Couch 230: Decent Communications

My appointment with the Better Help T--J--went pretty well. It was a "chat" session because I was at work and didn't want anyone to overhear. Luckily I have down time!


We talked about my recent relapse with SH and how to prevent that in the future. He gave me an acronym STAR which stands for
S--Stop
T--Think it through
A/R--Act Right

There's a bit more to it but that is the gist. Thing is I think I did that with my relapse and I still relapsed. Okay maybe I did S and T and didn't do A/R. Because I was triggered for at least three hours before I decided to act. But I didn't make the right decision.


He seemed concerned that I was beating myself up. I don't really think so. I am just remorseful that it happened. That I let it happen. That I did it. He said that is normal feelings to have. (yeah me and normal were in the same sentence!)


We talked about the hallucinations some. That was a little more strange. He wanted to know what I thought it would be like if they went away. Completely. I have a hard time imagining that. I think I would be a little scared. I mean some of them are bad but some of them are protective of me. I would miss those ones. He said he didn't know if it were possible, he was just asking. Lol. Made me think of seventh grade, just asking for a friend.


We are going to have another chat session next week. So I will try again. He wants me to read this book (always with the homework). And I'm supposed to write down the STAR stuff and keep it in my pocket so I will look at it several times a day.


I guess it went alright overall. I do feel listened to at least.

Thats the basic layout of my kitchen except i have a cupboard on the wall where the little table is and a long cupboard next to the stove but no revolving shelves which would be nice as my corner cupboard is quite deep and i have to nearly crawl inside to get the back bottom shelf so nothing is really stored down there. I have a stupid non functional shelf where the mixing station cupboard is where i keep the pet and human medications and the cereal. My kitchen is probably about a third smaller than this one.

Also the lady narrator seems to be in a lot of those educational type films i wonder who she was?

She looks exactly like my high school biology teacher. The formed waves, the wire frame glasses, the lipstick, the corset!

I feel kind of puffed up that I noticed some dyed hair at the olympics. I don't care if someone wants green hair - I was more surprised I even noticed.

I screwed something up last week and I still want to slam myself into a wall or beat myself with a bat-it was stupidity at its finest. Reminds me of how I felt with the woman

That sounds like a good thing to talk about in therapy.

Didn't help. I can't remember if the woman said everyone felt that way or that it was resistance. Either way she was useless. Then I needed to bat myself for even telling her.

So I was talking to Dr T today about going back to in-person sessions, which he did last week. He's said a few times that with the delta variant, he's not that optimistic about staying that way. (He's vaccinated, will only see clients in person who are vaccinated, but also opts to not wear masks in the office). Today I mentioned concerns about if he were to go back to virtual. And he said that he kind of regrets going back to in person. If he had to go back to virtual soon (which he's implied), then it would be like a yo-yo effect.

I'm struggling with his comment that he regrets going back to in person. I understand what he means, not wanting to go back and forth. But it also feels like he's not completely comfortable with the idea of clients in the office. Like Friday, I brought my own tissues, and when I used them, put them in my purse (to be disposed of at home). Except one apparently fell out of my purse. And Dr. T and I had said our parting words, I was headed out the door, when he said, "Can you pick up that tissue you dropped under the couch?" Which I went and did, but it was an awkward ending (he had me do that once pre-Covid, too).

But yeah, just having difficulty with his saying he regrets going back in person. Should I just switch to virtual? That had been going well for a long time...

I had my second covid jab a few days ago and i was expecting worse side effects but i have none. I felt terrible after the first one for about a week.

in other news i have bought a second hand office chair for my desk and it is a much better chair than the dining chair i was using before. I am now spending much more time in my sunroom/office and getting back into painting and drawing regularly. I am feeling more like my old self. About time too the other slightly depressed Daffy can piss off.

I know--I am playing with you.

LT, I think consistency is important to you. So if he can't guarantee staying in-person, I'd go virtual.

Stop go is a fact of life.

Covid 19 is still less than two years old. No one can predict what the virus will do, still less what people will do in response. The best anyone will be able to say for years is, "The crisis is over until next time".

Should we stay inside during the sunshine because it might rain one day?

LT, I have been trying to see in-person sessions (and other ways that I have been enjoying more in-person aspects of life this summer) as an exercise in being in the moment. Like, "This is good for my soul and I'm so glad I can do it right now. It may not last forever, but I can soak up the experience now and take the memory with me if things get more difficult and isolated again later." That has been really helpful for stopping the anxiety about whether anything is going to stay normal because ultimately that's a problem for another day (that may or may not come).

That said, I don't think either of my therapists are intending to go strictly virtual, so maybe this is easier because I feel like I have more power in the situation (there is the potential that I would decide to do virtual, given that I have more risk factors than either of them right now). I could see where feeling rejected or like you might contaminate Dr. T would really be upsetting, so it sounds like something you should talk to him about, regardless of whether that's in person or virtually.

