by being a hard@ss in the next one?

I'm sorry your session went that way, LT and I hope that it doesn't spoil your weekend.

This is something that had occurred to me actually. Like maybe he thought "Oh, I was too soft there" or thinking he, say, felt too close to the situation/me, then pulled back to correct for it (ex-T said one time that she'd done this, when I questioned her on suggesting I go to the hospital, even though I wasn't really doing that badly at the time. And she said she felt maybe she'd gotten too close to me and wasn't being objective enough, so then she probably pulled too far back).

Thanks, Artie. I'll do my best not to let it. I did send him a brief email (he likely wouldn't reply until tomorrow morning), and somehow sending it helped me release some of the feelings. I'll try to focus on other things in the meantime. And hugs to you as well!