Couch 230: Decent Communications

After being told not to talk yesterday, attending is now mad that I didn’t call her at 6pm and tell her something. I can’t win.

Hugs, if wanted.

I had to talk to backup T briefly today to give her my credit card number (mistakenly thought she had my current one from the last time and I certainly wasn't going to email it). She said she was glad she was able to talk to me because she'd forgotten to talk at the end about how much I wanted her to share with Dr. T about what we talked about. I was basically like, "Uh, none of it?" (I'd technically signed a release when I saw her 2 years ago and thought they expired, but apparently they don't.) She said she wouldn't say more than anything I wanted her to say. She offered up some stuff she could share, and I said no. Then she said that she could share, "We discussed working toward more self-reliance and also some about boundaries." Me: "Not the boundaries part." R: "OK...'We discussed working toward more self-reliance.'" Me: "Yes, you can share that, but nothing more." R: "OK."

She was just pushing me, which bothered me. Like, if I want to share stuff with Dr. T, then...I want to be the one to share it. It would be different if I specifically said to her that I was having trouble talking about something with him, maybe she could mention we'd talked about it. I really hope she's true to her word though. If I'd thought she was going to share with him all we talked about, I...probably would have just spent the whole time talking about Tuesday's doctor's appointment instead. I figured it was a good opportunity to talk stuff out with a third party, but now I feel weird about it. I'm wondering if I should email her asking to completely revoke her right to share with him at all?

You don’t ask to revoke the right. You tell them. At least I do. And I attach a formal signed letter revoking that right.

I finally found a pizza place I have been hearing about for over 25 years - the pizza is okay -probably not worth searching for 25 years for -and I was just driving around not doing anything specific when I found it.

The looked-for pizza place never materializes.

I am struggling not to be annoyed with a colleague. She wanted to be on a certain college committee, and it would have been to the department’s advantage to have soneone on it, so I pulled some strings. It was all set to go—and then she ignored the email the dean sent asking her to confirm the nomination, so they gave it to someone else.

Yeah, I think I may do that. I didn't use a signed letter, but I did that with Dr. T regarding ex-MC. I guess it hadn't occurred to me that if I had terminated with a therapist, they wouldn't still have communication rights. But months after termination, I emailed ex-MC something, and he BCCed Dr. T in his reply. I only found this out when I said something about ex-MC getting back to me, and Dr. T saying, "Yeah, I saw." I immediately revoked the rights (and he showed me the updated letter with them revoked).

Is there a particular form the signed letter needs to take? Like legal phrasing I need to use?

It's funny I think, when I go 2 weeks between sessions I remember lots of dreams. But when it's only a week between like tomorrow will be, I've got only one (and annoyingly, it was about her). 4 pages of writing though to bring with me, reflections from last week and most of it answering a couple of questions L asked me to think about, and a poem that wrote itself after I answered the questions. She asks such good questions.


Now, time to go watch Perry Mason.

I’ve done it a couple times and just addressed them formally, then said this letter is notice that I revoke your permission to talk to X, effective immediately. I probably tracked the email too to be sure it was opened.

I suppose they might have some form, but the letter seems binding enough that I haven’t had any issues.

Thanks! I found the email Dr. T sent to ex-MC letting him know I'd revoked permission, so I may use some wording from that.

This sounds like the opening line to a short story.

Just curious, LT (not judging), how come you don’t want R to tell Dr. T what you discussed?

That's an excellent question! Some of it was about his more relaxed boundaries lately and how he's disclosing more. That in some ways I like and want that, but in other ways I'm not sure it's the best thing for me in the long term. Some was about how I'm feeling what I call "friend transference" toward him. And some other things. And I really don't want some other therapist telling him about those things. If I decide to bring them up to him (I did talk about the boundary stuff one time, and I've alluded to other things), I want to do it on my terms and to be able to have a dialogue about it.

I'm also worried if she told him some stuff, he might act differently toward me, and I wouldn't know why. Or, even if she didn't tell him stuff, but I knew they'd talked, I'd be hypervigilant to any way he was acting differently toward him and wonder what she'd said. (Even knowing it would most likely have nothing to do with that.)

I suspect I probably need to have a sort of meta-discussion with him regarding why I don't feel comfortable having her share stuff with him. Because I think this might have something to do with some difficulty in trusting people and also fear of them discussing me behind my back. And worrying one person would change another's mind about me, even if they've known me for a very long time (and I doubt Dr. T has his mind swayed easily).

Hugs if wanted. Ugh, I hate people like that.

Had a work bully find all kinds of fault with me and make some very unprofessional jabs but she was smart enough to do it without witnesses present.

T is 38 minutes plus late... still with her previous client. They probably need it. Don't know why I'm really sad. And I have a stomachache from anxiety ugh.

This would be a good conversation to have with T.

For those who like DBT, I found this really cool coloring book. I hope they sell it soon.

Colouring Book – Cultivate a Life Worth Living

I'm sorry, QM. I hope you were able to get what you needed from the session.

Your T also has a responsibility to start your sessions on time. That situation would make me anxious too.

I wish there was some way of listening back to an answer phone message you've just left. I had to ring the Recruitment Office of my former uni to ask a question about their job application process, but I'm not sure whether I came across well.

It’s the mean attending’s last day on service so we will give each other feedback. Not sure what to say. “You suck” would be true but would not lead to her treating other people better and would backfire on me. I’m trying to come up with a with a way to tell her she acted sub-optimally, and give her specific things to improve on, without pissing her off.

I dunno, I guess it’s probably moot — people like this don’t often change. So maybe I should just not bother and say something bland/generic.

Did you not have any other interactions with her besides the request that you be quiet? I get the problem with her saying that, I would find it infantilizing myself, but was she more than just that one moment? Is she the one you also described as “super nice”?

Because if she was more than that one moment, you can work in feedback about it along with discussion of your other interactions.

That was the worst example out of a number of interactions like that, all of which occurred in the context of a general attitude of distain towards me.

My first impression was “super nice;” I was wrong.

Rats. A friend encouraged me to submit to an anthology for writers with disabilities. They just rejected my piece. I know it's not personal, but it's hard enough to write about disability...

It does to me, too!