Thanks. I may just do that. I like being back in person, but the cloud of "I doubt this will continue for much longer" hanging over it is really taking away from it. It would be different if it was just me having concerns about it lasting, but he's also expressing serious doubts. I suppose I could go in person Friday, see what it feels like then, and decide based on that.

My friend started a GoFundMe. She shouldn't be trying to work given her severe symptoms but she's job hunting out of necessity. Not approved for food assistance yet.

I like those under-cabinet flour, etc bins! Kinda cool idea.

Thanks, that's a good way of looking at it, the "in the moment." I've been trying to do that with other stuff, like I still feel OK eating outside at restaurants, so trying to take advantage of it when I can when the weather is decent (like this week).


But what you said about the lack of power is a big part of it here for me. I can decide right now to choose virtual. But if I keep going in person, Dr. T might end up making that choice for me. It would be different, like you said, if it would just be a case of, say, going to masks instead of unmasked. But he doesn't want to do masks, so it's either in person unmasked or virtual (though he did say, when I asked, that he'd be willing to meet outside on occasion, weather-depending).

I am talking to him in a bit (virtually!), so I'll bring all this up with him.

It's such a bummer that he won't try masks. I've had two masked therapy sessions this week, and they were both totally fine. After we got into things, I forgot we were even wearing them.

Is there some kind of unwritten rule that therapy breaks must be timed to coincide with clients' most intense experiences of vulnerability?



I've sent R an email, but don't know whether she will respond. I don't know whether I can sit with this knowledge.

Damn empath/HSP tendencies...

HUGS LostOnTheTrail that must be so hard.

I have an employee who I can't get him to understand how much money he makes (which by the way is way more than I make). He's stuck on last year's W2. Well last year was unreliable because we had several months of three days on two days off which we were being paid part of our salary through the federal government and part through the state government. It still didn't make up the total amount of lost salary but it was something. So I showed him how much he makes gross per pay period. Then I multiplied that by the number of pay periods in the year. That shows him the gross amount of pay he makes in the year. He's like, I'm not making that, look at my W2. I'm like, I know you didn't make that last year but you are making it this year. So I took his end of June pay stub and showed him how to multiply the gross earnings by two because it's been half the year and it showed him the gross amount for the year of what he will earn which is not chump change. But I can't get it through his head that he is making the right amount. He keeps thinking I am making a mistake. I showed him on the calculator. I finally told him to talk to his tax advisor. I have no idea if that would actually help but I was tired of dealing with him. I almost called in today for a mental health day but I made myself come to work. Now I am regretting it. But if I would have stayed home I would have been ruminating. Then again, I wouldn't have this frustration which is still on my nerves a half hour after the conversation.

Hugs, Lost...

So...it turns out that Dr. T is actually more concerned about potentially infecting me (and then D) with Covid, rather than my infecting him. He said he has to attend some events, including one Monday, where most people aren't wearing a mask, though he said he and his family were wearing them (but that the event also included a meal, so he had to remove for that). Also that he's only actually seeing 4 clients (including me) in person right now (only clients who are vaccinated)--the rest opted to stay virtual.

And he also had to keep clearing his throat during session, plus coughed a few times. He said he thought was an allergy thing, but of course part of me wondered....Maybe it's good that it was virtual...

I said how it had felt like he was leaning away from me when I was standing in the doorway leaving yesterday, even though I had my mask on. He said the way his office is laid out, he has to be fairly close physically to clients when they're leaving. That he wanted to open the door for me, but that would also involve him being more in my space (though he did open the door?). How he hadn't really "rehearsed" scenarios with clients leaving. I said how I actually felt better that I'd read his discomfort in that moment correctly, that it wasn't all in my head. (He seemed surprised that it made me feel better.)

He said he was "aggravated" at the timing of his deciding to reopen his practice in person with the delta variant spread. And we both talked about our concerns of where things would go from here, like if it would affect school, if places would have to close down, etc. (We're in a state with a high vaccination rate and a county with an even higher one, but it's still concerning.) I mentioned how it seemed he was really negative about it, and he said he's just repeating what he's heard on the news.

And he's basically leaving it up to me for now if I want to continue in person or switch to virtual. He said it's fine to just let him know the morning of, or even right before session. Which I thanked him for.

So I feel much better about things after that talk. Though uncertain about whether to do the next session in person or virtually.

Hugs if wanted LostOnTheTrail. I hope R responds quickly and kindly.

I loved the spinning food drawer the most. Wouldn't be able to deal with just having a baking section personally.

I also found a Brit version from the imperial war museum.

Regarding Delta which is pervasive in my country, expect schools to close when there's a large cluster of cases. We have this problem and a major issue is no vaccine approved for children under 12. 12 years old and above are all recommended to get vaccinated.

Out vaccination rate is really high but we still need surgical masks after full vaccination... because we've had clusters break out in hospitals from fully vaccinated and masked healthcare staff.